Many people can find a profitable future in the ever-growing wholesale electronics industry. However, it’s impossible to do this without having access to electronics suppliers or distributors. In such a popular industry, how do you figure out who to partner with?
To solve this problem, you’ll need to find reliable suppliers with access to quality items at quantities and prices that work for you. Normally, this would mean spending lots of time online to find what you’re looking for. However, we’re here to help you.
In this article, you’ll learn:
The easiest ways to find wholesale electronics distributors
Proven ways to build strong relationships with suppliers
How to get a line of credit from wholesale distributors
The Easiest Ways to Find Wholesale Suppliers
Among the more difficult aspects of running a business is finding wholesale suppliers that provide you with the products and items you require on a consistent basis. There's no simple and straightforward way to identify vendors that will be reliable in fulfilling the orders you make.
If you want to lessen the amount of time it takes to find the right wholesale suppliers to partner with, it's important that you look in the right places. With that in mind, here are a few great places to go to find wholesale suppliers.
Trade-In Tech
One of the most important ways to find reliable electronics suppliers is by becoming a Trade-In Tech member. By doing this, you’ll join our fast-growing list of over 13,000 clients in 57 countries. We’ve grown such a massive list of clients by doing everything possible to be their one-stop wholesale electronics platform.
At Trade-In Tech, we care about making sure our members are only working with serious buyers and sellers. One way we do this is by making sure that each member provides two reliable industry references. By doing this, we’re able to maintain our supply of high-quality vendors throughout the world.
After becoming a Trade-In Tech member, you’ll have access to an entire social wholesale platform. This allows you to network with potential business partners. Having access to such a platform is also an incredible way to start building your brand. It’s understandable if you’re new to promoting this type of business online. Fortunately, we have an excellent 24/7 support system that’s ready to help at any time.
As something special for you, we don’t believe in having our members worry about fees and the stresses that come with them. Considering that, we’re glad to let you know that you can both buy and sell on our platform and pay zero fees. When you’re ready to buy or sell, you can accept payment directly via PayPal or through our direct messaging system. At Trade-In Tech, we do our best to make things as easy as possible for our amazing network of electronics buyers and sellers.
If you choose to use this platform to search for the right wholesale suppliers, it's possible to purchase video games, cameras, smartphones, tablets, home automation systems, and much more. Trade-In Tech members also gain exclusive access to the business directory, training materials, private groups, and marketplace
Wholesale Directories
To find reliable electronics suppliers in such a popular industry, try visiting wholesale directories. Typically, these directories will list relevant information about wholesalers including their websites, how to contact them, and a brief overview of each company.
With that said, make sure that the wholesalers you’re contacting have what you’re looking for. Most wholesale directories should make this information easy to find. However, you might start coming across large directories with companies offering multiple types of electronics. Look for filters in these directories that help narrow down your results to exactly what you’re searching for. These typically allow you to filter by product type, minimum order volume requirements, and other important factors.
Also, make sure that the directory you’re visiting has some type of system in place to screen the candidates it’s listing. Certain wholesale directories provide this information in the form of user reviews.
Industry Trade Shows
Not all types of interactions with suppliers have to happen online. There are many types of wholesale trade shows that take place each year. At these shows, sellers from around the world gather to show off their respective inventories. There’s also plenty of buyers at these shows, eager to make purchases that help their companies grow.
Wholesale trade shows aren’t just about buying and selling electronics. It’s possible to find certain events that feature guest speakers talking about relevant industry topics. This is great for both beginners and advanced wholesalers that want to sharpen their skills.
You can also go to these trade shows and create new business relationships. It’s also important to note that most people attending these trade shows are, for one reason or another, near the bottom of the sales funnel and ready to purchase items.
LinkedIn is a wonderful resource for finding wholesale suppliers. To start finding suppliers on LinkedIn, you only need to use the search bar to look for distributors and manufacturers in your specific industry.
There are a wide variety of criteria that you can use to make your search more focused. You can search by location if you would like to find suppliers near your primary base of operations. Once you find the right members, you can message them immediately, which should help you start building a lasting relationship.
You can increase your chances of successfully building a relationship with wholesale suppliers by being clear on the kinds of products that you're interested in.
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups is a great platform to connect with other distributors and companies in your industry. You can search keywords in your industry to find groups that are related.
Join the groups and provide as much value to the community as you can. Do not spam or promote your products. Instead, focus on helping other members and you will see your following grow significantly.
