The Wholesale Forums

[Anthony]

Where do you source the majority of your wholesale goods from?

What are your sourcing decisions based on?

• Location?
• Price?
• Convenience?
• Safety?

Discuss.

[Tango34uk]

I get 90% of my stock from Europe, yes I pay higher for the items, but their build quality is much higher, and as such I can then sell them for more.

It also means that delivery is quicker, and they understand the UK market place for my items a little better then China would.

I used to buy from the Far East, where the items were 50% less, but I would have to wait 3 months for the ship to arrive with said goods, and I could never know what quality goods would arrive.

[geosamm]

Price first... the rest in any order you choose... it takes approximately 3 weeks from Bangkok to Southampton. It really depends on your shipper or agent how quickly they reach the destination port. A good shipper will take about 2 days to pack a container quantity of goods [depending on size and staff] one day for fumigation and one day to load the goods onto the container. Allow another day to transport to the port and a couple of days to get loaded and sail. Smaller quantities take approximately the same time to prepare and ship from port to port. The longest time is spent sourcing the goods and getting them made and transported to the shipper.
Hope this helps

[lighthousedirec]

The OP forgot to mention quality, quality goods always sell as long as you are buying at a fair price, cheap tat you cannot give away at times.

For myself I settle on quality suppliers with decent stock levels, I tend to buy direct from manufacturers in this country, large outlay's but it allows a reasonable mark up by buying in bulk.

[hardwareheroes]

I buy from UK, Europe AND far east although I go through agents in the UK for my far east transactions so far.

Quality is high up on the list and, thankfully, so far, not had any real issues with quality from the far east.

Poland is doing well for me just now - great quality and good prices despite the weak pound.