I hate to see professional crafters and artisans turn away from selling wholesale because they do not have enough of a profit margin to make it worthwhile to sell to retailers.?
Of course, this is a valid concern, but there are a few ways to lower expenses, thus increase margins enough to sell wholesale:
Tips for Lowering Expenses
- Producing in larger lots. You can save money — sometimes cutting the price significantly — when ordering materials in larger quantities. We found this to be true when we purchased bottles for our gourmet sauces. The pricing per jar went down over 50% when purchasing a pallet of bottles rather than a dozen cases at a time. Of course, this only works when you have a proven seller that will resell many times over.
- Buying wholesale. If you have a reseller number (sales tax exempt number), you can order larger quantities of raw materials at wholesaling pricing. At the very least you can save sales tax, depending on the stores where you buy your materials.
- Use recycled packing materials. Packing material can be rather expensive to purchase. For years, a couple of local retail outlets saved their packing peanuts, bubble wrap and other materials for us at no charge! We come pick them up periodically, cleaning out their backroom in the process. Win – win for both of us!
- Decrease overhead. Is a commercial office a necessary expense? If you have an extra room in your house, you can turn it into your production room or office. Using this option factors into your tax deductions as well as lower your costs. We have done both, and even though our house is overflowing from our businesses, we saved the monthly rent spent on our downtown office. Also, we no longer need to drive to work anymore!
- Doubling up on trips. We deliver and pick up a large number of the products we sell. Whenever we plan a trip to the southern part of the state, we order products from our supplies along the way to pick up rather than ship. On the other side, we also call our customers along the route to see if they would like products delivered during our trip. Saves us the extra time and expense of shipping and our customers love having us deliver (even though, we charge a small delivery fee).
These are just a few ways that we have used over the years to increase our profit margins. For more tips, check out this article from Artsy Shark.