Jeana Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 When selling wholesale, do any of you make your suggested retail price you give the buyers higher than your prices on your websites and your other retail avenues?I'm just having a hard time swallowing cutting my prices in half to sell wholesale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Hi Jeana,I have not been able to do wholesale for the very reason you described. Usually, the stores that buy wholesale would like to be able to charge around the same retail price as the online candle vendor/manufacturer who is selling the candles to them. They would like to achieve this and still make their expected profit margin. They would rather not have the competition of the customers coming to the website of the candle owner to buy because they are cheaper. I even have trouble with consignment, but it has worked out ok because they do not expect as much profit...at least mine don't. Most of my accounts charge a little more than I do so they can make a better profit but not a whole lot more and since most customers would have to pay shipping it can encourage them to buy at the store (except for my personal mailing list customers who choose to meet me somewhere - only when I am out and about in my own time). I hope that helped some even though there was not much encouragement. I look forward to other responses to your post, because I am in the same boat. I do know that the best way to deal with wholesale is to get the cost of making the candles as low as possible but with my candles I have never been able to do this to make it worth it to me to go the wholesale route. ~Holly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holly Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 P.S. I am sure there would be buyers out there that would not mind having to bump up their prices to a slightly higher retail price than your own, especially out of town or out of state accounts. I would think the local accounts would be more concerned, but I am sure there would be some willing to work things out with local crafters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blt212 Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I have found that my wholesale customers typically charge more than I do on my website. One of the advantages for the retail customer is they do not have to pay shipping. If you figure shipping on one candle it can make a huge difference. I explain this when quoting wholesale inquiries. Also, depending on what type of retail store the candles are in, they can often charge more than my online price. For example, I know that one wholesale customer (Jewelry Store) charges alot more than my online price and he thinks he could even get more....HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeana Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 I was thinking they could charge more, because they have the overhead of a store and other expenses i don't have. But I didn't know if we are automatically expected to cut our prices in half because they expect to match our retail prices. I was thinking people would save on shipping going to the wholeseller rather than me. And they have the convenience of shopping regular store hours too. Thanks you guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Birdie Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Jeana, some say you should price wholesale by taking actual cost times some number I forget. I didn't know that when I was approached about offering wholesale. I just set a minimum number of bar purchase and charged 60% of my retail. That's been about 6 years ago and it still works well for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grama Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Wholesale is double, retail triple, and high retail is 4x your cost of making candle. That is what I found years ago from somewhere on an excel spread sheet for pricing candles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatlinPM Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I've always multiplied my cost times 2 for wholesale and times 4 for retail, although since the prices on many things have gone up in the past year and my prices have remained the same its more like times three for retail now. Also when I've been approached by larger retailers like AJ's (similar to whole foods) they want to be able to markup products so they at least have a 60% profit margin. So for a 10.00 candle that you charge 5.00 wholesale, they would instead charge around 12.50. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quack Soap Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I've always had a hard time understanding how wholesale benefits you guys as the candle maker. If you sell a $10 candle, wholesale it for $5 and that retailer doubles the price or more (as in the $12.50 example above), the retailer that did nothing except buy it from you makes gobs more than you. Guess I'm too focused on money (as usual, and likely the reason I'm just small potatoes LOL ), but I just couldn't/wouldn't do it. Bottom line ~ I hope that all of you that are using the methods described here (COST times 2, 3, 4, whatever) are figuring your time, labor, etc. into that cost. Otherwise it would seem to me that you're cheating yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernadette Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I'm with you, Quack Soap! I used to sell wholesale ages ago, but those people were so demanding, like they were doing me a favor, plus they always ordered short of leadtime and would bug me several times a day, every day wondering when the products would ship. It just wasn't worth it. When I realized I was making wages of some worker in a third world country, I quit, never looked back, and never have regretted it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeana Posted July 23, 2009 Author Share Posted July 23, 2009 I've always had a hard time understanding how wholesale benefits you guys as the candle maker. If you sell a $10 candle, wholesale it for $5 and that retailer doubles the price or more (as in the $12.50 example above), the retailer that did nothing except buy it from you makes gobs more than you. Guess I'm too focused on money (as usual, and likely the reason I'm just small potatoes LOL ), but I just couldn't/wouldn't do it. Bottom line ~ I hope that all of you that are using the methods described here (COST times 2, 3, 4, whatever) are figuring your time, labor, etc. into that cost. Otherwise it would seem to me that you're cheating yourself.That's exactly why I didn't want to do the cost x2 formula. I'm not a plant in China mass producing my products. I have to make a living too. I'm focused on the money too, or I wouldn't be doing it. :smiley2: I only just recently started figuring water, electric, paper towels, .... in to my cost. But the whole point of the people who contacted me about this is that my products are local and made by hand, and have the look they are looking for. I gave them my numbers, only for my bath and body products, but I haven't heard back yet. They are opening a shop by the beach, so they could charge more than I am. I didn't think my numbers were scary at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
momtohaley2004 Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I figure in EVERYTHING...my time, labels, dye, wax, electric, disposable supplies.....EVERYTHING so it makes my wholesale prices high as well as my retail prices. Thankfully my wholesale accounts don't seem to mind and they aren't really in it for the money. (they only mark up my candles by about $2.75 from from what they pay me). But, on the other hand, unfortunately I'm not really able to fully triple my cost and sell a decently priced candle either for my area at retail cost. My candle costs on average run 2.75 once you figure in everything. Wholesale I do 5.50 and retail 8.50. Doesn't make me much money this way but it's about all my area market can afford. Most my sales are wholesale personally though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deb426 Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 The other thing you have to take into account with wholesale vs. resale is the marketing and overhead costs of the store you are selling to. You do not have to pay for any of these costs and can base your price on the cost of the candles only. If you are selling directly to the public, there are other costs involved which you have to consider. Whether you have your own store, are selling at craft shows, the internet, ebay, whatever, it is costing you more than dropping your product off at with your wholesale buyer and collecting a check. Therefore, your actual costs are higher with retail and you are justified in charging more. Your actual costs are lower with a wholesale because someone else is assuming your overhead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NaturallyTru Posted July 28, 2009 Share Posted July 28, 2009 wholesale helped me sell my products. It gave me an outlet to sell where I only had to make product at home...not "man a booth". It helped give my products "credibility". I received bigger orders due to $ minimum. example: 2 small orders at $25 each or 1 order at $100? If I was out of stock for a customer, I could refer them to a retail outlet and my wholesale customers did the same when they were out of stock. It didn't mean I lost a sale because the wholesale account would have to reorder the product. I wasn't able to wholesale all products. I had to stay retail with some and I even created some special products just for wholesale. jmoTrudi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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