Last Updated on Oktober 28, 2024 by Ewen Finser
Wholesale is one of those “unsexy” categories of business that I’ve always wanted to get into. Recently, I have started exploring this more for both online and physical retail.
One of the very first obstacles I hit was where to start!
There’s a wholesaler for everything. I first started with categories I liked personally, but quickly realized that certain categories and product attributes were clearly more advantageous to focus on.
These were my refined considerations for the best wholesale items to resell:
- Demand: There’s nothing worse than buying a whole bunch of product that can’t move or is slow moving. Ideally, I’d like to see some data (sales rank, search traffic, pins on pinterest, or similar products I’m selling that are moving quickly).
- Profitability: This goes without saying, but I’d like healthy margins. Higher is better, but I’m generally looking at no less than 15% margins, maybe lower for super high volume sellers.
- Ease of Shipping: There some great products outside the norm, but I prefer smaller, lightweight items that I’ll save on shipping. Also makes returns easier.
- Recurring Potential: Not a must have, but I’d prefer products that are sticky, with customers returning when they run out or are “consumed.” Beauty, cleaning products, heck, even socks!
- Trends: I look at trends both from a long arc and a seasonal perspective. I want to ensure trends are stable or at least moving in the right direction. Some seasonality is ok, but I’d prefer to have a product I can sell throughout the year. Google trends is my friend here.
Alright, so with all that being said, here are my favorite categories to start with…
Zubehör für Haustiere
I love pet supplies because there’s such a broad product selection and all sorts of sub-verticals. Pet health, nutrition, treats, gear, clothing, beds, toys, etc… Pet’s are also a bigger market than actual, human, babies!
And while data is hard to generalize, a leading pet store franchise quotes 40% profit margins to potential franchisees (I’d argue there’s WILD variation across categories like food vs toys vs novelty items).
Some suppliers to get inspiration from:
- Faire Wholesale Pet Supplies (good for unique and crafted suppliers – higher margin!).
- Animal Supply Co (will need some volume orders here, more household name brands).
Beauty & Personal Care
Beauty and personal care is another area with traditionally higher margins, make it a good place to start.
The category itself is massive, with close to $600 billion in annual spend. Beauty products also can be quite sticky. One a customer uses your products and has a good experience, their longterm, repeat value increases.
It is very important to vet your suppliers here and perhaps run some test sample orders first, particularly for unknown or craft brands. As the front-end sales channel, being able to “tell the story” and get social or search distribution is half the battle.
For some supplier information, check out:
- WholesaleCentral (directory of beauty suppliers)
- Faire Beauty (get inspiration and find craft products)
Non Perishable Foods
Snacks? Basically anything that doesn’t need to be refrigerated.
I love this category as it’s consumable (frequent reorders) and customers are uniquely amendable to auto-orders, subscriptions, or bulk purchasing behavior if they really like the product.
Margins are not always as high as other categories, but VOLUME is frequently where you can make up the difference.
For wholesale suppliers, I’d consider these for inspiration & test orders:
Board Games, Toys, and Puzzles
The toy category is one of the most lucrative ones, particularly heading into Q4 and the Holiday season.
There is so trend watching required if you are in “hot” toy categories where kids ephemeral tastes can change quickly.
Personally, I prefer board games and puzzles that have more consistent demand and DEEP categories of more obscure or cult-fan favorites.
Nochmals, I like to use Faire to get a good survey of what’s out there and find some different angles. I’d also recommend checking out Quartermaster Direct und Bridge Distribution as quality distributors for larger orders.
Garden
Gardening can be a great niche to explore due to the deep product mix. Flower gardeners, vegetable gardeners, and just homeowners looking for lawn maintenance is a massive demographic group!
If you can find a good category and specialize with value-added content like gardening guides, local seasonal recommendations, and personalized recommendations & support… you’ll have a loyal, repeat customer base.
Two distribution platforms I’d start with are Down to Earth Distributors and also browsing the Faire marketplace for unique inspiration and trends.
Home Decor
Home decor is another great category with endless possibilities and differentiation.
Like with fashion (see below), it’s important to pay attention to what’s in style and really figure out how to properly test orders with your customers before making larger orders.
Once you have a winning product, margins can be excellent as these are less commoditized offerings.
Some suppliers to look into are Creative Co-op and – of course – the Faire wholesale marketplace here.
Kleidung
Fashion can be a BIT tricky as tastes can change quickly, but there are so many interesting “fast fashion” options these days. In general, if you order small and test what works, margins can be fantastic, particularly if you are bringing harder to find items to a more local market with some disposable income.
I typically start with Faire here to get some ideas and run initial orders to see how things sell.
I also have been experimenting with platforms like Trendsi for our online only fast fashion dropshipping presence.
Supplements
This is a tricky market to break into, but the margin on supplements can be quite high. You also have to be a bit aware of federal regulations, which is why this isn’t at the top of my list and newer sellers should proceed with some caution.
However, as a nice “up-level” you can move into white labeling supplements from categories that sell well on your initial wholesale runs. The health and nutrition space, specifically, has a well developed white labeling ecosystem.
Some good wholesalers and white label resources:
- Frontier Co-op
- Faire Supplements Category
- Vox Nutrition (an example of a white label supplier)
Final Note on the Best Wholesale Products to Sell
This is just “my” list of where I started. Hopefully something in here piqued your interest. Feel free to add comments below if you have experience with other categories or specific questions. I’ll also link to our Reddit community once I have a discussion started for this article as well (we can continue the discussion there, too).
I’ll be updating this periodically as I uncover or learn about new wholesale lanes!