Wholesale is selling to other businesses at your own prices: salons, shops and distributors. Each wholesale account is of a type you set up, which gives it a price list and its terms. Buyers sign in to your store with their own email to order at their prices, you take an order for them, or you ring them up at the register with the account as the client. Open it from Products, Wholesale.
1. Account types
- Under Account types, add the kinds of business you sell to: Salon, Spa, Retail store, Distributor.
- Give each a price list, payment terms and a credit limit. A new account of the type starts on these; you can change either for one account.
- Write What it is, for businesses applying: who it is for and what it takes to qualify. It shows on the application form.
- To reward buying more, add tiers: a name, what an account must buy in the last 12 months to reach it, and the price list it then buys on. An account moves up once it reaches the amount, and back down if it buys less.
2. Price lists
- Under Price lists, add one: a Percent off retail on what it covers (every product, or some collections).
- Give any product its own price, volume prices (more off for more bought), a minimum and a case pack.
- Set an Order minimum for online orders on the list, before tax and shipping.
An account's own list wins over its type's, tiers included.
3. Accounts and applications
- Add an account yourself under Accounts, or let businesses apply: under Store settings, switch on Take applications online. Your store's Wholesale page then has an application form.
- New applications show under Accounts as Applied. Open one, check it, and choose Approve and email them or Decline. An approved account can be put on Pause: its people see retail prices and cannot order on account until you Approve again.
- Each account can have several people who order for it, each signing in with their own email. An email orders for one account.
- Mark an account Tax exempt, with the day the exemption runs out if it does. After that day, tax is charged again.
4. Orders
- Buyers sign in to your store's Wholesale page with a code emailed to them (no password) and order at their prices, in the packs they buy in.
- Take an order puts an order together for an account: choose the account, its products show at its prices, choose how it gets to them, and review it. With the buyer's email, the link to pay is emailed; without it, copy the link and send it any way you like.
- At the register, put the account's client on the sale and its wholesale prices apply.
Orders to ship wait in Shipping with the rest.
5. Terms, invoices and reminders
An account that buys on terms (net 30, say) has its orders put On account: each shows there until it is paid, with what is Past due. Record a payment when a check, cash or a transfer comes in; it waits in Undeposited funds until you match the deposit in the books. Buyers can pay an open invoice by card from your store.
Under Store settings, switch on Remind accounts about their invoices: up to four reminders, before and after the day it is due.
An account on terms can give an Early-payment discount (2% when paid within 10 days makes it 2/10 net 30). Its invoices say what paying early takes off, and a payment short by that much is recorded in Books, Deductions & Chargebacks as an early-payment deduction.
Each account in the list carries its cost to serve over the last year (the goods, freight, fulfillment, shipping, fees, chargebacks, deductions and returns against what it bought), with the margin; a thin margin is marked. Books, Reports, Cost to serve breaks it down.
The line sheet
Line sheet makes your wholesale catalog: every product sold at wholesale with its picture, codes, packs and prices, at one account's prices or a price list's, to print, save as a PDF or download as a spreadsheet.
Wholesale accounts in the sales CRM
With the sales CRM on, a wholesale account is a CRM account too: one applying online is a prospect, one approved is an account with its buyer as a contact. See The sales CRM.
Your own line on the marketplace
A business with a product line of its own can sell it to other businesses on the app's marketplace: in Inventory, Purchasing, Marketplace, choose Set up my brand. My brand then holds the brand page, the products with their wholesale prices, the businesses that apply to buy (approved onto one of your price lists, with their terms), and the orders that come in, to accept and ship. Orders there are not charged through the app; you bill each buyer on your own terms. See The marketplace.
Selling to retailers with EDI
A retailer that buys on EDI is a wholesale account with a trading partner set up on it: its purchase orders come in as X12 documents, and your acknowledgment, ship notice and invoice go back the same way, with GS1 carton labels to its guide. See Selling to retailers with EDI.
Best practices
- Set prices on the type's price list, not account by account. A change then reaches every account of that type.
- Use tiers to reward growth. Accounts see what it takes to reach the next price.
- Ask for what qualifies a business on the application (a license, a storefront), and check it before you approve.
- Set a credit limit for every account on terms, and switch on the reminders. Most late payments are forgotten, not refused.
- Send a fresh line sheet with every price change.