finding food whole salers

[Thunderchild]

Hello everyone

I have an idea for a small business in selling food but I'm having a lot of trouble getting to wholesalers as they will only accept quote requests if you are a business and before i go ahead I obviously want to see if my idea is feasable.

most wholesaler sites i have found are either selling specialized stuff I'm not after or have a nack of not giving that much info about the product such as how much is in a case and of course if i want to make an inquiry this is done via a form demanding my company name

[buildersmate]

If all you are seeking to do is establish approximate prices for bulk food purchase, a couple of hours brousing in either Makro or CostCo should give you what you want. Surely you know someone with a card for one of these? - they seem to shell them out like peas.

[Thunderchild]

erm I'm not too sure I know of anyone I know someone that can get into a cash and carry in milton keynes not sure if he would have the time thing is everything is kept behind closed doors you can't get into one without a card (excuse being to prevent disturbing legit shoppers) and you can't get the prices any other way. basically i need to know how much cheaper they are than supermarkets to see if I can sell cheaper than supermarkets and make a profit the idea being i have as little overhead as possible meaning not opening a shop

[Ethel]

Makro and costco aren't that easy to price up - and I think most cash and carrys work in the same way.

The price is on the shelf (plus VAT where applicable) but that is not the price the majority of customers pay. The more you spend the bigger discount you get at the till - so if you just buy one box of washing up liquid every six months, yes you do pay the shelf price which is often as dear as your local supermarket.

If you have a large turnover though and spend a lot of money in store, you get a discount. The higher the spend, the bigger the discount.

Wholesalers don't like giving their prices out - they don't want you to know how much profit your corner shop is making. :)

It's going to be difficult - can you do your pricings based on local supermarket prices minus 15% - 20%? That is probably the sort of discount you will get until your turnover increases/

[Thunderchild]

thanks for the reply ethel, yes i would like to undercut the supermarkets by 20 % as I've never run a business before I have to look into that and of course its all viable only if I can buy in enough quantity to undercut supermarkets and make a profit. I was thinking of working from home but then I don't know if i can do this sort of thing from home or not, but i can't see why not i mean I'm sure most market holders are probably home based ? my idea is to keep overhead as small as possible so like no shop = no rent to pay no extra electric etc to pay for and so on I could possibly do a home delivery service.

[JB]

Have a look at www.booker.co.uk - they give the wholesale prices, as well as RRP, and profit %.

[Thunderchild]

yes and they are not too cheap either but I suppose bulk buying should bring the price down ? I think we have a bookers in my own town so thats quite a plus