You must have heard of GreenDropShip, right? Allen Kaplun and his wife, Irina Faybusovich, identified the prospect of dropshipping and started their own platform. In 2012, they launched their wholesaling business from their home in LA.
This is one of the most inspiring examples of a wholesaling business from home. In these fast-paced modern business competitions, you can’t afford to lose any advantages.
Anyone can start any wholesaling business from home if they follow these rules:
👉 Choose your niche
👉 Find a supplier and shipper
👉 Obtain legal documents
👉 Integrate your store with WooCommerce and WholesaleX
👉 Promote your store online
👉 And start earning. Reevaluate after three or six months.
However, only following these stuff won’t bring you success overnight. Read the rest of the blog to learn more about other considerable things.
But first, let’s see why businesses from home are getting popular. 👇
Benefits of Running a Business from Home
Like Allen Kaplun and Irina Faybusovich, loads of people are starting their businesses from home. It’s not even a recent discovery, we know about Jawad Karim, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Jobs. They started their business from the garage and became the leading persona worldwide.
The benefits you will get from running a business from home:
- Reduced cost, increased profit margin: First of all, there will be no cost for store renting or buying. That means you don’t have to spend thousands of bucks for a physical shop. Instead, it will boost your profit margin initially.
- Flexible working hours: At-home business brings the perks of being the boss of my own. You don’t have to open the store in the morning or finish the closing procedure late at night.
- No need for store maintenance: aside from rent, you have to spend a fixed amount of money on utility and general maintenance regularly. You don’t have to pay anything extra for home businesses.
- Growth opportunity: Unlike physical shops, you don’t have to depend on or consider other influencing factors to expand or grow your business. You can take your decision solely.
- Low manpower requirement: another advantage is you don’t need extra hands at home like you need for a physical store.
- Free from political issues within local authority: it’s one of the mental peace factors these days. The tiresome, twisted legal arguments from a political point of view won’t affect your store anymore.
Wholesale Business from Home Vs. Traditional Market Setup?
While you can afford to run a business from home, you need to decide what type of business it will be. Wholesale or retail?
At this point, you might have a fair idea of managing a business from home in the Retail market. How about Wholesaling? It’s a bit tricky.
Let’s see how much different wholesaling is from a traditional market setup:
| Features | Wholesale Business from Home | Traditional Market Setup |
| Cost | No space rent or maintenance expenses | A regular fixed amount of money will be deducted from revenue |
| Manpower | Few to no manpower is required | At least a minimum of staff is needed to run the daily operation |
| Challenges | No physical image Less trustworthy among customers Dependency on digital marketing | Cost is the main universal concern Managing human resources Rigid scheduling Limited space or inventory |
How to Start a Wholesale Business from Home
Now that you know about the perks of wholesaling, you should be curious about how to do it. A requirement of such initiation is inventory management.
You can makeshift your garage, backyard, or basement for a storage facility. On the other hand, you can choose to dropship like the Kaplun & Faybusovich couple.
No matter the choice, you have to follow these steps to build a functioning wholesale business from home. Let’s explore them. 🔎
✅ Choose What You Want to Sell
The first and foremost thing is to select your niche. It’s compulsory for any business matter, online or physical. Most of the starters strugle to find the best wholesale item to sell.
To select a niche, you have to go through a process.
This step is mainly for R&D purposes. Here, you will learn about your rivals, their product, and how the customer thinks about those products.
Once you have your data to evaluate and choose the target market, you should get to the next step.
✅ Find A Supplier/Manufacturer and Shipping Partner
It’s the most important part for a wholesaler to find a suitable partner for supply and shipping. Having a perfect supplier may boost your business significantly in a short time. The same thing goes for shipping agents, too; they can enhance buyer satisfaction over time.
You may find it critical to choose the supplier for your niche. A common practice is comparing the supplier with the market demand. You will find out which one provides the most benefits for your products.
For shipping partners, you may go to a contract with your preferred one. But it’s not necessary to have a partnership with delivery agents from the beginning. Grow your store with conventional couriers at the start.
✅ Fulfill Legal Requirements
Now that you have your chosen niche and supplier, you have to make your store legit. Fulfill those legal requirements to start up a wholesale store online.
To fulfill legal requirements, you need to:
- Obtain a Business License: Primarily you should have zone permit/deed for your place. Like you can conduct commercial activity from your home.
Then, you need to build a structure for the wholesale business. There are three commonly used structures– Sole proprietorship, LLC, and Corporation. However, LLC is the most popular among small business entities.
- Register your business: Now, you have to register your business for your preferred business structure. Pick a name for your store and also set a brand name.
📌 Apply for a DBA (doing business as) to the local/state authority for registering the brand identity.
- Get an EIN(Employee Identification Number): EIN is needed for tax purposes, business banking, and employee hiring.
📌 Apply for EIN via the IRS website. It’s free.
- Obtain Wholesale License: Then you need to obtain a wholesale license, aka sales tax ID or reseller permit. Without it, you have to pay taxes every time for every transaction in the US.
📌 Get the License from the state’s Department of Revenue or an equivalent local agency.
- Create a business account: After getting an EIN, Business License, and operating agreement, you can create a business bank account.
- Additional Documents: You may need to acquire additional permits depending on your industry. For example,
- For food & beverage, you need a health permit
- For supplements and skincare, you need an FDA permit
- For electronic, you need export/import compliance
Moreover, you have to obtain Insurance papers, consumer protection compliance, and IP protection.
✅ Create an Online Store in WooCommerce
So, now you’re legally set, nobody can hold you back anymore. You need an online platform to present your store.
There are several platforms to host your wholesale store. They are:
I will recommend using WooCommerce for you. It is free, highly customizable, integrates with WordPress, and is suitable for small and large wholesale businesses.
