Trade only supplier of Promotional items, keyrings, pens, drinkware etc.,?

[Lucan Unlordly]

At one time it was easy enough to find a trade only supplier for just about anything. Nowadays it seems that everybody is selling direct to end user.

Any recommendations for trade only, or worthy discount promotional goods suppliers?

 

[Mr D]

Corporate gifts.

Should be able to find dozens of companies offering this. Useful for swag.
A number of printing places will offer such services though for some its outsourced.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Thanks Mr D, I'm usually pretty good at this but in this instance the websites I'm finding are offering items at prices we would sell at, many of which look to be sourced from our previous trade supplier.

 

[Mr D]

Thanks Mr D, I'm usually pretty good at this but in this instance the websites I'm finding are offering items at prices we would sell at, many of which look to be sourced from our previous trade supplier.

If looking for a handful of items then generally that is the price you will get. If looking at say 2,000 of a particular pen then discuss the matter - the website prices are not always geared to the high volume.


You get the likes of Custom Promotional Keyrings at 4imprint as an example and price varies.

For producing to sell, would recommend also looking overseas.
UK I found one type of item was say 60p each for 500 of them, overseas could buy starting at 1,000 of them for 15p. Meaning 1,000 of the item was cheaper than 500 of the item!
However the company I dealt with 7 years ago isn't around any more so I can't recommend it to you.

UK has the advantage of being able to nip over and see products directly, and resolve problems quickly. Overseas has the advantage of price to buy, though shipping and delivery times now are ..... not as they were.

 

[SillyBill]

Internet has changed everything, including for manufacturers. My main business is trade only (one of increasingly fewer), different industry but same principles. Last year we set up a business that would source from our main business and exclusively sell to end user (new to us). Not done too much with it as yet but slowly ramping up. We didn't want the aggro of our main business being seen to compete with our customers so worked it that way, no secrets to anyone who can look it up the ownership on Companies House but keeps it more distinct and our other business at best is a preferential customer with good prices, nothing more.

We felt we had to do this to leverage the transition overall to online selling which is obviously become more important vs B&M buyers, there are risks upstream too and to be honest we were increasingly struggling to see the value some customers bring to the table when their marketing is essentially chucking our/their products on Ebay or Amazon for as cheap as possible. If that is the extent of it, we'll sell to them but also to our own brand and significantly up our margins on whatever we sell through ourselves. Extra order picker is only real staffing consideration. We're careful about where we enter and for what products as not trying to compete with customers who do add value by creating the opportunities we as a manufacturer couldn't. I just wouldn't expect a manufacturer to stay trade only these days if their throats are being cut by customers whose only marketing strategy is selling stuff for pennies profit.

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

In this instance I'm only trying to satisfy a couple of orders. For one product I would use a previous supplier who we had an account with but it's taken over a week and we still cannot get access to the website. Forget Covid, when this happened a couple of years back it took in excess of 3 months and 10 seconds to sort, the seconds being how long it took for the operative to tick a box!

Trade suppliers are out there for more well known products such as pens and keyrings but it's still a search. 4imprint are selling a keyring for 39p that I can buy for 26p elsewhere and a Mug at 0.91p less than the makers RRP. Consistency isn't key it seems

 

[Mr D]

Internet has changed everything, including for manufacturers. My main business is trade only (one of increasingly fewer), different industry but same principles. Last year we set up a business that would source from our main business and exclusively sell to end user (new to us). Not done too much with it as yet but slowly ramping up. We didn't want the aggro of our main business being seen to compete with our customers so worked it that way, no secrets to anyone who can look it up the ownership on Companies House but keeps it more distinct and our other business at best is a preferential customer with good prices, nothing more.

We felt we had to do this to leverage the transition overall to online selling which is obviously become more important vs B&M buyers, there are risks upstream too and to be honest we were increasingly struggling to see the value some customers bring to the table when their marketing is essentially chucking our/their products on Ebay or Amazon for as cheap as possible. If that is the extent of it, we'll sell to them but also to our own brand and significantly up our margins on whatever we sell through ourselves. Extra order picker is only real staffing consideration. We're careful about where we enter and for what products as not trying to compete with customers who do add value by creating the opportunities we as a manufacturer couldn't. I just wouldn't expect a manufacturer to stay trade only these days if their throats are being cut by customers whose only marketing strategy is selling stuff for pennies profit.

