From DTC to wholesale · 40 articles
From DTC to Wholesale
Direct-to-consumer taught you to sell one unit at a time to a person who found you online. Wholesale is selling by the case to a store owner who puts your product in front of people who never searched for it. The price is lower, the order is bigger, and the customer is a business with its own calendar and paperwork.
These guides cover the decision and the first steps: whether wholesale is worth it for a small brand, how to get your product into stores, the difference between wholesale and retail in practice, and how DTC brands structure the two channels so they help rather than cannibalise each other.
Guides
How Do Brands Get Into Stores? The Five Routes
Direct outreach, trade shows, wholesale marketplaces, sales reps and distributors: how each route works, what it costs, and the steps from contact to order.
7 min readStartup Brand Retail: Climbing From Boutiques to Chains
What changes when a DTC startup moves past independent stockists: distributors, category reviews, chargebacks, trade spend and the costs nobody quotes.
7 min readIndependent Brand Wholesale: Terms That Keep Control
The trade terms an independent brand should set before its first stockist: pricing policy, territory, resale rules, returns and who owns the customer.
7 min readIndie Brand Wholesale: Selling Handmade Into Shops
How a maker moves from markets to stockists: consignment versus wholesale, pricing handmade work for a half-price trade sale, and batching production.
7 min readNew Brand Wholesale: Winning the First Ten Accounts
How a brand with no sales history gets its first stockists: what to show instead of data, where to start, and the offer that de-risks a first order.
7 min readIs Wholesale Profitable for Small Brands? The Real Math
Wholesale at half your retail price can out-earn a DTC order once ads, shipping and returns come out. Here is the unit math, line by line.
7 min readSmall Brand Wholesale: How Buyers Judge a Tiny Vendor
What a retail buyer worries about when a two-person brand pitches them, and the four things that turn being small from a risk into a reason to buy.
7 min readWholesale Readiness Checklist for a Shopify Brand
Everything a retail buyer will ask for in the first two emails: case packs, barcodes, lead times, terms, line sheet and the paperwork behind them.
7 min readWholesale Strategy for a Small Brand: A 12-Month Plan
How a DTC brand sequences its first year of wholesale: door targets, account tiers, territory, capacity planning and when to add a distributor.
7 min readShould You Sell Wholesale? A Test for DTC Brands
A straight decision test for a Shopify brand weighing wholesale: the margin floor, the four disqualifiers, and what the channel costs you in practice.
7 min readWholesale as a Growth Channel: Is It Worth the Effort
How wholesale compares with more ad spend, new products and marketplaces as the next growth move for a DTC brand, and what each option really costs to run.
7 min readWholesale vs Amazon: Which Second Channel to Add
A Shopify brand choosing its next channel: what wholesale and Amazon each cost per unit, how fast they start, and which risks you take on with either one.
7 min readDTC Profitability vs Wholesale: The Real Arithmetic
A worked comparison of what a unit actually contributes sold direct versus sold to a store, including acquisition cost, shipping, returns and the overhead nobody counts.
7 min readDTC Wholesale Strategy: The Rules You Write First
The channel rules a direct-to-consumer brand needs before its first stockist: price architecture, promotions, exclusivity, assortment and who owns which customer.
7 min readOmnichannel for DTC Brands: Running Both at Once
How a direct brand operates its own store and a wholesale channel together: one stock pool, one catalogue, split reporting, and the conflicts to design out early.
7 min readWholesale Revenue for a DTC Brand: How to Forecast It
A simple model for what a wholesale channel will earn: accounts, reorder cycle, order value and attrition, plus how to plan production against a lumpy order book.
6 min readDTC Brand Distribution: Direct, Rep or Distributor
The three ways a direct-to-consumer brand gets product into stores, what each layer costs in margin and control, and how to tell which one your brand needs next.
7 min readDTC Brand Retail Expansion: From Ten Doors to Ninety
Scaling a wholesale channel past the first handful of stockists: sell-through, replenishment, merchandising, account tiers and the constraints that break first.
6 min readHow to Sell Wholesale From Your Online Store
Running wholesale on the same Shopify store you already use: gated pricing, customer tags, draft orders, catalogs, minimums and when a separate portal is worth it.
