How I Recently Got Into Wholesale (You Can Too)

I didn’t paint much this past month because I’ve been busy building out the wholesale aspect of my business. Several years ago, a local shop approached me and asked if I wanted to sell my prints in their store. I was beyond thrilled!

I worked with them for over a year, before realizing there was so much more to wholesale than I ever realized. They would submit their order via e-mail (just listing out the prints they wanted), and I would drop off at the store. While this worked okay locally, I had no idea how this would scale. I felt bad that I didn’t have a more streamlined wholesale process for the shop. Imposter syndrome started to kick in big time. It was becoming obvious that I had no clue what I was doing.

In 2019, I decided to take a break from wholesale to figure out what this would look like for my business. Then the dreaded 2020 happened, and I still hadn’t gotten around to tackling this. Finally, this past month (March 2021), I threw an enormous amount of time into wholesale. My Etsy shop was finally stable, so I was running out of reasons not to.

My first step was figuring out pricing. Since my short experience with wholesale in 2019, I had completely changed my printing technique to offer high quality Giclée prints. My pricing had gone up significantly as a result. I had to make sure I could still turn a profit selling to retailers. They would need low enough pricing for them to make a profit too. In case you weren’t aware, wholesale pricing should be 30-50% below the retail price. The closer to 50%, the better. You really need to keep pricing consistent across the board. Since I was already selling on Etsy, and didn’t want to undercut the shops I was selling to, I had to take 30-50% off those prices. My Etsy pricing became my “suggested retail pricing.”

The way I turn a wholesale profit is by saving on shipping costs. Since I ship FedEx, and each print costs around $15 to ship, this was how wholesale pricing became feasible for me. By shipping a minimum of 5 prints at a time, I save a ton of money, allowing me to sell the prints themselves for less.

Step two was building out my wholesale catalog. I wasn’t going to offer all my prints wholesale, so I had to figure out which ones made the most sense. I mostly just chose my best sellers from Etsy. For my catalog, I dropped in all my art print imagery for about 75 prints, along with SKUS, sizes offered, and pricing. At the end of the catalog, I included a little information about my printing technique and the ordering process.

Step three was adding a wholesale portal to my On Lane Avenue website. The word “portal” sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. I added one page where new wholesalers can apply to sell with me. Then, I added a second password protected page, with a scrollable catalog and listings for each size/quantity option to be added to a cart. The only reason it needs to be password protected is so everyone can’t access this discounted pricing.

Step four was creating an old school wholesale order form, just in case people didn’t want to purchase via online checkout. I linked this on my wholesale portal as well. It’s basically a fillable pdf form that can be submitted via email or snail mail.

My last step was applying become a seller on Faire. I wanted to make sure I had everything else figured out before I applied, to increase my chances of getting approved. I’ve seen a lot of value in partnering with outside sites for different aspects of my business, because they generate traffic like I can’t. While Faire does take a portion of my sales, it’s a reasonable amount of 15%. I think a lot of artists make the mistake of trying to work solely through their own websites, and things never get off the ground. These sites help people find you who wouldn’t have otherwise known you existed. People can still go through my website if that’s how they found me, but I like the added option of Faire promoting me as well.

After several days, I was finally approved to sell on Faire. Once I was approved, I had 30 days to go through their onboarding process and fill out a line sheet with all my items. This was incredibly time consuming, but a necessary step. The line sheet is basically an Excel document with all your product offerings - SKUS, imagery, and prices. It’s pretty much a simplified version of my catalog. Once I went through their onboarding process, it only took Faire a few days to build out my page. I was thrilled they did this step for me, because it make my life so much easier!

My On Lane Avenue Faire Page

After a week and a half on Faire, I got my first big wholesale order. I was thrilled! I feel so accomplished, and like I finally know what I’m doing. Now that I have this basic wholesale infrastructure setup, I don’t have to worry about going through the process again. Every year, I will just update my catalog and line sheet with new prints. While the process was time consuming, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought. It just required a lot of research and time on my end, because I had a big learning curve. I really knew nothing about wholesale before this past month.

My hopes is that this article saves you a lot of time and research if you’re trying to get into wholesale. Don’t be intimidated by the “wholesale lingo.” Wholesale is meant to sound exclusive for the shop owners, but it often scares away sellers. If you’re already producing a product, it’s not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

Anything I didn’t cover in this article? Let me know your question in the comments below!