Does anybody know a smaller company that does wholesale with thrid party transformers that is fairly trustworty?
Try Taobao or see if you can get in touch with some of the Third party companies' sales reps, they should be able to help you out.
Try IACON TOYS It's based on Spain, but I know they have made wholesale bussiness with other countries.
I would love to open an tf source account but to be honest they were kind of being dicks....The email I got from them was unbelievable
They had no minimums....so I told them I had 500 I could send right now with every intention on spending a lot more and they wrote $500 orders would only qualify you as a retail customer, and we can't afford to pay any employees to monitor a wholesale account so small. We'd lose money just on the labor it would cost us on having you as an account. You do realize there is next to no profit in toys right? If not we recommend going and doing some research before entering the market. Once you have an established customer base and are able to place significant orders, feel free to contact us again.
^ No offense, but they are being honest. I am in similar situation trying to setup a business buying from a wholesaler, not toys though. Here's the thing: wholesalers do want you to be successful (at least mine does), and usually they will assign someone to work with you i.e. providing samples, etc, even suggesting some simple strategies. Those cost money too. My idea is not even as expensive as toys and the recommended starting order is 10K. At the very least TFsource does not ask you for a Business Plan. My distributor did, and he would not have a face to face meeting with me until I have one although he would courteously answer all my emails promptly. Again, I did not take offense. Going into business does require a plan, otherwise what differentiates you from other competitors?
Maybe Robotkingdom if you're not looking for Fansproject and Maketoys. Which specific lines/figures are you looking for anyway?
Yeah 500 dollar orders is really a drop in the bucket when doing wholesale unfortunately, heck I don't think you'd even get that much with it. =(
....Yea...500 is...that's like pocket change compared to the money you need for wholesale. Try 10,000 dollars or more just to start up wholesale. I see where your heart is...but you're drastically underestimating the initial capital you need to start up.
See I know it is not a lot right now...but at this point I had about 10 for max figures I was prepared to order....I was not talking about just ordering 500 from them period I was just trying to tell them I'm serious about the orders and they are the ones that do not have a minimum on orders and stress that point in their wholesale pitch. I was planning on spending quite a bit of money but everybody has to start somewhere
You should try Robotkingdom. They deal with most 3P groups and the owner is the boss for Perfect Effect. They can also help get asia exclusives. With the wholesale costs for most third party figures you are not going to get much quantity for $500. Youll have to consider putting out $5000.00 or in that ball park. $500 is definetely a low amount to ask for consideration in a whole sale pricing. There are a lot of collectors who plow through more than that in a month for their collecting budget. I can understand why Tfsource seemed to write you off. In this business venture, promises for the future wont help you.
Yes...but that start up capital just isn't what you have right now. Save up a few thousand dollars and then start there, but as I and others have said, 500 dollars is way, way too little start up for a whole sale account. Let's put it in perspective...a whole set of TFC Hercules is 500 bucks, and the Encore Fortress Maximus is 325. With 500 bucks you will only get one or the other. That's what a single collector just pays for one of them. You'll need to get 50-60 of each just to be able to start a viable business venture, if that's the kind of stuff you aim to be selling. I'm sure you can calculate your costs and what amount of money you need to get to, to start up your store.
