A brand is ready for wholesale when it can answer six questions in one email without pausing: what does a case contain, what does a case cost, what is the minimum first order, how long from purchase order to shipment, how do you want to be paid, and is there a barcode on the box. Everything else on this page exists to make those six answers true.
Buyers do not test you with a long questionnaire. They send a short note that contains two or three of those questions, and a brand that replies "let me check with my manufacturer and get back to you next week" has already lost the momentum. Work through the list below before you contact anyone, and the reply takes four minutes.
Pricing and terms, decided in advance
Set these once, write them down, and do not renegotiate them per conversation.
Wholesale price. Usually half of your recommended retail. Publish the retail price you expect stores to charge alongside it, so a buyer can do their markup in their head.
Case pack. The number of units in one sellable case, per variant. Choose a number that divides cleanly into your production run and fills a shelf: six or twelve for small items, four for bulkier ones, three for anything expensive.
Minimum opening order. A value, not a unit count, because values are easier for a buyer to judge. Something in the range of two hundred to four hundred dollars is normal for independent stores and is small enough not to scare a first-time stockist.
Minimum reorder. Lower than the opening order, because you want the rhythm more than the size.
Payment. Payment in advance for the first order, then terms of thirty days for accounts that have bought twice. Write the late-payment position down even if you never use it.
Freight. Who pays, from what order value it is included, and which carrier. Get one real quote for a typical case before you answer this.
If any of those numbers make you uneasy, the problem is upstream in the unit economics rather than in the policy. Work through is wholesale profitable for small brands first and come back.
The product, made shelf-ready
Your DTC packaging was designed to be opened by one excited person. Retail packaging has a different job: survive a pallet, stand on a shelf, and explain the product silently to someone who has never heard of you.
- A front. One face of the package that faces out, readable at arm's length, with the product name and the thing it does.
- A barcode. Each variant needs its own unique product code, printed on the individual unit. Buy a proper prefix rather than borrowing one, because codes that clash with another company's cause problems you cannot fix later.
- Required statements. Whatever your category demands: ingredients, weight or volume, country of origin, warnings, responsible-person details for the markets you ship to. A buyer's compliance question is a deal-stopper if you have to research the answer.
- An outer case. Plain, sturdy, sealed, labelled with the product name, the variant, the quantity and the case code. Stores receive goods on a busy morning and hate cases they have to open to identify.
- Shelf footprint. Know the dimensions of your unit and how many fit on a standard shelf facing. Buyers think in inches of shelf, not in units.
None of this needs to be beautiful. It needs to be complete.
Stock, lead time and the honest answer
Wholesale runs on promises about dates. Before you make any, get two numbers straight.
Your lead time is the number of days from a signed purchase order to goods leaving your door, in the worst realistic case rather than the best. If you fill in batches and the next run is three weeks away, your lead time is three weeks plus packing, not two days. Say the real number. A buyer plans around four weeks happily and remembers a missed two-week promise forever.
Your available stock is what you can commit to wholesale without stocking out your own store. Hold that as a separate number, because the fastest way to break both channels is to sell the same units twice. Most Shopify setups handle this with a dedicated location, a reserved quantity, or simply a spreadsheet updated on Mondays. The platform mechanics for keeping the two channels apart are covered in Shopify B2B.
Decide your reorder trigger too: the stock level at which you start the next production run. Wholesale demand is lumpier than DTC demand, and one unexpected six-case order can leave you unable to serve the next three.
The documents a buyer expects
Four pieces of paper, and only the first is really creative work.
The line sheet. One or two pages. Every product, with a clean photograph on white, the product name, the variant or scent or colour, the case pack, the wholesale unit price, the retail price, the case code, and your minimums, lead time and terms at the bottom. No mood photography, no story, no paragraphs. A buyer scans it while deciding whether to reply.
The order form or portal. Somewhere a buyer can actually place an order without a phone call. That can be a wholesale section of your store behind a login, a shared order form, or a link you send. Make it possible to buy at eleven at night, which is when shop owners do admin.
The invoice template. With your payment details, your terms, a due date, a purchase order reference field and sequential numbering. Stores pay invoices that are easy to process.
Your business paperwork. Tax registration number, business address, and whatever a retailer in your market asks for to set up a supplier. In the United States that usually means collecting their resale certificate so you do not charge sales tax on the order. Have a place to file those.
Liability insurance belongs in this group for food, cosmetics, children's products and anything electrical. Larger retailers ask for a certificate as a condition of the first order, and getting cover takes longer than you think.
Operations you will need on day one
Wholesale breaks small brands in the boring middle, not at the sale.
Can you pack a six-case order without stopping DTC fulfilment for the day? Do you have outer cartons, pallet wrap if you ever need it, and a carrier account that handles freight rather than only parcels? Who answers a buyer email within one working day? What happens if a case arrives damaged — do you replace, credit, or ask for a photograph first?
Write one page of answers. It reads as bureaucracy and saves a month of improvisation. Brands that start with no sales history need this more than anyone, because the process is the only proof they have; new brand wholesale goes through what to show a buyer when there is no track record yet.
The five-minute readiness test
Ask yourself the six questions from the opening, out loud, and time the answers.
- What does a case contain? — a number, per variant.
- What does a case cost? — a price, and the retail price it supports.
- What is the minimum first order? — a dollar value.
- How fast can you ship? — a number of days you would bet money on.
- How do you want to be paid? — a method and a term.
- Is there a barcode on the unit? — yes or no.
If all six come out in under five minutes, you are ready to be in front of buyers. If two or three stall, fix those specifically rather than delaying the whole channel. Most of the gaps are a day of work each.
The last input is a list of who to send the line sheet to. Pasting a product link into WholesalePilot returns a preview of the retailers and distributors that stock similar products, which is a better starting list than the shops you happen to know. What happens after the line sheet lands is laid out in how do brands get into stores.
Questions brands ask before their first account
Do you need a barcode if you only sell to small independents? Not always for the tiniest shops, but many use a point-of-sale system that scans, and every larger account will require one. Get codes early; they are cheap and permanent.
Should the line sheet show the retail price? Yes. It tells the buyer what margin they make and stops them setting a price that undercuts your own store.
What if a buyer asks for a price below your wholesale price? Hold the price and offer something else: a longer payment term, freight included above a threshold, or a better case pack. Cutting the price on account one sets the number for every account after it.
How many products should be on the line sheet? Enough to fill a shelf and no more. Six to twelve lines is comfortable; forty lines makes a buyer defer the decision.
Does your Shopify store need a separate wholesale section before you start? No. The first few accounts can be served with an emailed order form and an invoice. Build the channel properly once the reorders are regular.