If the manufacturer is selling plenty of stuff at the price set by the manufacturer then how is their throat cut by customers selling for pennies profit?
How is customer pricing anything to do with manufacturer? Sell to me at 10 quid why is it your business what price I sell it on at? Or are your contracts specifying a retail price that must be used in a price collusion deal?

 

[SillyBill]

If the manufacturer is selling plenty of stuff at the price set by the manufacturer then how is their throat cut by customers selling for pennies profit?
How is customer pricing anything to do with manufacturer? Sell to me at 10 quid why is it your business what price I sell it on at? Or are your contracts specifying a retail price that must be used in a price collusion deal?

The race to the bottom is not a new concept; discounting downstream ultimately works its way up the supply chain to producer level. This I would have thought is a fairly well understood business premise.

And correct it is none of my business what price you or any other seller sells at assuming we transacted in the first instance. My point was merely relating the experience of a trade manufacturer giving a possible reason as to why you are likely seeing less trade only sellers. Put simply, pre-online days it was harder to find the end customers, now the investment to find those customers is a website, some SEO and a staff member or two. Manufacturers, as per any other business type, are bound to revaluate their business models to see if they can leverage more opportunities online post COVID. I maintain selling to trade exclusively is increasingly only making sense when your trade customers are creating real value for the whole supply chain, converting the manufactured product into a well-branded, marketed product which all actors can leverage margin on. Where that isn't happening it makes sense to do both now as a manufacturer IMO, sell to the discounters if you can live with the prices (useful for volume sometimes) but also sell through your own channels and retain some margin.

 

[Ally Maxwell]

In this instance I'm only trying to satisfy a couple of orders. For one product I would use a previous supplier who we had an account with but it's taken over a week and we still cannot get access to the website. Forget Covid, when this happened a couple of years back it took in excess of 3 months and 10 seconds to sort, the seconds being how long it took for the operative to tick a box!

Trade suppliers are out there for more well known products such as pens and keyrings but it's still a search. 4imprint are selling a keyring for 39p that I can buy for 26p elsewhere and a Mug at 0.91p less than the makers RRP. Consistency isn't key it seems

If only we still had the Exchange & Mart

 

[Mr D]

The race to the bottom is not a new concept; discounting downstream ultimately works its way up the supply chain to producer level. This I would have thought is a fairly well understood business premise.

And correct it is none of my business what price you or any other seller sells at assuming we transacted in the first instance. My point was merely relating the experience of a trade manufacturer giving a possible reason as to why you are likely seeing less trade only sellers. Put simply, pre-online days it was harder to find the end customers, now the investment to find those customers is a website, some SEO and a staff member or two. Manufacturers, as per any other business type, are bound to revaluate their business models to see if they can leverage more opportunities online post COVID. I maintain selling to trade exclusively is increasingly only making sense when your trade customers are creating real value for the whole supply chain, converting the manufactured product into a well-branded, marketed product which all actors can leverage margin on. Where that isn't happening it makes sense to do both now as a manufacturer IMO, sell to the discounters if you can live with the prices (useful for volume sometimes) but also sell through your own channels and retain some margin.

An increasing number of suppliers, not just manufacturers, now restrict who they sell to.
Online only sellers? No thanks. Bricks and mortar sellers? Sure.
A few also restrict geographically - no new customer within xxx distance of existing customer who maintains account.

 

[Scottishgifts4u]

https://www.southfield-stationers.com we used them a few times.

 

[ADW]

You need to be more specific on products required. If you join one of the catalogue groups then you have access to a whole array of trade suppliers.

 

[Talay]

You need to be more specific on products required. If you join one of the catalogue groups then you have access to a whole array of trade suppliers.

Would you care to expand who these catalogue groups are ?

 

[Greg PW Shearman]

we have just put an order in with dial marketing highly recommend

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

Update: I found the website of the British Promotional Merchandise Association which I'm fairly sure at one time had links to specific product manufacturers but now appears to be a long list of catalogue suppliers.

 

[anonuk]

We do a lot of trade work but also end user sales too. When we first started out, I was quite naive about pricing and was more bothered about getting the orders. We ended up with customers that only cared about the fact they were paying the lowest price possible.

When I finally put my business head on, I realised that we were making 25-50p profit on an item that one particular customer was making £3 profit on. We were also dropshipping the product to his customer, and having to replace damaged or lost items at our expense. I decided enough was enough and put our prices up. We lost some customers but overall our business is in a much better place now.

Ultimately though, we do offer a fair pricing for ourselves and our customers so our customers can make profit, but I have noticed a lot of changes in how lots of ‘trade’ companies are pricing things now.