Out of the millions of wholesale products available, how do you identify one worth investing in? And with so many wholesale marketplaces promising cheap products in bulk, which platform is most likely to have hidden gems?
There’s a lot to think about when buying wholesale: where you’ll source products, how many units you should buy, and what profit margins you should aim for.
Keep reading to learn where to buy wholesale products and some best practices for vetting items for resale.
Benefits of cheap wholesale products
There are many benefits for online retailers who resell cheap wholesale products online, but the two most relevant have to do with:
- Outsourced production. The product development process is complicated—from finding raw materials to assembling and testing products. The wholesale business model offers a chance to bypass the entire process and go straight to selling.
- Volume discounts. The more you buy, the less expensive each item gets per unit. “As a karaoke systems small business owner, I purchase karaoke machines, microphones, speakers, and related accessories wholesale from my contacts in a direct warehouse in China,” says Michael Chien, CEO of 101 Karaoke. “Buying these products in bulk allows me to better control my inventory and benefit from volume discounts.”
Examples of the best cheap wholesale products
Here are some starting ideas to find cheap wholesale products to resell:
- Vitamins and supplements. There's a growing demand for health-boosting products, including sleep aids like melatonin gummies and magnesium sprays.
- Wine. Consumers are looking for unique organic wines, natural wines with no additives, and wines from undiscovered regions like Texas Hill Country and Szekszárd, Hungary. Wine is also a good wholesale product to buy because it’s typically marked up around 50%.
- Eco-friendly items. A majority of consumers care about maintaining an eco-friendly lifestyle and are willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Products featuring biodegradable or zero-impact packaging are becoming more popular. Consider selling things like vegan leather goods, plastic-free beauty products, solar-powered devices, compost bins, and reusable cleaning tools.
- Electronics. The smart home automation market is estimated to be worth more than $73 billion by 2029. Items like smart thermostats, security cameras, and voice assistants are in high demand as consumers seek to manage their homes from one device and save money on energy bills.
- Beauty products. The $590 billion beauty market offers tons of opportunities for savvy retailers. Makeup trends change fast, so you need to stay on top of them to sell cosmetics.
- Fashion. There is an endless supply of wholesale clothing suppliers for retailers. Consider sourcing popular items like athleisure wear, statement jewelry, retro sneakers, crossbody bags, and matching family sets.
💡 Find new products at competitive prices with a wholesale app from the Shopify App Store.
How to choose and buy cheap wholesale products to resell
- Find and verify wholesale suppliers
- Test wholesale products
- Calculate profit margins
- Find the median retail price
- Analyze the competition
- Estimate consumer demand
- Check for seasonal trends
- Calculate shipping costs
Use these steps as a guide to start your own business reselling cheap wholesale products:
1. Find and verify wholesale suppliers
Securing a high-quality, communicative, and reliable wholesale supplier is crucial to your long-term business success. Marketplaces like Faire allow you to filter brands by location, brand values, and product categories to make the process easier.
However, there are many unscrupulous “suppliers” listed on wholesale product websites. Some of these suppliers provide very low-quality products, others are uncommunicative, and a few are straight-up scammers.
Marketplaces have processes in place to rule out bad actors, but before you take the plunge and buy wholesale products, verify suppliers to ensure they’re legitimate and trustworthy.
Ask for official documentation and verifiable testimonials before you place an order. You could also search social media or online forums to find unbiased opinions from other retailers who have bought wholesale products from that supplier.
2. Test wholesale products
Once you’ve verified the supplier, you should verify the wholesale products themselves. The best way to do this is to order samples.
When your samples arrive, evaluate whether they’re durable and high-quality. What do the products look like in person? How do they feel? If the products are designed to solve a problem or do a task, can they do so easily?
Keep in mind that the best wholesale products are easy to use. The last thing you want is to order a complicated wholesale product and have to invest heavily in teaching potential customers how to use it.
Consider ordering a small batch of products first—like the supplier’s minimum order quantity (MOQ)—and see how they sell online. If they fly off the shelves, you know it’s worth investing in more. But if they gather dust, you haven’t wasted money that will be difficult to claw back.
3. Calculate profit margins
Your gross margin is the difference between how much a product costs and how much you can sell it for.
When you purchase wholesale goods in higher quantities, you can usually get them at a low cost per unit—and, as a result, increase your gross margin. This concept is referred to as economies of scale.
Before you commit to buying any wholesale products, use a profit margin calculator to confirm there’s enough money left in the pot when you’ve paid for it.
NYU Stern School of Business reports that a good profit margin for online retailers is around 42.78%. Treat this as the bottom level—the bigger the margin, the more profit you make when reselling wholesale products.
“We purchase NFC business cards in bulk, brand them, and resell them via our Shopify store,” says Georges El-Hage, founder and CEO of Wave Connect. “We purchase the products for around $1.50 and the packages for $2.50 each. If we include shipping and customs at the border, that will increase the cost by 60¢ per unit, totaling $4.60. The price for our most popular product is $49.99, so we net $44.99. Our profit margin is 90%.”
Remember there are other costs associated with reselling wholesale products—including your ecommerce platform, marketing, and advertising costs. Make sure there’s enough profit left over to cover these business expenses once you’ve paid the wholesaler.
4. Find the median retail price
It can still be challenging to turn a healthy profit if the price point is too low—even if you find wholesale products with a big margin.
If you purchase pencils for 10¢ and sell them for 50¢, for example, you’ll make 40¢ a unit—that’s a whopping 80% margin. However, you’d have to sell thousands of pencils to make a good income from your online store.
