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Does anyone know of any supplies company who will deal with home businesses ???

G

gemdreamer

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Does anyone know of a Supplies distributor that will do business with someone whose business is home based?

I have a home based business selling reptiles and birds and im looking into a distributor who will sell to me, i have a tax id number and a sellers permit, the only thing is i do business out of my home and have a place at a large auction to sell.

I am looking into internet sells in the future, that is if i can find a distrubutor.

Any help would be great i am just starting this year with my business and would like to expand into Supplies.
 
Good Luck

I slipped into the door a few years ago with alot of companies out here in California but now I have refered alot of my friends to them and now they have gone back to you must have a retail store to be able to purchase from them. It is really hard to get set up without a reatil store but way to expensive to even own your own pad these days-the overhead and mark up would be way too high. There are companies that will take you in but you have to pick from them they will not ship or deliver.

Good luck, Shanell

Where do you auction/sell at?
 
I have place at the Roseville Auction, we have gotten alot of good response from individuals who have bought and just passed by. I even had a guy who was a member of a local reptile club, who heard we were selling there and came by to see how the animals looked.

I am slowly working to open a store in my town, since the one here does not carry much reptile items.

but i do have a couple of companies that will sell to me, the one distrubutor i called to see if they would sell to me. they told me that they couldnt sell to me, because i dont have a store and i dont have the overhead they do and its not fair to local stores. Please....money is money and they wouldnt even sell to me if i had an online store.....dont people realize that most of the people do their shopping online these days.....

sorry to go on about it, but i just need a supplier who can provide me with reptile supplies since this is what i sell.....

Thanks to anyone that can help.... you may email me if you dont want to disclose names on the forum....
 
Where exactly are you located? Southern or Northern. I have a list of Southern Locations but for pick up only but not sure where you are located?

Shanell
 
What type of supplies are you looking for? I have several contacts..
 
justcage said:
Andrew, shoot me an email... I can get yoiu anything from dog bones to 300 gallon aquariums... [email protected]
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Hi, I was the orginal person who started this thread, I do have some contacts but what Im in need of is reptiles supplies like, heat, basking bulbs, substrate, cages and food. Then of course pretty much anything that has to do with reptiless.

Im in northern california, but I have delt with companies in Florida, Texas and California. The problem i have the most is that most places will not deal with me unless I have a store front, I do have an outlet but currently i do not have a store yet.

I can obtain Reptiles with no problem, but its everything else.

Any help with this minor problem would be greatly appreciated.
 
gemdreamer said:
but i do have a couple of companies that will sell to me, the one distrubutor i called to see if they would sell to me. they told me that they couldnt sell to me, because i dont have a store and i dont have the overhead they do and its not fair to local stores. Please....money is money and they wouldnt even sell to me if i had an online store.....dont people realize that most of the people do their shopping online these days.....

sorry to go on about it, but i just need a supplier who can provide me with reptile supplies since this is what i sell.....

QUOTE]

Now this is a distributor that I respect. I will only deal with dry goods distributors that require a BAM store. In this day and age where "Money is Money" it is nice to see a company looking out for the best interests of its clients. Yeah, they may make the same money from you on any one item, but when your sales start cutting in on their BAM store sales they will eventually lose business. It would be the same as if a wholesale distributor started selling retail. They could sell the same items as a BAM store much cheaper and still make the same amount of money for a single item, but once the BAM store find out they will stop using that wholesaler all together and they will eventually lose money because of the volume sales.
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Steve,

The distributor isn't a super hero just understands economics.

They could sell the same items as a BAM store much cheaper and still make the same amount of money for a single item, but once the BAM store find out they will stop using that wholesaler all together and they will eventually lose money because of the volume sales.
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This is what the distributor was looking at, I just have a hard time thinking that a distributor cares very much about a BAM over an online store except as a cash flow device.

I had distributors sell to me when I was an online store only, but due to the fact that I had a commercial location (warehouse) as opposed to a direct retail store. I know that distributor knowingly sells to an online store that is out of his house through a BAM friend of his. So the distributors just don't want to upset their BAM clients (like politicians this distributor has deniability if confronted). I even know of a number of manufacturers that will sell directly to retail outlets and cover their tracks with a similiar tactic. When you get past the front line retailer, money talks - there are no people that limit who they sell to out of the goodness of their heart :D
 
I am sure that there are plenty of distributors out there who would be willing to sell to anyone. The three that I deal with for 95% of my supplies will not sell to anyone without a storefront. If I found out that they were selling to internet retailers I would probably just go somewhere else because there are at least two more within 50 miles of me that i have not bothered to deal with, and I am sure that there are other stores who would also. They key is distribution In a 200 mile radius that most of my distributors seem to limit themselves to they may have 100 stores or maybe more. If only a handful of these strores stopped dealing with them because they were selling to internet retailers they would probably lose more business from the BAM stores than they could gain from the internet sellers. The reason is that even if they did sell to the internet retailers at the same price they sold to me, the internet retailers still would be hard pressed to meet the prices of places like foster and smith and similar online retailers. I know if I sold my supplies at the same prices they did I would be working on a 10% margin or less. These huge online retailers are not buying from the same distributors that I am. If they were they would not be able to sell the stuff for the prices they do. Are they buying direct from the Mfg. I am sure that in many cases they are and quite frankly I think this is BS. I know I am not ever going to be able to do anything about it but I get my satisfaction in doing business with people I choose to. In some cases I will pay more because of the support I get from the distributor. I think its worth it.

Steve Schindler
 
Just me again, just to set the story straight on my end, I am not a internet reseller, but I do have an outlet, but it is not a store front. I just made the comment about them not even selling to someone who had a Internet store, because I dont think its right that they dont give someone else that is starting the opportunity to purchase from them.

The place i was refering to is not even within 100 miles from me they are from out of state, I mean i could understand if they were doing business close to me but I know who supplies the local pet shop in my town and it wasnt the one I contacted, as a matter of fact the one the local pet shop deals with would have delt with me but i didnt want to have to pick up i want it delivered.

Plus I would not even be competing with the local pet store in the first place, because they dont deal in reptiles only fish and birds.

I am new and starting slowly and it make take me a year or two but, I plan on being the next store in town. Wouldnt you rather buy locally then have everyone buying online to get what they need.

The reason I started this thread is to get some contact info that I was lacking.
 
because I dont think its right that they dont give someone else that is starting the opportunity to purchase from them.
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Distributors care about sales volume. If you come to them with either verifiable numbers (hard to do when starting out) or a solid business plan they will sit down with you and see what can be done.

I am new and starting slowly and it make take me a year or two but, I plan on being the next store in town. Wouldnt you rather buy locally then have everyone buying online to get what they need.
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I want all the people in Temecula, CA to buy locally. Everyone else needs to buy online :D

Frankly, my opinion, is that anyone doing retail business in this period of history that is still thinking of "brick and mortar" and "online" as completely separate entities needs to really review their business plan. We just opened our retail store last year, and I am SOOOO sorry we were "online" only for so long. The benefits are overwhelming. And the other pet stores in town don't touch "online" which gives me a huge advantage over them.

The reason I started this thread is to get some contact info that I was lacking.
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This probably is, and rightfully so, the most protected information out there. I'm amazed that an online/home based business that competes directly on price (where their survival is based upon volume only) was willing to share their contacts and dilute their customer base, but I guess everyone has their own business plan. :rofl:
 
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