Being Approached For Wholesale - The Good And The Bad

Every now and then I get a message through my Folksy shop or Artfire shop asking if I sell wholesale. Yes I do and I'm happy to discuss my terms with the sender.
There's just one catch - as it's a potential business "contract" I really do expect the initial inquiry to be business-like and professional.

Here's an example of a recent wholesale inquiry -

are you doing wholesale? if yes please let me know.I will buy. email ---------

That's it, no contact name, no other information! Doesn't exactly fill you with confidence does it? I normally ignore this type of inquiry but I did reply pointing out more info and a contact name would be helpful and not surprisingly no reply was forthcoming.

In complete contrast I was contacted by a fellow Folksy seller just before Christmas asking if I sold wholesale. She gave me information about where she would be selling my jewellery and a link to the the gallery so I could check it out. I know I don't have any control over what people do with my jewellery once they've bought it wholesale but it was nice to be given the information. Needless to say the wholesale sale went ahead.

So a few tips for anyone who wants to buy wholesale from online handmade sites -

Find out the seller's name - it's usually in their profile or at least use their shop name to address them!
Give a brief explanation as to why you want to buy wholesale and an idea of quantities
Give a contact name

It's easy to feel the potential wholesale buyer is doing us a favour but in fact it's the other way round - they have an opportunity to buy unique handmade items at a discounted rate to no doubt sell on for a reasonable profit - the least they can do is approach a seller in a professional manner - they may find doing so will result in more success :D

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