On the other hand, if the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of a product is too high, you’ll likely find it harder to land sales. People buying a $150 jacket have more complex decisions to make than those purchasing a $20 hat.
Check the MSRP before buying wholesale products, and start with products that retail between $15 and $200.
If you’re purchasing several products within that price range, you can even use products at different wholesale prices to upsell and cross-sell. For example, if someone is buying your $30 moisturizer, you could increase your average order value by cross-selling a $10 sheet mask or upselling them to a more expensive cream.
5. Analyze the competition
A market is saturated when there are many retail businesses selling a particular product. It can be tough to stand out from the crowd if you’re operating in a saturated market, hence why it’s easier to buy wholesale products in a market that has low competition.
Check marketplaces like Amazon to gauge the competition and find bestsellers. How many businesses are already selling the product? Hundreds of thousands of listings indicate it’s a competitive market. But it could be your opportunity to swoop in if there are just a handful of brands selling that product on the platform.
6. Estimate consumer demand
It might seem like you’ve hit the jackpot if you discover a cheap wholesale product that has low competition. But if very few other businesses are selling a particular product, it may be because nobody wants it.
You can determine the demand for a product by using Facebook Ad Library, which allows you to search for live ad campaigns on Facebook. If you can find a few businesses running plenty of ads for a product, there’s a good chance that the product is making them money—and therefore, there’s high demand.
If you’re struggling to find wholesale products with low competition and high demand, try searching for more niche products. The product’s uniqueness will differentiate it from others on the market, which can increase demand.
F&J Outdoors, for example, buys outdoor furniture covers from wholesalers. Owner Wendy Wang says, “The decision to go for these types of products was based on identifying a market segment that needed high-quality, durable, and stylish outdoor furniture cover options.”
7. Check for seasonal trends
Whether it’s the holidays, summer, or a major event, there are many products you can sell to cater to seasonal demand. That said, there are two main caveats:
- Timing is key. Planning a seasonal ecommerce strategy often takes months—if not a full year.
- Sales won’t be consistent. If you work hard to sell holiday-related products, your sales will plummet when the season is over.
If you’re relatively new to buying wholesale products to sell or want to grow your store year-round, avoid seasonal products and opt for evergreen products instead.
8. Calculate shipping costs
When you buy wholesale products, you can choose from suppliers on the other side of the country or even the world. If you run an ecommerce business, consider the cost of receiving products from your supplier and shipping them to customers.
While it’s possible to make money on larger, heavier items like furniture, you’ll likely run into more logistical problems.
Small, lightweight products tend to be cheaper and easier to ship. For this reason, many businesses follow a simple rule: The product should be small enough to fit into a shoebox and weigh less than two kilograms (4.4 pounds).
Also, consider the product’s durability when evaluating your shipping strategy. Shipping handmade glassware or Bluetooth speakers is a lot more challenging than shipping jeans.
Durable products with fewer moving parts are easier to transport. Plus, they’re less likely to go wrong once in the customer’s hands, which will help reduce your returns rate.
The best online marketplaces for cheap wholesale products
Explore these online wholesale marketplaces to get your business started:
Faire
Faire is an online marketplace for small business owners. It’s used by more than 100,000 brands in the US, Canada, and Europe who rely on the platform to find affordable wholesale products they can sell through their own retail stores.
Bulk purchases made on Faire sync seamlessly to your Shopify admin through the apps Faire: Buy Wholesale and Faire: Sell Wholesale. It’s free to join Faire, and brands only pay a commission if Faire connects them with new retailers through its marketplace. Brands can also extend additional benefits to the retailers they bring over, such as 60-day payment terms (for eligible retailers) and free returns on first orders.
Alibaba
Alibaba is the world’s largest B2B marketplace globally, serving brands in more than 240 countries and regions. It is arguably the best place to find cheap wholesale products from suppliers and distributors in China.
eWorldTrade
eWorldTrade provides a handful of ecommerce services to facilitate trade between manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. You can post a listing on the site to tell suppliers about your needs.
TradeIndia
TradeIndia boasts more than one million registered users who find reliable suppliers and cheap wholesale products they can resell through their own company.
Worldwide Brands
Worldwide Brands (WWB) is one of the oldest B2B wholesale supplier directories online. It lists more than 16 million wholesale products and costs $299 to gain lifetime access to the directory.
Turn cheap wholesale products into a profitable business
There’s a lot to consider when buying cheap wholesale products for resale, but success starts with choosing a winning product. Evaluate your profit margins, competition, and consumer demand before committing to any product. Then find a reputable wholesale supplier and test the products before placing a large order.
If wholesale marketplaces are too saturated, you can reach out to Shopify brands using the platform to sell their own wholesale products. It’s a smart way to connect with other merchants who sell unique wholesale products to a select group of retailers.
Cheap wholesale products for resale FAQ
Where can I buy things for cheap to resell?
- Faire
- Alibaba
- eWorldTrade
- TradeIndia
- Worldwide Brands
Can I buy in bulk and resell?
Retail arbitrage is the process of buying products in bulk at a low price from a wholesale retailer. The brand then resells these products through its own ecommerce site or brick-and-mortar store with a markup.
What is easy to buy in bulk for resale?
It’s relatively easy to buy jewelry, party supplies, home décor, kitchen utensils, women’s clothing, and beauty products.
What is cheaper, wholesale or resale?
Products bought wholesale directly from manufacturers are almost always cheaper than buying from retail stores. This is because retailers need to mark up their prices to cover costs and make a profit, while wholesale buyers get better deals by purchasing in bulk.
