The main idea of ​​the wholesale business is to purchase goods in large quantities at the same price and sell them in small wholesale at a premium. Alternatively, you can open your own retail store, selling the goods even more expensive. You can open a wholesale business from scratch without even having huge capital to purchase the first batch of goods. It can be taken for implementation. The scheme of building any business is easily copied from any existing enterprise.

Key business benefits

The first advantage that entrepreneurs consider when trying to open a wholesale business from scratch is big money. This advantage is perfectly complemented by a simple and understandable start scheme, even for beginners. They usually start with small volumes, gradually increasing the scale of the business.

A wholesale business requires specialization in one particular product or niche. This allows you to fully delve into one area, having studied it thoroughly, increasing your expertise in it. And the better, more detailed you understand your business, the bodies are easier, more efficient for you to conduct your business.

The simplicity of the scheme of any wholesale business allows you to copy any convenient and effective scheme of competitors. You can start a business with minimal investment. Moreover, it does not require significant time costs. Therefore, you may well start a business while working at your main job.

Decide on the type of business

Before you start a wholesale business from scratch, you need to decide what type of wholesale business you will be. There are several opportunities to make money on wholesale sales.

1. Become a big wholesaler. Your task is to buy large batches of goods at the factory and sell them in smaller ones. Often such entrepreneurs work with several manufacturers, offering a wide range of products.

1. Become a mid-range wholesaler. Such people prefer to open a store selling goods in one particular industry, but they specialize in it very well. They can offer one type of product and various accessories for it from different manufacturers.

1. Highly specialized wholesaler. Usually offers one type of product, for example, only shoes, or only bags. Often works with different manufacturers.

1. Intermediary. For this activity, it is not necessary to open a store. It is enough to find a buyer with a specific request, and he needs to find a seller. Then control the progress of the sale, receiving a percentage of the transaction. The process can also go in the opposite direction: first, a seller is found with a product for which a buyer is being sought.

These are just the most common forms of business organization with which you can start your wholesale business. If you search, you can find other interesting schemes for doing business on the market.

Looking for your industry

Before you start your business, it is advisable to understand what industry you plan to work in and what the main patterns work in it. Therefore, it is easiest to open a business in an industry in which you already have some experience. Although, if desired, you can master other areas of interest.

To decide in which industry to open your wholesale store or base, think about which industry you most often encounter in life, what do you understand the most? It can be both the main job and a hobby. Of course, it is desirable that you like this industry and are sincerely interested in it.

In addition, it is important to understand such nuances that affect the choice of industry for wholesale activities:

1. What kind of production is your region specialized in? After all, these products can be purchased here at the lowest possible price. At the same time, you will not have problems with delivery and all issues can be resolved as quickly as possible - manufacturers are, as they say, at hand.

1. Having chosen a product, try to determine the market capacity: what is the demand for it, what is the turnover of the product, average prices for it and other details.

1. Evaluate the seasonality of the product. Of course, it is easiest to work with goods that are not subject to seasonal fluctuations. But in other cases, you can find ways to smooth out these differences. It is always better to focus on those products that are in demand in any economic conditions.

1. How easy is it to store the product. This question is especially relevant when you are thinking about how to open a wholesale warehouse. If perishable products become the object of your business activity, you need to pay special attention to the warehouse to ensure the necessary conditions. And this is an additional expense.

1. How easy is it to transport the goods. This applies not only to the overall dimensions of the goods, but also to its fragility. For example, it is very difficult to deliver glass and porcelain products, as there may be a high percentage of broken goods. This should also be taken into account when calculating the profitability of your business.

How to choose the right product

Before opening a store, you should not only decide on the product, but also test the demand for it. To do this, it is recommended to conduct such a campaign. Choose about three to five products that you are interested in working with and that can really be in demand in your area. Then hang ads on the Internet for their sale on free boards.

It is important to follow these rules:

• post ads on the same boards;
• post them in a unified form, one for everyone, so that later you can compare the result.

After posting ads, carefully collect and analyze feedback. Consider the number of calls and what the callers are interested in: volumes, prices, willingness to place an order, and so on. Thus, you can estimate the demand for the product that your store plans to sell. Potential customers can also answer that the goods are not yet in stock, or call back a little later and report that it is over.

Determining viability

Only after you have decided on a niche, a product, an approximate market need, its capacity, you know the needs of buyers and sellers, you can assess how viable your undertaking is and whether it is worth opening a store of this kind.

