---
title: How to start selling wholesale as a small producer
Metadescription: The five decisions to settle before your first trade order - the trade list, the price, the minimum, the schedule, and when the money actually arrives.
author: Dan Edwards
author_role: Founder
author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com
author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer
published: 2026-08-26
---

Token estimate: ~1,800

# How to start selling wholesale as a small producer

Five things have to be settled before the first trade order lands - what goes on the trade list, the price, the minimum, the days you deliver and close ordering, and when you get paid. The last one is what catches people out, because wholesale reverses the order of the cash - you buy the ingredients, make the goods and deliver them, and the money turns up weeks later.

By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder.

## Decide what goes on the trade list

Not everything you make has to be on it. Splitting the range is what keeps the two sides of the business from fighting: some lines go to the trade, some stay yours alone, and neither is competing with the other for the same shelf.

The rule that matters most is that your own prices cannot undercut the shop stocking you. A customer who finds your product cheaper on your website than on the shelf they are standing in front of has just cost that shop a sale, and the shop notices.

Wholesale Handler keeps the two apart by assignment. Products opt in to a public [storefront](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-storefronts-work-on-wholesale-handler) one at a time, and the storefront publishes whichever price list you point it at while each trade customer keeps their own. The public sees one set of numbers and your accounts see theirs.

## Work the price up from cost, then check it against the shelf

The usual advice is to halve your retail price, and it only holds if the retail price was built on real costs in the first place. Start from what a unit costs to make - materials, labour, overhead, your own time - and add the margin you need. Small food producers are generally told to hold 20 to 35 percent after costs.

Then check that number against what the shop needs, which is [roughly half the shelf price](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-to-approach-shops-and-restaurants-to-stock-your-product). If your cost-built price will not fit under that, the answer is information about the business at this scale rather than a reason to go lower. Underpricing to win the first account is the single most common mistake, and a buyer who started on a discount rarely accepts an increase later.

Each customer in Wholesale Handler sits on a [price list](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-to-charge-different-prices-to-different-wholesale-customers), so the trade price is set once and applies to every order that account places, without a separate catalogue or a quote each time.

## Set the minimum before the first order, not after

A minimum is what makes a small account worth serving. Under it, the picking, the packing, the delivery and the invoice cost more than the order earns, and a producer who agrees to "just a couple of boxes" for the first account is stuck with it.

[Minimum spend](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/set-and-enforce-minimum-order-value-wholesale) in Wholesale Handler is a cash figure on the order profile rather than on the customer. A delivery charge sits beside it, along with a spend that waives the charge, which is the usual way of nudging a small order up rather than refusing it.

## Publish the days and the cutoff

Selling wholesale is a commitment to a schedule. A shop wants to know which days you deliver, what time the order has to be in, and what happens when they miss it, and those three answers are what a chef is actually assessing at the pitch.

Each order profile carries its accepted delivery days and a [cutoff for each of those days](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-to-stop-wholesale-customers-ordering-after-the-cutoff), so a Friday delivery can close on Wednesday evening while a Tuesday one stays open until Monday. Accounts that share a shape share a profile, so the answer stays the same across everyone on it.

## Getting paid runs backwards from retail

This is the change worth understanding before the first order rather than after the third. Retail pays you as the goods leave. Wholesale means funding the production, then the delivery, then waiting, and each new order on terms makes the gap wider - profitable per order and short of cash all the same.

Net 30 is normal for established trade accounts, but a first independent shop usually neither expects nor asks for terms, and the alternatives cost less than credit does: free delivery, a volume discount, or a bit extra in the box. Keep an eye on concentration too, since a single account past about a third of your revenue makes their decisions yours.

Wholesale Handler does not touch the money. It collates processed orders into one draft [invoice](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-invoices-work-on-wholesale-handler) per customer, prints your terms and bank details in a block you set once, and records what has been paid when you say so. There is no due date field and no payment processing, so the terms are stated on the invoice rather than enforced by it.

## Decide how the orders will arrive

The last decision is whether your customers order for themselves. A shop that will sign in gets a [portal](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/wholesale-customer-portal) with their own prices, their order history and a repeat of their last order. A shop that will always phone or message is a managed customer, which is a record you hold rather than an account they use, and you place their orders and send their invoices yourself.

Both sit in the same customer list and both produce the same paperwork, so this is not a decision that has to be made for everybody at once, and a managed customer can be invited to sign in later without losing any of their history.

## Q&A

**Q: Should I offer Net 30 to my first wholesale customer?**
A: Usually not. Terms are standard for established accounts and for anything sold through a rep or a trade show, but an independent shop taking a first order rarely expects them. Payment on delivery keeps the cash gap closed while you are smallest, and terms can be offered later once the account has a record.

**Q: How many wholesale customers do I need before it is worth it?**
A: Fewer than most people assume, since the work per account falls once the ordering is self-serve. The number that matters more is the split: an account worth more than about a third of your revenue turns their buying decisions into your business risk.

**Q: Do I need a separate trade website to sell wholesale?**
A: No. Trade prices belong to the customer rather than to a site, so the same catalogue serves both with a different price list attached. What a public page adds is somewhere to send a buyer who asks to see the range.