Find importers and wholesalers in the United States

If you want to sell your product in a country, you mostly need a wholesaler that can also act as your importer.

It strongly depends on your expectations of such an importer how easy you can find him. 

If you just want to outsource the formalities and some logistics, you will easily find a party. If you look for an importer that will also find retailers or direct customers for your product, this may be more difficult.

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    Importers and wholesalers in the United States

    If you want to have your product in retail or B2B sales channels, you may have to find an importer or wholesaler first. They will do important steps like:

    • Customs clearance
    • Storage
    • Product check
    • Repacking
    • Returns handling

    It is always a good start to orient yourself on the bigger players in the market. However, for your product and positioning other channels may be better. So it is wise to orient yourself first on structure of the market and your options. Also check what your competition does!

    Travel to the United States for a better impression

    The best preparation for doing business in any country is visiting it. This way you can experience the culture, check the shops and build your network.

    Where it comes to hotels, research shows that if you check these platforms, in 80% of the cases you have the lowest room rates.

    Who can be your importers in the United States?

    If you have a consumer product that you can’t sell directly from your home country to your end customer, you need at least one step in between. This can be a distributor, a big retailer directly, or it can be a large web shop. Each of them can function as an importer of record too. Let’s look at the pro’s and con’s of each option.

    Distributors

    • Distributors are used to import, store and physically distribute a product.
    • They normally don’t invest in promoting your product to consumers.
    •  They are the best chance to get your product in the market so that you can gather sales data.

    Large retailers

    • Retailers are very risk averse, may ask for a listing fee before  they put your product on the shelves.
    • They can help you promote your product in their stores and in their magazines, but will also ask a fee for this.
    • They are the quickest route to the mass market, if you can convince them.

    Online

    • Specialised web shops may have a greater interest in your product than general web shops.
    • They can experiment more easily with pricing and ways of promoting.
    • Volumes may be lower, but working with web shops is still a good way to collect reviews and get brand awareness.

    How to draft your Distributor pitch?

    I always put a lot of emphasis on drafting a good distributor pitch. Even if you already have great sales materials for your end-users, this often does not make clear what the benefits are for a potential agent, distributor or retailer to work with you. 

    When you approach potential sales channels with your standard documentation, chances are high that they are holding of. If you make it crystal clear what are the benefits for them, like in the example presentation, you will get a much higher response rate.

    Please note that it helps to put concrete data in your presentation. You may think it is sensitive, but just know the secret is in how you achieve the rotation or the low returns level, not in the data itself. So share it here, in order to get the right attention.

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    Frequently asked questions

    The best way to find an importer in the United States is to understand the sales channel for your product, and what parties are involved. Then Then find the right importers or wholesalers at the beginning of that chain. Before starting to push your product, approach a number of them to ask what they need. This way you can position your product better before you reach out to a broader group.
    First check whether your product normally is sold through an wholesaler in the United States or that other distribution structures are more common. Then determine the characteristics of your ideal wholesaler, and find a number of these, or outsource this search. When you approach the first few, you will learn what they find important and who your competitors are.
    As in any country, convincing an importer or wholesaler to put your product in his assortment is difficult. Also in the United States importers look at the rotation of the product, how easy and often they can sell it, and multiply this with the margin they can make on it. The result should be higher than they earn now from any competing product. Only if you have proper sales data, for example from other countries, they will engage in a discussion with you.
    Wholesalers mostly not only look at how much margin they can make on your product, but also at costs for shipping, storage and product deterioration. If you are already active outside the United States and you have data from other wholesalers you work with, this will make it easier to convince them. Preferably use a local party like Alliance experts to find and approach any potential wholesalers.