Calculate how long it will take you to deliver the goods and how much it will cost you. Monitor the trucking market that operates in your area and choose the right carrier for you. Then calculate how much you can get in the saddest and most optimistic scenarios. Based on the data received, he can decide whether you should open a wholesale store, base, warehouse or not.

Let's get down to business

Having solved all the preliminary questions, decide according to which scheme you will conduct your business. There are two main areas of doing this kind of business:

• Looking for a buyer, find a seller, organize and control the process of buying and selling, receiving a percentage of the transaction. For this type of activity, you must first conclude an agency agreement with the manufacturer.
• You buy goods for your own funds at a wholesale price and sell it at a premium, making a profit from the difference.

As a rule, the last model is used by large market players who have large finances for transactions. In addition, this form of doing business involves the availability of a warehouse, personnel for its maintenance, and the cost of their maintenance.

A novice entrepreneur can limit himself to the first option, which excludes these expenses, as well as the cost of purchasing goods. In addition, it is not necessary for him to register an LLC or an individual entrepreneur, he can work as an individual, drawing up an agreement. And if you start such work via the Internet, it will be even easier to organize a wholesale business.

Two words about competition

When planning to open your own wholesale store, consider the competition in the region and in the industry as a whole. A small player in the market can go bust if there are already large distribution networks in this area that have established a huge teamwork. Therefore, if you want to compete with such giants, study their features, think about how you can win in front of customers.

-> Trade, services, transport

Wholesale business from scratch (intermediary model)

I will tell you very briefly about how you can create a wholesale business from scratch and earn your first serious money.

In general, a wholesale business can help you make good money from the comfort of your own home. Starting a wholesale business can bring you fast and big money.

The standard scheme by which the wholesale business operates is well known: due to the fact that you buy goods in bulk, these goods cost you much less. Then you can sell these goods in the same way in bulk, but at a higher price. Or you can sell these products already at retail and for a lot more.

You might think that starting a wholesale business would require money, at least for the first batch of goods. And since we buy in bulk, it means that it will take a whole mountain, or maybe several wagons of money. No! The beauty of a wholesale business is that it can be done with absolutely no start-up capital (apart from minor expenses).

To be honest, wholesale is a relatively simple business, its huge advantage is that success in this business can be completely copied from another wholesale business.

What is the advantage of the wholesale business in general?

1. Wholesale business is serious business. There are large volumes, which means big money. But the coolest circumstance is that the wholesale business scheme is simple even for beginners.
Simply, beginners start with small volumes, and when they realize that they are already ready for a big swim (primarily psychologically), they increase momentum. A pleasant surprise awaits wholesalers when they realize that in order to get 10 times more money, you need to sell not 1 bag of potatoes, but 10. But the amount of time spent on 1 bag and 10 bags is about the same. So from a beginner people turn into entrepreneurs with money.

2. Being engaged in a wholesale business, you can concentrate entirely on one product or one niche. This is much easier than dealing with a huge assortment of a retail outlet, for example. The more expertise you have, the better you are doing.

3. The wholesale business scheme is simple and accessible to everyone, even those who have no experience.

4. Copying a successful wholesale business model is easy enough. All for the same reason - the scheme is simple and transparent.

5. No large initial investment required.

6. Initially, the wholesale business does not require a lot of time, so until you are sure that your business will bring you money, you can stay at your job without any risk.

How to start wholesale

Starting a wholesale business is much easier than you think!

There are two main work scenarios:

1. You buy or sell a product and sell it for a higher price, making a profit from it.
2. You find a buyer of goods, organize the process of buying and selling. After that, the provider pays you a commission for the completed transaction. But this needs to be agreed in advance with the supplier and conclude an agency agreement with him.

The first option is the classic model used by major players in the wholesale market. As you understand, quite serious financial resources, storage facilities and personnel are needed to start.

The second option is the so-called intermediary model, which is widely used in small businesses. That's where I suggest you start.

Here are its benefits:

• No initial investment is required to purchase the product.
• You do not need to open an individual entrepreneur or LLC. You can work as a physical contract person.
• You do not need a warehouse and employees.

A wholesale business can be launched entirely via the Internet, without having an office, employees, and never even seeing your suppliers and customers. This means you can start wholesale quickly, easily, and with virtually no investment.

