Retail and Wholesale: What’s the Difference?

Thanks to the internet, consumers have so many options when it comes to purchasing clothes and keeping up with trends. The main difference is whether a consumer should buy retail or wholesale. Most people associate retail with higher prices and wholesale with cheaper products. This isn’t completely true. What if we told you can get the same quality of clothing at a lower cost? We’re here to put a stop o the myths and provide you with the factual differences.

The Basics

Wholesale clothing retail is when the manufacturer is involved in distributing the clothing or when a wholesale vendor is purchasing the clothes in bulk at a discounted rate from the manufacture and selling them at an attractive rate. Whereas, retail clothing retail includes a longer supply chain such as manufacturer, to retailing, to consumer.

Pricing

Both retails and wholesale-retail involve strategic pricing for all parties to make a profit. Wholesale pricing is based on rates charged from the manufacturer and retail is charging that as well plus a retailer to consumer price. Wholesalers focus on earning a profit by charging more than what it cost to create the products. Where on the flip side, retailers need to mark up the price significantly to earn a profit since they also must account for distribution. Fun fact- Have you ever heard of “suggested retail price?” This is the suggested price that manufacturers recommend the retailers offer the price for.

Everyone knows that the clothing industry is profit-focused so of course both retailers and wholesalers will be marking up the price in order to pocket some pretty pennies. The key difference is how much they are marking up the costs. Safe to say, wholesale vendors take the win on the price difference.

Value

Most people believe that buying wholesale means they are losing out on valuable product and to be a trendsetting you must buy a $500 sweatshirt with holes in it… Yes, we’re talking about you Kanye West. “You get what you pay for” isn’t particularly true in this field. It’s 100% true that you can get quality, top trending, fashionable clothing through wholesale vendors. Their products are just as good. If you’re still unsure, consider checking out ways to find the best wholesale clothing vendor by asking a friend or checking out customer reviews.

Variety

Retailers can offer more variety because they are purchasing clothes based on individual sales for personal consumption where wholesale vendors do have to order in bulk. The reason they order in bulk is the same reason they’re able to sell the clothes at a great price. So, retailers take the W when it comes to variety as they will have more inventory of certain styles, colors, etc. However, I’d like to emphasize that that doesn’t mean wholesale vendors won’t have variety.

Take away

The biggest difference is the strategy of how retail vendors and wholesale vendors get their clothing products from the manufacturer to the consumers. Do we cut out the middleman or charge less to sell more? What I’m here to tell you is to not be discouraged from purchasing wholesale. Give a try!