How to select Office Supplies Wholesale Distributors

Decided to resell office supplies? Well, that's a great idea as the global office supplies market size in 2017 was approximately $235 billion. Considering its huge market share, selling office supplies can be an excellent source of income.

The first step towards starting your business successfully is to connect with the right supplier. In a reseller business model, the supplier is the most important asset that can make or break your business.

Following are the things that you need to consider before you choose your office supplies distributor:

1. Is the Distributor offering Good Quality Office Supplies?

The distributor might be selling office supplies at wholesale prices but that doesn't mean you have to compromise on product quality. Never do this. You are hurting your customers and harming your company's reputation.

Product-quality is non-negotiable when choosing distributors. Sacrificing product quality at the expense of customer loyalty and satisfaction will take your business down the drain.

Check whether office supplies wholesale distributors are connected to reputed manufacturers. You need to offer office supplies from some of the top brands like Canon, Alera, 3M, Avery, Lexmark, Pacon, Smead, Xerox, etc. This will help you to attract potential customers and increase conversions.

Top brands lend credibility to your portfolio and put a very good first impression on your customers. So make sure your eCommerce store is selling popular office supplies brands.

To expand your customer base, consider selling IT hardware, a popular category in the IT industry. Strike business partnership with the right IT hardware distributors and rest assured your reseller business will soar to new heights.

2. Is the Distributor offering a Diverse Range of Products?

Will you be connecting to a small or large office supplies distributor? Well, no points for guessing. You will be doing business with the later. The answer is simple; Large IT office products distributors offer a variety of office supplies. As a result, you don't have to stick to selling just one type of office supplies.

The broader the product range, the larger will be your customer base. The larger the customer base, the better your organization will look in the eyes of potential buyers.

Apart from dealing with office supplies, you can also do business office equipment like printers, fax machines, copiers, computers, etc. In other words, your eCommerce store should be a one-stop shop offering a diverse range of office supplies.

3. Is the Distributor offering Additional Services?

Apart from distribution, what other services the office supply distributor is offering to take your business forward. Some distributors provide sales support services such as lead generation and marketing.

They offer custom marketing services that can help their reseller customers to generate healthy streams of qualified leads. Many distributors offer all the marketing material needed to promote the business of their reseller partners.

4. Is the Distribution Channel Upgraded with the Latest Technology?

Imagine an office supply distributor using telephones and printed catalogs for business transactions. In today's times, depending on traditional methods for running a business can lead to inefficiency.

Forget business, you should not even interact with these distributors. To keep your business team productive, efficient, and competitive, stay away from such distributors. Make sure the distributor has a robust eCommerce platform that provides in-depth information about their products.

Also, the distributor should have an inventory feed, a software tool that allows the electronic transfer of a product catalog from one server to another. Inventory feed makes it easy to receive the distributor product catalog into your site.

In case the distributor doesn't have inventory feed, you will have no option but to upload catalog manually, which is tedious and time-consuming.

5. Is the Distributor Connected to reliable Freight Shipping Companies?

Handling order fulfillment can be a headache. So select distributors that have the capacity to handle the entire order fulfillment process effectively. So ensure that the office supply distributor has a business partnership with reliable shipping companies that you can trust to deliver.

Supplier fraud/scam is an increasing concern, so do a thorough background check to spot fraudulent behavior of distributors.