You've read the step, so you already know the shape of it: check that retail divided by two still clears your true cost, build three documents from your brand kit in an afternoon, and start local and warm with the shops in your city. This module doesn't repeat any of that. It's the execution detail underneath each part: what actually goes on a line sheet, the terms you haven't thought about yet, the exact five shops to approach first, how the first order and conversation really go, and how to turn one stockist into a standing one. Treat it as the field manual for your first ten wholesale conversations.
Reading the maths properly
The step told you the test: does retail divided by two still clear your true cost? Here's the detail that decides how far you can take it.
Run the test one product at a time, not across your shop as an average, because the answer is usually different for each. Your labour-heavy pieces often fail (there's no room under half-price once your hours are paid properly), while your quicker-to-make or higher-margin pieces sail through. The ones that pass become your wholesale line. The ones that fail have two honest futures: raise the retail price until they pass (sometimes the wholesale test simply reveals you've been underpricing at retail all along), or keep them retail-only and never think about it again. Both are fine. You're not looking for a shop that wholesales everything; you're looking for the handful of products that wholesale well.
One quiet thing to check before you go further: your capacity. Wholesale trades margin for volume, and volume means making the same piece many times, on someone else's timeline. If your joy is in one-of-a-kind work and you'd resent making forty identical items, that's worth knowing now. Wholesale rewards the maker who's happy to batch, and there's no shame in deciding that isn't you.
The line sheet, line by line
The step says a clean catalogue page per product. Here's everything a buyer actually looks for, so yours answers their questions before they have to ask.
The cover: your logo, your one-line positioning, your contact details, and your minimum opening order (the smallest first order you'll accept, by value or by units). Buyers decide in seconds whether you're worth a conversation, and a clear minimum up front filters out mismatches kindly.
Then one clean block per product:
- The photo (your existing Stage 2 hero shot, doing double duty)
- The product name and a short code (a SKU) so orders can't get muddled
- A one-line description a shop assistant could repeat to a customer
- Materials, sizes, and the variations you offer
- The wholesale price and the suggested retail price (buyers want to see their margin at a glance)
- The minimum units per style
- The lead time
- Whether it arrives ready to put straight on the shelf
Keep it genuinely clean, because a buyer reads dozens of these. Give it white space and make it as clear as possible. A cramped, busy sheet reads as a maker who'll be hard to work with, and businesses don't want to read them. Your beautiful photos should carry the charm, so the sheet itself can be plain.
The terms you haven't thought about
The step names the big three (minimum order, lead times, payment terms). Here are the ones that catch first-time wholesalers off guard, so you can decide them now instead of mid-negotiation.
- Payment timing. First orders paid in full on confirmation is completely normal and correct to ask for. "Net 30" (the shop pays within 30 days of delivery) is something you might offer trusted stockists much later, never as an opener. Getting paid upfront on order one protects your cash and your peace of mind.
- Reorder minimums can be lower than the opening order. The first order proves the relationship; reorders should be easy, so a gentler minimum here encourages them.
- Shipping, charged to the shop at cost, and factored into who pays for what.
- A simple damages line: report within 7 days with a photo, and you'll replace or credit. Clear and fair, and it prevents the awkward conversation later.
- Your exclusivity answer, decided in advance. A shop may ask to be the only stockist in their area. A friendly "not yet, but let's revisit once we've had a good season together" keeps the door open without locking you in early.
- The consignment question, also decided in advance. Some shops will ask to pay only for what sells, keeping the rest on their shelves at your risk. Wholesale-first is the professional default, because consignment puts all the risk on you. It's a "maybe, for a shop I really trust, later," not an opener.
Your first five shops
The step says start local and warm. Here's how to actually build that list, because "email some boutiques" is where most people stall. Your first five are hiding in places you already know:
- The shop that already sells work adjacent to yours (adjacent, not identical). They've proven their customers buy things like yours, and they need you to fill a gap, not compete with a maker they already carry.
- The gift shop your own customers have mentioned in messages or reviews. Your buyers have quietly told you where they shop; go back and read.
- The store you'd be genuinely proud to be stocked in. Aim for one aspirational name. If they say yes, it becomes proof for every pitch after.
- The shops in the neighbourhoods your persona actually shops in. You defined that person in Stage 1. Go where they browse.
- Anyone who has ever asked "do you sell wholesale?" Check your old Etsy messages. Sometimes your first stockist has already raised their hand and you missed it.
Rank them warmest first, and lead with the ones you can walk into. "Made twenty minutes from here" is a selling point shops love to put on a little shelf card, and a local first stockist you can pop in on teaches you the whole rhythm gently before you post anything to a stranger.
The outreach that gets a yes
The step gives you the choice: a brief email, or a visit with a sample. Here's how each actually lands.
The visit beats the email, almost always, because a buyer can hold your work, and holding is believing. If you can walk in, do. Go at a quiet time (never a Saturday morning, when they're run off their feet), bring one sample and a printed line sheet, ask for two minutes, and leave the sheet whether or not the owner is in. The whole script is five sentences: who you are, what you make, why it fits their shelves specifically (name something they already stock), what you've left with them, and one easy next step.
If you're emailing, the same five sentences, line sheet attached, subject line plain and specific ("Local handmade [product] for [shop name]"). Send to a named person where you can find one, not to "info@".
Either way, make it about their shelves, not your shop. A buyer's only real question is "will this sell here, and will this maker actually deliver?" Everything you built through the roadmap answers it: your reviews, your polished brand, your website that says established. You're not asking a favour. You're offering a shop something their customers will want.
Fulfilling the first order
A yes is the start, not the finish, and the first order is your audition for every reorder. Do it like the professional the roadmap made you:
Confirm the details in writing (items, quantities, totals, delivery date) so nobody's guessing. Schedule the production around your normal orders, which is exactly why the terms page padded your lead times. Invoice simply and clearly. Pack it for retail display, not gifting, because they're unpacking onto a shelf, not opening a present; sturdy and organised beats tissue and ribbon here. Deliver on or before the date, every time, because reliability is the entire reputation. Then follow up two weeks later to ask how it's selling. That follow-up is not a nicety; it's where reorders are born, and it's the question that turns one order into a standing relationship.
Keeping a stockist for years
One reliable stockist is worth more than five you chased once, because reorders are pure compounding: no pitch, no marketing, just a standing order that arrives every season. Reliability runs both ways, and your side is simple to name. Consistent quality, honest lead times, a fresh line sheet in their inbox before each buying season (so reordering is effortless), and little extras that help their staff sell you: a shelf card with your story, care cards to hand to customers, maybe a small counter display. Make it easy for them to sell your work, and they'll keep choosing it over the maker who makes them do the work.
Guard your own channels kindly as you grow. Your Etsy shop, your website, and your markets stay yours; wholesale sits alongside them, never instead of them. And keep your retail prices honest across all of it, because a shop that finds you undercutting them online will not reorder, and they'd be right not to.