You can also create your own group and have other members join it. This is a great way to build brand awareness and create your own private network. Click here to join our Facebook group.
eBay
One unique way to find wholesale suppliers is through eBay. Many large sellers liquidate their excess inventory on this platform.
You can use the "Make Offer" option and offer a lower price for items you are interested in buying. When you make the offer, make sure to leave a message stating that you are a regular buyer and would like to purchase more in the future.
This task might be more time-consuming than other activities, but it has proven to be one of the most profitable strategies we have used to acquire clients.
Contact Manufacturers and Authorized Distributors
Some manufacturers may be willing to sell their products to you at discounted prices if you are a business with a tax identification number. To get started, find the contact information of the manufacturers you want to work with.
Authorized distributors may also be willing to provide you with product discounts if you offer to purchase several units of their electronics. It may take some time to contact a large number of authorized distributors, but the discounts you could receive make it worth the calls.
14 Easy Ways To Build Strong, Successful Wholesale Partnerships
It’s good to spend time thinking about ways to attract new business partners. Connecting with new partners has more advantages than you might think. Recent research from Forbes found that 85% of business success comes from developing people skills. These are the same skills you can gain from developing business partnerships.
As an entrepreneur, you’ve likely developed a mindset of being comfortable taking lots of things on by yourself. Let us help you out by making it easy to find valuable companies to partner with. Here are 12 simple and proven ways to build strong, successful wholesale partnerships.
1. Quality is Better Than Quantity
It's exciting watching yourself or your company start to become more popular. While we hope your business continues to do this, it doesn’t mean you need a lot of business partners.
Having more business partners than you can handle often does more harm than good. If you only focus on gaining new partners, it’s impossible to maintain all of these partnerships.
Instead of going after every company to partner with, start with one or two. After building these partnerships, you can start looking for a few other new ones. It's all about building up partnerships at a manageable pace.
2. Seek Diversity When Building Business Partnerships With Vendors
If you’re working to build new partnerships, it’s good to have a diverse network to work with. One study found that about 70% of companies focusing on diversity are more likely to capture new markets than those that aren’t. Another study found that management teams are likely to help companies bring in 19% higher revenues.
While finding this type of diversity might seem tough, it doesn’t have to be. At Trade-In Tech, we have a network of wholesale electronics suppliers, distributors, and retailers from all over the world. By doing this, we’re able to have an online electronics marketplace filled to the brim with smartphones, tablets, laptops, and more.
Our wholesale social platform also allows you to connect and speak with buyers and sellers from all over the globe. Having this platform is great if you’re not quite ready to make another order at the moment.
You might wonder how we’re able to have so many members and ensure that transactions remain safe. We do this through our verification system to keep out non-serious buyers and sellers.
3. Realize Mistakes Will Happen With Wholesale Partnerships
Whether it’s a business or personal partnership, unfortunately, mistakes happen from time to time. When they do, it’s easy to rush to being angry or thinking about dissolving the partnership. However, it’s best to rethink this.
We don’t want to sound like a parent, but everyone makes mistakes. By letting a mistake go, it also shows that your business partners are working with an understanding company. Plus, companies dealing with a delay are probably already hearing lots of negative feedback from other partners.
Eventually, the time will come when your company is the one that accidentally does something wrong. During this time, you’ll want the recipients of your bad news to be understanding and not quick to anger.
This isn’t all to say that it’s acceptable to partner with a business that continues making mistakes. If mistakes keep happening with a partner, it might be time to end this partnership. No long-term partnership is worth putting your business in danger of going under.
4. Help Your Wholesale Partners Celebrate Victories
Thanks to LinkedIn and other social media websites, it’s easy for you to find out when business partners are celebrating something. When this happens, make sure that your company is there to congratulate them.
You don’t need to dedicate an hour to writing up paragraphs of information. Leaving a congratulatory sentence is enough. This also shows that you’re following the company, something that any business owner appreciates.
This gesture also ensures others will be there to celebrate your company’s next victory.
5. Offer Help
Sometimes, the best solutions for building business partnerships with vendors are the simplest. Considering that, part of any great partnership is being there to help another person. Sadly, many companies go into partnerships and only think about what they’re getting out of it.
This attitude makes it difficult to build long-term relationships because the other party isn’t gaining anything.
