Among the factors that determine the success or failure of a boutique is how you buy the wholesale clothing to sell. Sourcing for the trends, good quality, and price is an arduous task to do, as it sets you apart from other boutiques and makes you survive in this competitive industry.
If you are a boutique owner, there is a reason for that. You know how to style your customers and provide them good customer service that they cannot find anywhere else. When you buy wholesale clothing for your boutique, you must keep your customers’ tastes and preferences in mind. You also must maintain your unique branding in mind. If you do this effectively, you will be able to prosper in your business and continue making good money.
You not only need to know where to shop for wholesale fashion but how to buy wholesale clothing. Which brands will you approach and source? When you start buying wholesale clothing, you must know which ones are the right brands. It is your responsibility to maintain the right level of trust among your customers.
If you apply tactics like sourcing for the cheapest brands, pricing your goods just above the wholesale clothing price, and not keeping enough profit margin will hurt your business. It is easy to drop the prices when times are tough but hard to bring them back up. Only offer very low prices when you are having a clearance sale. At other times, try to maintain a healthy profit margin that helps to sustain your business.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
The price of your pieces will suggest their quality. You have to make sure that you are buying wholesale in a way that allows you to offer quality products to your customers. Style your pieces with your unique taste and do beautiful photography to promote them on the internet. Build your boutique by buying wholesale clothing from the right sources and at the right prices.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
4 Places to Look for Wholesale Clothing
There are 4 types of places where you can find a good wholesale clothing supplier. Let’s look into each one of them.
1. Apparel and Gift Markets
Going to apparel and gift markets allows you to interact with vendors and wholesale clothing suppliers directly. You can check the quality, feel the fabric, and negotiate on the terms in person. You also get to see how these vendors style the products. The way they display the pieces shows how the latest style trends are. You can take all this inspiration back to your retail shop and add your own unique twist to it.
In these markets, you can also find several temporary booth sections. These usually include apparel, shoes, gifts, and accessory vendors. Perhaps you can find a good wholesale clothing supplier in this section as well.
Another place within this category to look for wholesale clothing is the showrooms. Showroom owners usually curate 3 or 4 brands together in their outlets. This is actually a way for brands to penetrate new markets without having to spend on the security deposits and rental of getting an independent outlet for their business in that location. They get in touch with trusted showroom owners and share the unit with them for displaying their pieces. These showroom owners might offer you good terms for buying wholesale clothing from them.
The last place in this category is cash and carry. Some markets allow you to buy on site. You can then bring the pieces back home with you on the same day. This usually happens for accessories and jewelry but can also apply to wholesale clothing at times.
2. Buying Wholesale Online
Instead of visiting marketplaces and meeting with potential vendors in person, you can also choose to sit in the comfort of your home and buy wholesale clothing online. The popular online platforms that sell clothing include Tundra, Fashion Go, OrangeShine, LA Showroom, and Faire. Each of these online marketplaces offers a different category of clothing. You can check which one suits your boutique best. They serve different market segments and can provide you with special terms.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
3. Wholesale Clothing at the Boutique Hub
If your boutique is located in the United States, you can consider buying wholesale clothing at the Boutique Hub. The Boutique Hub partners with more than 750 brands from different parts of the world, all of which are keen to serve boutiques. If you visit the hub, you can view the pieces of these brands and meet with the founders and designers of the brands. The Boutique Hub’s groups and communities regularly share line sheets, videos, and new arrivals from all the brands. If you become a hub member, it will be easier for you to negotiate favorable terms and pricing with the brand representatives and owners. This is an excellent way to get the best deals possible for your wholesale clothing.
4. Los Angeles
There are tons of options to buy wholesale clothing in Los Angeles. If you are into fast fashion, you must have already visited Los Angeles a couple of times and shopped around in the San Pedro area. We are not recommending you book a flight ticket to LA tomorrow to go and figure that out. You would definitely need to adopt a more cost-effective and reasonable strategy to visit LA. However, it is good to know that you can get access to tons of wholesale clothing suppliers in LA.
Tips to Negotiate With a Wholesale Clothing Supplier
Here are some tips that you apply while negotiating with wholesale clothing suppliers to get the best deals possible.
1. Build a Relationship with Them
The first step to getting a better deal for wholesale clothing from anyone is to build a relationship with them. If suppliers view you as just a customer, they will not offer you their best deals. They need to see you as a friend to give you special discounts, favorable payment terms, and leverage over their other customers. Appreciate their service and respect their preferred means of communication. Ask them how their business is doing, and express to them that you are looking to build a long-term business relationship.
2. Be a Good Customer
Be the type of customer to your wholesale clothing supplier that you want to see at your boutique. Every businessman or marketer has at least a small cluster of customers that they really do not like dealing with. Avoid becoming that type of customer. Maintain a friendly attitude, and negotiate with respect.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
3. Always Make Your Payments on Time
Once you negotiate the payment terms with your wholesale clothing supplier, it is your responsibility to stick to them. Paying on time might sound like an obvious thing to do, but not everybody remembers that all the time. Right from the get-go of your agreement with your supplier, always make your payments on time. This will put you in a better position to negotiate for more lenient terms in the future. It will also increase your chances of getting more discounts on your wholesale clothing purchases from the supplier. When you get a discount from a vendor or supplier without even having to ask for it, that’s one of the best experiences of doing business.
Some new companies selling wholesale clothing demand upfront cash for their products. In such a case, you need to be aware of what you are getting into. Never sign an agreement blindly until you're sure you can follow the terms. If you manage to make your payments immediately on the first few purchases, you can show these companies that you will certainly come back for more. This will make them more willing to give you credit on your next purchase.
4. Do Not Forget to Ask
The only way for someone to consider giving you a lower price for wholesale clothing is if you ask for it. However, you should not straight away start demanding to reduce the prices. You would not want to damage the relationship that you want to build with your supplier. But when you have been dealing with a supplier for a while, you can mention how long you have been doing business with them, and remind them how you always pay on time. Also, stress the frequency of your orders. This might convince them to offer you slightly lower prices than those they initially agreed with.
If you choose to buy wholesale clothing online, you can search for websites of wholesalers in the clothing industry on the internet. Some suppliers like to build their own websites instead of selling through giant eCommerce platforms. We also have several wholesalers who have created a website for their business on our platform.
Strikingly offers plenty of features and tools that allow you to create your own website for free. If you are interested in developing a website to promote your wholesale or your boutique business, you are welcome to register for a free account with us.
