Wholesale businesses can operate in a couple of ways. A business can purchase large quantities of goods from the manufacturer to resell them directly to consumers (D2C wholesale, generally out of a warehouse), or other businesses can produce their own products and sell to a variety of retailers (B2B wholesale) that, in turn, sell individual products to end-users. The bottom line is that wholesale businesses purchase or produce products in bulk to sell them to consumers or other retailers.

The wholesale industry is thriving, thanks in part to the explosive growth of e-commerce retailers. D2C e-commerce in particular is helping drive demand for more wholesalers to keep them stocked. While this is creating new opportunities for wholesalers to support the new supply chain it is important to understand more about the process and how to sell wholesale before creating a wholesale start-up, or employing it within your existing business.