How to find consistent and reliable sources for merchandise

One of the reasons people ask me about cutting out middlemen is because they want to find continuous and reliable merchandise sources.

Oh this is funny.

I mean, it's not funny and I'm not trying to mock anybody but anybody who has dealt in the off price market long enough knows there is absolutely no such thing as continuous and reliable sources of merchandise from a particular brand. You get what you can get when you can get it. That's the nature of the business. Anyone who ever asks me about this I tell them if they need continuous and reliable steady supply of anything, they need to be in regular retail buying at full wholesale and selling at full retail because that's really the only way to get it.

A jobber might get a killer deal on a brand and buy 30,000 pieces of some to die for merchandise. And then the company has nothing to sell them for months, nothing good for months, even a year or longer. Designers are not in the business of manufacturing merchandise to sell to jobbers, therefore jobbers exist solely to absorb the inefficiencies in the business (excess product manufactured, irregulars, cancelled orders, returned merchandise, etc.). This makes it entirely a market of opportunity. When they get the opportunity they buy the merchandise, when you get the opportunity you buy the merchandise. And there is no crystal ball to predict when the next opportunity can present itself.

Now some companies may have ongoing arrangements with a jobber because they consistently have excess stock available. But in all reality, their ultimate goal is to manufacture and sell more efficiently to minimize this occurrence. So, for the most part, the availability of specific brands of specific merchandise tends to be sporadic, or opportunistic as I like to call it.

So if you're looking to get style X from brand X and get X number of pieces each and every month, you'd be so much better off as a regular retailer than trying to hack it in the off price market. To really make it in this market, you need to be able to spot an opportunity and take advantage of it when it arises and have something to get you through the times when the opportunities are not as abundant.

Finding a distributor of a specific brand

From time to time I get questions from people asking about a distributor of a product. Most want to get as close to the source as possible and do not want to deal with middlemen. Now middlemen have their place, as in the guide I cover (in depth) the purpose middlemen serve for small and large buyers. But anyhoo, this question comes up so much, I need to answer it.

There are no "distributors" in the designer apparel industry.

Don't take the business model for another industry and try and apply it here.

If you have a full priced regular retail store, you either buy your merchandise directly from the company or from a sales rep that is paid a commission by the company. Not having a sales rep will not lower your cost of merchandise because the sales rep does not **add on** to the price, they are paid a commission by the company whose goods they are selling.

Please believe me when I say that. Ralph Lauren, Seven Jeans, whatever, they don't have distributors here in the United States. They really don't.

Now, there are exceptions to this. And generally that is when foreign brands enter into a country other than the one in which they are based. For example, a company that is smaller like Seven Jeans may have distributors in Europe, Asia and whatever. These are companies they contract with to handle the sales of their goods to retail stores in a specific territory. Or a smaller foreign brand might have a US distributor to handle the sales and import of their merchandise to service their American retail accounts.

Might.

Because a large company will often have their own foreign sales offices and handle this themselves.

Okay, are you with me so far?

When you buy discount/off price merchandise, you are not dealing with a distributor, you are dealing with a JOBBER. A jobber is in the business of trading excess stock. Now a jobber might have an agreement for exclusive distribution of a particular brand to the off price market, but they are not a distributor the way you are looking at it. So, from now on when people ask me how they can find a distributor of a product I will point them here to this article. You'll know, they will know, we're all on the same page.

Now that leads me to another thing...