When you shop for inventory for your boutique, you try to find trendy, high-quality clothing and accessories for a discount. You need to find a reliable company that provides excellent customer service.
You can have this and much more with the right wholesale supplier. But how do you find the right wholesaler for your boutique? It takes a little bit of effort on your part, but the results are well worth it. Below are tips and best practices when purchasing inventory for your wholesale clothing boutique.
Find a Wholesale Supplier in Your Niche
Your fashion niche is the target customer for which you purchase inventory. You must know your customer. What do they want? Which clothing sizes will meet their needs? Think back to conversations with customers. What questions do they ask? For example, are they asking you for specific colors, sizes, or fabric materials? Questions your customers ask are clues to how you can better meet their needs.
With your customer in mind, search for a wholesaler that matches your niche. They must provide many clothing products and accessories, not just a few. If your customers are plus-size, look for a wholesale company prioritizing plus-size clothing. Don’t choose one that sells only a handful of plus-size options as an add-on to their regular sizes.
Find a Wholesale Supplier in the United States
Finding a wholesaler near your boutique is ideal but may not be realistic. As you look outside your region, start with those nearest your location and move outward. The closer you are to your supplier, the easier it is to visit their facility and ensure it meets your standards. You may be tempted to buy wholesale outside the United States. Sure, you may get products at lower prices, but there are more risks with overseas wholesalers, including the following:
- Shipping costs will be higher and take longer.
- When there are shipping delays, you can’t drive to pick up your products, and you can’t switch shipping carriers.
- Returning items to the supplier will take just as long as receiving them.
- You can’t visit the wholesaler to inspect the product quality.
- You may not speak the same language as their customer service representatives.
Contracts created by foreign suppliers may have words you do not understand or that can be misinterpreted. Reading the fine print becomes challenging. Working with a wholesale supplier in the United States eliminates all these potential risks.
Where to Look for a Wholesale Supplier
There are many ways to search for a wholesale supplier. You can search online by typing “wholesale fashion supplier” in the search bar. Add more keywords to your search to narrow the results. For example, “wholesale fashion supplier women’s bridal.” Or “wholesale supplier fashion clothing jewelry accessories for women.”
Another way to meet wholesalers is by attending industry trade shows. Fashion trade shows happen across the United States every season. Attending a trade show means handling the products in person before ordering to ensure they meet your quality standards.
Find a Wholesale Supplier with Great Customer Service
The customer service of a wholesale supplier is critical to your boutique’s success. They are your connection to the products that will make your customers happy. However, even if a wholesaler has the best products on the planet, avoid working with them if they have terrible customer service.
To learn more about a supplier’s customer service, consider placing a small-batch order for evaluation. Suppliers should do the following:
- Have friendly, timely responses
- Offer multiple channels for purchasing
- Provide excellent communication
- Resolve issues quickly and fairly
- Assist you in getting great deals
- Be eager to make your customers happy
- Allow communication on multiple formats
- Provide product images for use in marketing
While you are not looking to make new best friends with the customer service staff, you want to build excellent professional relationships with them. The more they get to know your business, customers, and goals, the better they can help you reach success.
Find a Wholesale Supplier That Helps You Succeed
The wholesaler should want you to succeed just as much as you do. You are their customer, and they should go above and beyond to keep you as a customer, which may include the following:
- Price and Profits
A great wholesale supplier will work with you to determine how to reduce your costs, allowing higher profit margins. Most wholesalers can negotiate terms when you buy in bulk. For example, you may get free shipping on orders over a particular cost. You may be able to negotiate small-batch ordering, free samples, returns, and more.
- Variety of Products
To make your life easier, find a wholesale supplier that offers a one-stop-shopping experience. Wholesale Fashion Square, for example, provides fashion products that meet the customer’s needs from head to toe. You can purchase clothing in regular and plus-sizing, graphic tees, jewelry, hats, bags, and beauty. Accessories include sunglasses, beach towels, socks, slippers, belts, scarves, intimates, hair accessories, and masks.
Wholesale Fashion Square also makes shopping easy. You can shop by category, season, special event, style, size, and price. You can pre-order products or buy them in a flash sale. They give you discounts and promotional offers on markdowns that have been marked down.
- Reliability
The right wholesale supplier knows the importance of delivering your items on time and in great condition. You should feel confident that your wholesaler will not let you down.
- Quality
Product quality must be exceptional. The wholesaler should work with manufacturers that use high-quality materials your customers can enjoy for a long time.
- Returns and Refunds
You can expect products to arrive broken or damaged due to no fault of the wholesaler. Things happen in the shipping process that is out of your control. Your wholesaler should work with you to replace the damaged items.
Purchasing Inventory Takeaway
If you are ready to purchase inventory for your wholesale clothing boutique, don’t forget to have fun. As a boutique owner, you deserve to enjoy the rewards of your efforts.
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