HOW TO FIND AND BUY WHOLESALE CLOTHING

As an ecommerce expert and business coach who primarily works with new and emerging brands in the fashion and lifestyle space, I regularly receive emails and comments from people who struggle to find great wholesale clothes.

They struggle to find wholesale clothes for three main reasons:

Outreach and getting the wholesale supplier to respond

Buying samples and being disappointed with the quality

International sizes not matching up with US or UK sizing

As someone who’s experienced all of the above, I know they’re speaking facts. And while there are a ton of wholesale directories that you can sign up to, that doesn’t mean you’ve struck gold. And it’s important to remember that people can have a diverse range of experiences all working with the same wholesale clothing vendor, so do your research.

Exercise your own discernment, and don’t forget to do small test purchases for vendors you’re skeptical about.

Let’s answer some of the questions I get when it comes to buying wholesale clothing online and in-person.

How To Use Forums and Facebook Groups To Find Wholesalers

When it comes to using forums to find wholesalers online, I like to start with the search function, because most questions have already been asked.

Using the search function means you can find those questions which contain a keyword, and this will pull up any threads that contain that keyword.

Next, I like to read the comments. This is where you’ll find people sharing helpful suggestions.

Expert Tip: Don’t be surprised to discover hordes of wholesale suppliers and agents lurking in forums. Sometimes it’s obvious who they are, but oftentimes it’s not – which is how they like it.

If you find a comment which feels and reads a bit like a press statement or an ad, then it’s likely to be from an agent.

When in doubt, feel free to ask – especially if it’s a fresh comment or thread.

Now, be warned this type of information mining can be slow and time consuming – especially when you factor in any due diligence you may want to do on the companies you find. But I like to type in the name of the wholesaler, scanning any results for words like “review’, “complaint’, “avoid’, “scam’.

Here are a few ecommerce forums worth checking out:

• Ecommerce Fuel
• Digital Point
• Reddit Ecommerce Forum
• Ask Quora
• Shopify Forum

But here’s where it gets tricky and your discernment needs to come into play.

There are some wholesalers who will fraudulently post bad reviews of their competitors to steal their potential customers. So you need to balance out what you read with a little common sense, and possibly check more than one source.