In wholesale trade, an entrepreneur purchases goods from a supplier in large quantities, and sells it in small batches. It turns out that the player in the wholesale market is not himself the end consumer of the product, but buys it for resale to other businessmen. Considering the large role of such enterprises in the economy of entire regions and industrial sectors, wholesale trade as a business promises a big profit to the entrepreneur.

It is not uncommon for entrepreneurs with high ambitions to have problems choosing the form of trade - retail or wholesale, which is more profitable? The answer is simple: both areas of trade have both disadvantages and advantages. The only way to make the right choice is by comparing one with the other.

The main indicators of the project:

The cost of the project is 3,000,000 rubles.

The average revenue per month is 600,000 rubles.

Profit - 400,000 rubles.

Payback - 18 months.

To organize a retail trade, you will need:

• renting premises in the area of ​​the city where the competition is lower;
• readiness to invest significant funds in entrepreneurship both for rent or purchase of a building for a warehouse, and for equipment, for the wages of service personnel;
• to spend part of the funds on the promotion of trade, on its advertising.

Starting a wholesale business will require several other steps:

• make a choice of suppliers of goods;
• choose several shopping retail centers for reselling goods;
• buy or rent means of transporting goods in the form of cars of various modifications in the required quantity;
• to select personnel of workers of trading base.

With all of the above, the wholesale base has certain advantages:

• in this case there is no urgent need to advertise their services;
• the location of the wholesale warehouse does not play a decisive role in the success of the work;
• purchased batches of goods significantly exceed this indicator in retail trade;
• trade coverage areas are wider;
• for large manufacturers of goods, wholesalers are preferable to retail customers;
• there is great freedom in the choice of goods, since a very large assortment of goods is required in retail trade;
• there is a lot of leeway in setting prices for goods in trade;
• for the entire scope of relations of the wholesale base with suppliers, agreements are usually concluded that oblige both parties to act predictably.

Retailing has a number of advantages:

• this field of activity involves many transactions and several points of sale of goods;
• there is no need to maintain large storage areas;
• Retail prices can be significantly higher than wholesale prices.

Nevertheless, from all of the above, the advantages in the economic activity of wholesale work in the modern commodity market clearly prevail.

Wholesale planning

At the beginning of the wholesale business, you need to decide on the goods that will be included in the assortment and the wholesale business plan. This, for example, can be a wholesale business for vegetables, both Russian-made and imported into the country. Also, in a real construction boom, it would be a good idea to trade in building materials.

Even before registering a business or immediately after it, you should find reliable suppliers of goods, rent a warehouse or build it on a leased or purchased piece of land. If you start organizing a wholesale business without investments, you will have to plan your work well without a product warehouse. Immediately upon receipt of the goods from the supplier, you need to hand it over to retail. This mechanism should be clearly planned, debugged and backed up by relevant agreements.

It is very important to have sales representatives in order to establish close interactions with retailers. These specialists must draw up contracts with a large number of retail outlets that are ready to take goods for sale. It is better to choose payment upon receipt of the goods in the store. It is impossible to deny such difficult areas of trading activity as the trade in meat and flowers. A sales representative can take on the functions of a forwarder, deliver perishable goods to stores and draw up the necessary documentation. You can completely engage in trade with your representatives, instruct them not only to find contactors in the retail network, but also to draw up agreements with them for deliveries, to establish acquaintances and cooperation.

In addition to representatives of the company, an accountant with PC knowledge, a storekeeper with drivers and loaders should also be included in the staff. It is better to have your own transport than to rent it. Although, at the first stage of organizing a wholesale business, you can use the services of transport companies or small representatives of this business. If the volume of transported products is planned to be large, then you will need your own loader. This will significantly speed up the process of working with goods, and hence the sale of goods.

In the warehouse, you need to install good lighting, alarms. In addition, there should be an office space with computers to record the movement of goods. The wholesale warehouse business plan must include the installation of software on warehouse computers, preferably a CRM system for wholesale trading. Without automation, trading is simply unthinkable at the present time. After all, this program connects all departments of the enterprise into one database, makes it possible to easily track the stages of delivery of bulk purchases to customers. In the programs, you can draw up acts for the work performed, maintain contracts and catalog goods. Also, with the help of the computer network of the enterprise, it is easy to organize the management of the company, to exercise control over all operations performed.

