little john kin

There are several types of retailers who could also be described as wholesalers. One is pound shop chains, many of whom will sell bulk items to street traders and other small traders; the only stipulation being that they will not be sold in a vicinity where they will be in competition with bricks and mortar shops. This is actually quite a shrewd move, since they benefit from getting a better price from the manufacturers by having a bigger order and the type of products they sell are not hugely in demand, mostly their only redeeming quality is their low price.

Another type of wholesaler who deals directly with the public are budget airlines that only sell tickets directly through the internet, without ever using a travel agent as a middle man. Although they are selling a service, they do in fact have a type of stock, namely available seats on flights. These airlines will advertise very low fares which have a habit of growing as various extra charges are added. They are also notorious for being unrelenting with any restrictions. One airline was recently found to have undersized cabin luggage measuring cages, which meant the passengers had to cough up extra money to have the bag placed in the hold, a move that got them a slap on the wrist from the Office of Fair Trading.

Office supplies wholesalers often deal directly with the final customer, they can do this because much of this type of product is generally consumables, like stationary, toners, inks and so on. This means that with the tens of thousands of small business offices around the country having to restock regularly, the wholesalers can build up a huge, reliable client base. Even better, from the wholesalers point of view is that they can quickly build a usage profile of each customer and from that extrapolate how much of each item they can be reasonably sure they will need in stock each month, this means that they have better control of the inventory and cash flow.

There have been reports of retailers petitioning Downing Street to prevent their own wholesalers selling directly to the public at just over the wholesale price, naturally they are quite peeved about this since it is in direct competition to the retailers who have to add on their margin to turn a profit, whereas anything above wholesale price is a bonus for the wholesalers since they have already added their margin. This is mixed news for the consumers, yes it means certain things will be cheaper to buy from the wholesalers, but it may mean the local retailer can no longer afford to trade. This means other items the consumer bought from the retailer are no longer available locally.