7 min readEcommerce Brand Wholesale: Turning Data Into Proof
Retail buyers judge an online brand on evidence it can sell off a shelf. Here is which of your store metrics count as proof and how to put them in a pitch.
7 min readStart a Wholesale Business From Your Ecommerce Store
The operational setup behind a wholesale channel: price tiers, case packs, minimums, terms, invoicing, packing and the paperwork a retail buyer expects from you.
7 min readWhen to Go Wholesale: The Readiness Signals
The signals that tell a Shopify brand it is ready to sell wholesale, the ones that mean wait, and a short set of tests to run before the first buyer email.
7 min readWholesale for Ecommerce Brands: How It Really Differs
What changes when an online brand starts selling to stores: the cash cycle, order sizes, returns, forecasting and the habits that quietly stop working.
7 min readDTC Brand Retail Strategy: Choosing Doors on Purpose
How a direct-to-consumer brand decides which retail doors to chase, in what order, and what each tier of store is actually being asked to do for the brand.
7 min readHow to Get Into Retail Stores: The Steps in Order
The sequence a Shopify brand works through to land its first stockists, from wholesale pricing and a line sheet to the pitch email and the first purchase order.
8 min readRetail Placement: Where Your Product Lands on the Shelf
Getting stocked is half the job. Where your product sits in the shop decides sell-through, and a small brand has more influence over it than it thinks.
7 min readDTC vs Retail: What You Give Up and What You Gain
Selling through retailers costs a brand its customer data, its pricing control and its feedback loop. What you get back, and how to keep the best parts.
6 min readHow to Get Your Product in Boutiques Without a Rep
Boutique owners buy differently from chains: small orders, personal taste, quick decisions. How a DTC brand approaches them and gets a first yes.
7 min readHow to Start Wholesale: The First Ninety Days
A step-by-step setup for a DTC brand selling wholesale for the first time: pricing, case packs, line sheet, terms and the first ten accounts.
7 min readWholesale vs Dropshipping for Brands That Own Their Product
Should retailers buy your stock or list it and let you ship each order? The margin, risk and workload of wholesale against a dropship programme.
6 min readDTC vs Wholesale: The Channel Mix Decision, In Numbers
Compare contribution per order, not margin per unit. A worked model of a DTC candle brand adding wholesale, and what it does to blended margin.
6 min readWholesale for Small Business: Is It Worth It Yet?
Whether a small brand can afford wholesale comes down to unit cost, production capacity and cash. Here is how to test all three before you pitch.
7 min readWholesale vs Consignment: Which Deal Should You Take?
Wholesale pays you on invoice and moves the risk. Consignment pays you on sell-through and keeps it. When each one makes sense for a small brand.
6 min readOnline Store Wholesale: Selling B2B From the Site You Have
How to add a gated wholesale catalogue to an existing DTC store: logins, price lists, case packs, minimums, terms and the order the work goes in.
7 min readRetail and Resale: Who Gets to Sell Your Product
Once a shop buys your product it can resell it almost anywhere. Here is how a DTC brand keeps control of price, channel and presentation.
7 min readSelling Retail: What It Means When You Already Sell Direct
Selling retail covers your own store, market stalls, pop-ups and shops that stock you. Here is what each one costs a DTC brand in cash and hours.
7 min readWhat Is the Difference Between Retail and Wholesale?
The day-to-day differences a DTC brand feels when it starts selling wholesale: order shape, packing, invoicing, forecasting, returns and terms.
7 min readHow to Get My Product Into Stores: A DTC Brand Playbook
The order of operations for getting a Shopify product onto a shop shelf: who to approach, what to send, what to say and how to follow up.
7 min readWholesale vs Retail Price: The Ladder, With Real Numbers
How to set a wholesale price against your retail price without breaking your margin, worked through on a candle, a tote and a soap bar.
7 min readWholesale vs Retail: What Changes When Stores Buy From You
Wholesale sells cases to shops at about half your retail price. Here is how the margin, the risk and the cash flow change for a DTC brand.
7 min read