This step is simple to follow. The next time you’re speaking to an electronics company, ask if there’s anything they need help with or advice about. Even if they don’t need any help, knowing that you offered goes a long way towards strengthening business relationships.
You never know, it might also lead to these fellow business leaders being there to help you at a critical time. From an ESN check to friendly advice, a little help goes a long way.
6. Strengthen Relationships Through Social Causes
Part of any important business is what it does to give back. If you’re struggling to find wholesale partnerships, consider joining a cause that matters to you. While we can’t tell you which cause to support, we can help with finding causes.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a cause to support, research your business partners. Certain companies will have sections on their websites devoted to what they do to give back. This can help you learn more about causes impacting the world right now.
You might be amazed to learn how much you enjoy helping out business partners with the causes they care about.
7. Start Doing Content Partnerships
When you’re building relationships with vendors, it’s good to present situations where everyone benefits. To do this, you’ll want to learn about content partnerships. You might wonder where you can begin forming these partnerships.
Try establishing them with your company’s current business partners. One way to do this is by reaching out to them. For example, you could create a new blog or website post about a topic your business specializes in. After doing that, contact one of your business partners and ask if they would like to be featured in this post. You can either have them contribute a quote and you’ll do the rest of the work.
Most companies will be thankful and jump at the chance for a little free exposure. After doing this, don’t be afraid to ask if they would return the favor by dropping a link from their website to yours. This type of strategy can help you bring in resale profits.
8. Send Something by Direct Mail
In some cases, it’s good to stand out from the crowd when building business partnerships with vendors. One way to do this is by using a type of communication that has lost a bit of popularity, direct mail. You don’t have to type up a letter for no reason. But, it is a good idea to use direct mail when you want to send something helpful.
Let’s imagine that you’ve read a book about management with a ton of helpful tips. You can’t exactly scan each page of a book and send it by email. It’s possible to send them a link to this book with encouragement to buy it. Or, you could take things one step further by gifting a business partner your copy by mail.
Whether people want to admit it or it, almost everyone gets excited seeing that someone has sent them a gift in the mail.
9. Set Reminders To Drop a Line
If you’re like me, you find it easy to forget a few things from time to time. In case you’re someone who tends to reply at the last minute (or forget to reply at all), there’s nothing wrong with setting reminders.
You can make these reminders simple, whatever works to get you to say hello to a business partner. While it’s possible you may not receive a response every time, doing this is a simple gesture that keeps wholesale partnerships going.
10. Make Time for Something Non-Work Related
Much like you, most electronics wholesalers reach a time during the week where they’re ready to focus on anything but work. So, why not build relationships by inviting business partners to do something fun with your company?
Doing something fun doesn’t mean having to dig into the company fund to pay for a vacation or anything like that. For instance, you could plan to have everyone take part in a large remote video call together. Whatever you do, let everyone know that this meeting is all about not focusing on work matters.
11. Avoid Talking Bad About Other Businesses
When partnerships grow, the people involved in them are going to talk about all sorts of things. Considering that, you might feel tempted to talk about a recent business experience that went poorly.
It’s hard to predict the future of any business. With that in mind, the company you’re speaking ill of and your business partner might work together in the future (if they’re not already). To be on the safe side, it's best to avoid saying too much about these types of experiences.
12. Make Phone Calls and Build Relationships
Don’t just rely on emails and the filling out of website forms to build a great relationship with potential wholesale suppliers. Many great businesses were built by speaking with people directly.
You may need to make phone calls to different suppliers in order to indicate your interest in working with them. By doing this, you’re working to build solid business-related partnerships with your suppliers. Be available to talk with them, and place them high on your business priority level.
13. Set Up Open Purchase Orders to Get Stock Regularly
When you have an open purchase order with a company, that company has a firm document in place that lets them know you desire to keep doing business with them regularly. Companies that get comfortable with supplying your business needs are much more likely to work with you on quantity and pricing levels in the future.
If you have an open purchase order with a reseller, that company may be willing to offer you even better discounts on their merchandise. There are sometimes financial terms that come along with purchase orders that allow the purchasing business the luxury of a pricing discount.
14. Buy Larger Quantities to Get a Better Price
Most wholesale suppliers require that you buy a certain number of their items to get a decently discounted price. However, most companies also provide a steeper discount on their items if you buy more of them.
Typically, there is a big pricing discount difference between purchasing 20 items and purchasing 100 items. You may not have the room or cash flow available to stock a larger quantity of items, but keep these discounts in mind for when you expand your business in the future.