When planning and deciding how to open a wholesale business from scratch, you need to take into account the possible risks in this business. These should primarily include:

• the existing competitive environment in the trade of selected goods;
• political, and hence financial, uncertainty of the moment;
• high capitalization of the required investments for the project.

The ideas of a wholesale business are always based on attracting investments in their activities. But a bank loan can be obtained by defending these ideas in front of the heads of the banking structure with a ready-made business plan.

The calculation of the profitability of future entrepreneurship should be done at the stage of work planning. Start-up costs should be correlated with the proceeds from the movement of goods and the profit received each month of work. It would be nice to include a plan for the development of the wholesale business. But this will be in demand only with successful activity in trade at the first stage, the stage of business formation.

To implement a medium-sized wholesale trade project, a loan of at least 3,000,000 rubles is required. It is better to take this loan for two years with a discount rate of 14%.

Typically, the break-even point of operation begins as early as the fifth month of operation. With a monthly profit of 400,000 rubles, the payback period for the initial investment is usually no more than one to one and a half years of work.

Recent studies show that the wholesale business is extremely profitable, promising, but highly risky. The key to its success is a favorable location in relation to the trade structure of the region, the dedication of the head of the enterprise and the high tension of his knowledge, efforts and tactical skills when manipulating the founding documents at the very beginning of his activity. It is necessary to fully realize that a preliminary thorough study of the entire business and the attraction of considerable capital investments are required.

Wholesale trade is a necessary link in the trade of any goods. In essence, wholesale is an intermediary between a manufacturer and a retailer.

The task of retailers is to sell goods directly to customers. Wholesale deals with the resale of goods from the manufacturer, distributing products in smaller lots among retailers.

Wholesale trade can be very profitable, or it can barely reach the level of profitability.

A lot depends on the scale of wholesale trade, the entrepreneurial spirit of the organizer, and the level of markup.

Types of wholesale trade

Wholesale business idea can be implemented in various ways. The wholesaler may dealer, manufacturer's official representative, facilitating his work on the sale of products.

1. Official representative

This is the most profitable option for wholesale trade, since it allows you to set your own assessment of the goods, not depend on other suppliers of the trade chain, and respond in a timely manner to changes in production.

Large manufacturers, as a rule, create wholesale dealer companies themselves in order to separate production and sales of products and increase sales efficiency.

The dealer option for implementing the wholesale business idea in practice can rarely be applied by a novice entrepreneur, since this niche is usually occupied.

2. "Sales department" for the manufacturer

Therefore, entrepreneurs often use the option of cooperation with several small manufacturers that do not have their own sales companies. In this case, the wholesaler takes over the functions of the manufacturer's sales department and deals with logistics, earning some money from the margin.

Features of the "sales department": pros and cons

The disadvantage of this wholesale trade option is the need to own or rent a warehouse for finished products, since manufacturers, as a rule, tend to transfer their products for sale as quickly as possible.

The risks are that there may be a gap in time between the receipt of finished products from the manufacturer and the conclusion of contracts with retailers. In this case, there is an overstocking of the warehouse and sales are difficult.

However, the advantages of such wholesale trade are the possibility of establishing a favorable margin on goods and obtaining conditions for deferred payment from the manufacturer.

3. Intermediary - wholesale distributor

Another wholesale option is to purchase large quantities of goods from a larger wholesale supplier and then resell and deliver to retailers, that is, becoming a wholesale distributor.

This option is more realistic for use by novice entrepreneurs.

However, in order to obtain an acceptable level of profit, it is necessary to have transport for the delivery of goods and, preferably, to have a wholesale warehouse for the formation of consignments of goods. With this wholesale option, the money goes to the account of the wholesaler, the consignment of goods falls into the warehouse, and the retailer does not see who the goods are actually purchased from.

The main risks of a distributor

This is important because there is a danger of a direct contract between the retailer and the main supplier. This option of wholesale trade gives a fairly good experience in the field of organizing transportation and concluding contracts.

Wholesale: logistics

Logistics schemes can be very different:

1. From suppliers, goods can be delivered to the warehouse of the wholesaler, accounted for, and then batches are formed from the incoming goods for delivery by the retailer.

2. It is possible to work according to a simplified scheme, when the formation of a batch of goods is carried out by a wholesaler, and the goods themselves are delivered by transport companies from the warehouses of the supplier.

True, in this case, the name of the real supplier of products may appear in the waybills, and there are risks of concluding direct contracts.

