Retailing - any tips on getting wholesalers to accept me as a retailer?

[Galatea]

Um, yeah, just what the title says. We are opening a diaper store (with a local focus, goal on actual storefront soon) and dh is concerned that manufacturers won't sell to us. Will this be an issue and do you have any tips on that?

[dogmom327]

If you have your paperwork in order, getting a wholesaler to sell to you shouldn't be an issue (I'm speaking generally here--not specifically about diapers). Getting them to extend you credit however is an entirely different matter. They'll probably happily sell you stuff but you'll have to pay cash/COD for it. This can be really tough on a cash-strapped new business.

[Mama Dragon]

When I looked into retail, almost all wholesalers wanted to see a physical store and/or finished, live website. I'm pretty sure this was for credit sales though, had I wanted to pay cash, like dogmom327 said, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.

[Galatea]

So a finished website meaning, everything set up, categories etc., but no products in the categories (since they haven't sold them to me yet)? That sounds doable.

I am not looking for terms as we will be using a credit card to pay for things at the beginning.

[kokonutmama]

I've never had a problem getting a wholesale account, just with the EIN and whatnot that you will get when you do the paperwork to register your business. If you really want to know, just ask the company you want to buy from!

[kriket]

If I was you I would start buying from a large business then work up the distribution chain! The closer to the factory, the more exclusive. They may request a client list. I'm not sure about diapers, I don't have experience with that!

[lilyka]

I have never had trouble buying anything with cash. No one cared what i was doing with it so long as we were willing to meet their minimum ordering requirements. Because of the nature of our brick and morter store some of the companies had very specific policies about pricing, promotions and exclusivity but that was with national companies and was par for the course for what we were selling. I don't know that you would have any issues with inurance or not but you may want to check into that. I know for maya wraps we had to have libnility insurance as a group but it was minimal.