What Are the Different Types of Wholesalers?

Purchasing from wholesalers is one of the best ways for companies to optimize their finances and their inventories. Wholesalers can supply bulk items at favorable prices since they receive them from vendors at a discounted price. On top of exploring tips for buying wholesale for your business, get familiar with what the different types of wholesalers are to ensure you purchase from the one that’s right for your operations.

Merchant Wholesalers

Merchant wholesalers buy, claim ownership, store, and handle products in large sums. They resell these products to retail store owners or even other wholesalers in smaller quantities. Common merchant wholesaler jobs include distributor, assembler, importer, exporter, and more.
 
We can further break down this type of wholesaler into full-service merchant wholesalers and limited-service merchant wholesalers.
 
Full-service wholesalers: Full-service wholesaler businesses take care of every process from beginning to end. They don’t need additional parties to support or complete wholesale operations. 

Limited-service wholesalers: These types of businesses provide different levels of service, typically homing in on a specific function, such as inventory management, sales, product delivery, etc. 

All businesses will need a dedicated merchant solution with enhanced features to enable the smooth handling of electronic payment transactions. While cost savings are helpful for business growth, it is worth noting that cheap merchant services have drawbacks, and this may not be the area where you want to make savings in. 

Agents, Brokers, and Commission Merchants

Agents, brokers, and commission merchant wholesalers function similarly to merchant wholesalers in that they purchase from producers to resell to smaller companies. The main difference is that agents, brokers, and commission merchants don’t take ownership or title to the products. They negotiate sales on behalf of their manufacturing clients.

Like most sales negotiators, these merchant wholesalers typically make a commission off sales and purchases. Vendors who can’t afford their own sales team often defer to agents, brokers, and commission merchant wholesalers to help sell their products.

Manufacturers’ Sales Branches

This is a specific type of wholesale representative. A manufacturer sales branch acts as a customer-facing store separate from the manufacturing plant. Some branches may buy and resell products from other manufacturers in their store, too.