3. An even simpler option for wholesale trade, in terms of financing, is a simple mediation between wholesalers and retail stores.

In this case, the intermediary takes over the work of coordinating the assortment, forming a batch of goods, and delivering the goods to the retailer. In this case, as a rule, the intermediary does not set a wholesale margin for the goods, but receives a certain commission for his services.

This wholesale trade option does not require working capital, however, it carries a lot of risks, since the intermediary can always be excluded from the chain of wholesale trade business processes.

Wholesale trade: where to make efforts?

In order to choose the right option for implementing a wholesale business idea, it is necessary to study the goods market well, to narrow down the specialization as much as possible, without trying to cover a wide range of goods offered.

Specialization and marketing research allow you to be well versed in the range of goods, wholesale and retail prices, depending on demand, set the optimal estimate to obtain maximum profitability.

Organization of wholesale trade can be a very profitable and promising business. But this is possible only if certain experience has been gained, there is knowledge in the field of logistics, and legal issues are carefully considered when concluding contracts.

Business Idea: Wholesale

Buy low, sell high. This is what a wholesale business looks like from the outside. It is often called the easiest and most profitable. However, not always a superficial view can give a true picture of reality, and very often, starting a wholesale business from scratch, businessmen lose a lot of money and become financially dependent. To prevent this from happening, you need to be careful and gradually master the wisdom of the wholesale trade.

Legal support

Wholesale - . In the best case, the wholesaler acts as a link between the manufacturer and the end buyer (or retail chain), in the worst case for all, the wholesaler buys the reseller's goods.

What is wrong with the second scheme? The number of intermediary markups, which greatly affects the possible margin for each intermediary. The buyer will receive a high price, which will be a consequence of the fact that the goods will pass through the hands of several wholesalers.

To start conducting intermediary activities of large amounts of money, you will not need:

• will cost several thousand rubles;
• office rent;
• an accountant and a manager who knows how to negotiate on a professional level with both sellers and buyers;
• hiring a law firm for subscription services.

This necessary minimum will be needed by a wholesaler who is not going to take care of the delivery of goods, its warehousing and storage.

If the wholesaler plans to provide transportation and storage services to his customers as part of the wholesale trade, he will need to conclude an agreement with a transport company and rent a warehouse suitable for a particular product.

There is an opinion that starting a wholesale business without investments is a better decision than immediately making large bets on a certain product. After all, until the wholesaler has thoroughly studied the market on his own experience, he is not able to correctly calculate the economic result of this or that intermediary operation.

Sources of financing

Those entrepreneurs who are thinking about how to open a wholesale business and quickly make money on it, first of all, need to solve financing issues - where to get money for the purchase of large quantities of goods.

There is a certain difficulty in finding funds for such projects:

1. related exclusively to intermediary activities, on unfavorable terms for the entrepreneur.
2. also cannot be calculated, since, according to the current SME support program, agriculture, innovation activities, and the activities of social structures are priorities. Wholesale trade cannot be considered as a priority direction of management.
3. can provide the capital necessary for the transaction, but most often such investors require a fabulous percentage of revenue, and not every entrepreneur is able to cope with such a financial burden.

This attitude of financial structures is explained by the fact that the wholesale trade business is very risky in itself:

As you can see, the risks are quite high and it is very difficult to level them at the stage of preliminary preparation of the transaction.

In order to receive finance for the implementation of his business ideas in the wholesale trade, the entrepreneur will need to convince creditors that the listed risks are controlled and will not be able to greatly affect the profitability of the entire transaction.

What to work with

One of the most profitable directions in the wholesale trade is the wholesale purchase from the manufacturer of food products and their further sale either directly to retail chains or small wholesale enterprises.

Many entrepreneurs are afraid to get involved in food products, since this item of purchase complicates the wholesale business process due to the fact that:

• is perishable;
• inspection bodies impose increased requirements on the conditions of storage and transportation of food products;
• the wholesaler, as one of the chain of traders, is liable for possible harm to the consumer due to the use of poor-quality products.

However, fears disappear after the first successful transactions and gaining experience with food.

One of the current schemes for the work of a wholesaler selling food products is the following algorithm:

It must be said that many manufacturers do not immediately require the wholesaler to pay the full cost of the goods. To increase sales volumes, manufacturers are ready to give a deferral of payment, up to one calendar month. However, in order to receive such a reprieve, the wholesaler must inspire confidence in his business with the manufacturer.