Customers are more likely to flock to your business if you can keep your product pricing competitive. You also might be able to afford to provide your customers with better pricing by buying larger quantities from distributors. The lower the price you need to pay for items, the more you can pass those discounts down to your customers.
How To Get a Line of Credit From Your Supplier
A line of credit is a standard borrowing limit that the borrower will be able to use at any time. Once the lender provides a line of credit, the borrower can withdraw money whenever they want until they reach a certain limit.
You will have a certain period to pay back the money that you use. It's important to understand that it's not always easy to obtain a line of credit from a supplier. When it comes to handing out credit, each supplier has its own rules.
Make Multiple Transactions Before Offering the Option
Before you request a line of credit, it's highly recommended that you make several transactions with your supplier. This shows them that you’re trustworthy and will provide them with payment when it's due. Plus, making multiple transactions is simple and doesn't require a substantial amount of investment.
Keep in mind that making multiple transactions likely won't be all you need to do to obtain a line of credit from a supplier. However, it can help you get started with the process and will also allow you to determine if you like doing business with the supplier in question.
Build a Relationship Outside of Work
If you want to convince a supplier to provide you with a line of credit, consider building a relationship with them outside of work, which may help with approval of the line of credit while also giving you better credit terms.
When you do build a relationship with your supplier, they may be willing to extend additional credit to you or let you pay back a loan over a lengthy period of time. With good communication skills, it shouldn't be too difficult to find shared interests that may allow for a broader relationship.
By building a relationship outside of work, you'll also build trust with the supplier in question. These individuals and companies need to trust you before they are willing to provide you with the credit you want at the rates you prefer.
Meet Them In Person
A great way to enhance the possibility of receiving a line of credit from your supplier is to meet them in person, which will allow them to learn more about yourself and your company while also putting a face to the name.
This ties in with building a relationship outside of work. It can be easy for suppliers to simply reject a line of credit application from businesses they don't know. If you meet the supplier in person, they may take another look at your application.
Make sure that you also keep lines of communication open. Once you've cultivated a business relationship with the supplier, it's important to talk to them about what's going on with your business.
You can discuss everything from new hires that you've made to the plans that you have for future growth. If your supplier knows you and your business, they will likely want to continue doing business with you in the future, which increases the possibility that your line of credit request is accepted.
Start With a Partial Payment Option
When you're first getting started with a line of credit, it's wise to begin with a partial payment option, which will lessen some of the burdens that you have when attempting to repay the supplier. Starting out with a partial payment option should help you adjust to making payments while also keeping the relationship strong.
Once you're confident you can make a partial payment, you can start paying the entire payment at the due date, which will invariably strengthen the business relationship that you have with your supplier.
In most cases, the partial payment is around half of the full amount that you owe with each payment cycle. It's also much easier to start with a partial payment option at the beginning as opposed to asking to change to a partial payment later on.
Keep in mind that you'll need to have a good credit score if you want your line of credit request approved. If you have a consistent history of making payments on time, your business credit score should increase by a significant amount. If one of your suppliers doesn't provide credit bureaus with your payment history, consider asking them to do so. If they are unwilling to, take your business elsewhere.
If you have credit cards for your business, it's also important that you use them wisely. To increase your business credit score, your credit card utilization should be at 30 percent or less of the total credit available to you. The credit card bills you have should also be paid on time to make sure that your score doesn't drop.
Leverage To a Full Credit Line Over Time
Many businesses start with a small line of credit to begin with, allowing them to build trust with the supplier by making payments on time. This also provides businesses with the opportunity to leverage full credit over time. If the supplier grants you a line of credit and finds that you make all of your payments on time, they will be more likely to eventually grant you an additional line of credit.
It's also important that you don't agree to a bad interest rate. The interest rates for lines of credit are relatively similar to the interest rates for personal loans, which means that you should look for a line of credit with a rate of 3-5 percent.
To Wrap Things Up
As you can see, there are many ways to find reputable suppliers of electronics. After finding these types of suppliers, you’ll easily be able to start scaling your wholesale electronics business. For more help, consider visiting Trade-In Tech’s blog for tips and strategies for how to grow your wholesale business online. Here, you’ll find help with lots of topics including electronic repair tips, ways to make money in the wholesale industry, and many more articles you don’t want to miss.