Visit WooCommerce documentation to start with the plugin. You can easily navigate throughout the setting. Here, you can set up the products, shipping, pricing & taxes, etc, effortlessly.
WooCommerce doesn’t have any built-in option to present your for retail or wholesale. That’s why you need to install another plugin in your WooCommerce store for wholesaling.
✅ Use a Dedicated Tool to Set Advanced Strategies
The main difference between retail and wholesale stores is the pricing strategy and inventory management. It’s difficult to manage bulk orders and special pricing for different customers without a plugin.
You can find a handful of wholesale plugins for your store. The popular are:
- WholesaleX
- Wholesale Suite
- B2B & Wholesale Suite
- Wholesale for WooCommerce
I will recommend you the WholesaleX plugin. It is the simplest WooCommerce solution for wholesale prices, discounts, and dynamic pricing.
WholesaleX lets you add wholesale pricing and tiered pricing within a few clicks.
This plugin has some powerful features that make it better than any others. They are:
- Dynamic Rules: this ultimate feature will help to set dynamic prices and discounts. You will find about 15 different rules to set pricing for your wholesale store.
- User Role: You can create and assign different roles for different user groups. It will help you manage them by providing offers and restricting upon conditions.
- WholesaleX Wallter: A dedicated store wallet to buy products from WooCommerce. You can fund and limit the facility of wallet based on user role.
- Private Store: WholesaleX lets you make the store private or hide individual products and categories at your convenience. You can also choose to whom the store will be private.
- Request a quote/conversation: You can join in conversation with users to negotiate and request a quote. You can also hide product prices to ask them for a quote.
It doesn’t end here; there are a whole lot of features in WholesaleX that even a retail store also uses. Explore WholesaleX for details.
Pro Tips
You can use WholesaleX just for branding purposes, too. You can even make an online site for your physical shop. Use WholesaleX’s Catalog Mode to make a digital presence and identity. To learn more, visit WholesaleX.
✅ Promote Your Store
Now, it’s time to make your store visible to your target customers. You should utilize these three ways to promote your wholesale business:
- SEO friendly
Make your site’s content SEO friendly. To rank your store in search engines, you can follow these strategies:
- Write blog posts related to your products and niche. Make sure they are helpful content according to Google.
- Use any SEO plugin (RankMath/Yoast) and optimize your pages and content for search engines.
- Follow Google guidelines and recommendations from SEO specialists for best practices(title, meta, schema, image etc).
- Secure your store by obtaining an SSL license (HTTPS)
- Optimize your store locally or internationally for your convenience.
- Social media Marketing
It is a mandatory way for any online business owner. You have to push and be present virtually to let your customers and competitors know your arrival.
LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are the best platforms for wholesalers. You can also use influencers or industry leaders to promote your brand/store.
- Google Ads
You can push your website through Google ads. It will ensure your visibility to searchers and bring organic traffic.
So far, you have:
- Chose a niche
- Found a supplier and shipper
- Acquired legal papers
- Set your store with WooCommerce and WholesaleX
- Promoted your store in the virtual world
Now, you have to be patient. The revenue won’t start coming overnight. After building trust and reputation online and making your presence unnoticeable, you can have a stable revenue stream.
Audit Performance and Re-design if necessary
After three or six months, you should audit your store’s overall performance. You should also collect a/b testing data and analyze your overall performance.
By this, you might find a pattern or trend for your niche. Again, finding this pattern may take a longer time. But don’t get hasty.
Patience is the key to being successful in any business.
Based on the findings, you can redesign and restructure your business to grow and earn more revenue.
Why Should You Run an Online Wholesale Store from Home?
Traditionally, wholesaling businesses tend to have a physical market space. It will help them to manage inventory efficiently and build credibility.
However, the rise of e-commerce made wholesaling from home a profitable and flexible option. The benefits of it:
Ultimate authority
In a physical shop, you have to follow a routine or at least maintain a structure. But when at home, you can take any decision whenever you see fit. It will give you complete control.
Easy to manage
✔ No need for a large space—you can start with dropshipping or small storage in your garage or backyard.
✔ Manage orders, invoices, and inventory using automation tools.
✔ Integrate with WooCommerce and WholesaleX for seamless operation.
Cost-Effective & Efficient
✔ Saving rent, utilities, and in-store staff costs.
Flexible Customer Support
✔ Offer 24/7 customer service via email, chatbot, or phone without being restricted to a fixed work hour.
✔ Set up self-service portals for bulk buyers to place and track orders anytime.
Unlimited Growth Opportunities
✔ Reach a global market rather than being restricted to a local area.
✔ Sell through multiple channels—WooCommerce, Amazon, or direct B2B outreach.
✔ Easily adapt with dropshipping or third-party delivery agents.
Tips & Tricks to Run a Successful Online Wholesale Store from Home
Starting a wholesale business online from home is easier nowadays, but making it successful is getting tougher. Here are some key tips to be a successful wholesaler from home:
Find Market Gaps & Choose an Easily Marketable Niche
✔ Select high-demand but low-competition niches.
✔ Identify gaps in the market and offer solutions with your products.
📌 Example: Use “eco-friendly handcrafted home decor” instead of generic “wholesale home decor”
Develop a Strong Marketing Strategy
✔ Optimize your product pages and category pages with keywords, meta descriptions, and schema markup.
✔ Publish blog posts related to your industry
✔ Use Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook to showcase products and reach potential B2B buyers.
✔ Collect leads and make an email list. And send newsletters about new stock, bulk discounts, and special offers.
📌 Example: A wholesale fashion store can use Instagram to target boutique owners and online sellers.
Ensure Smooth Payments & Transparent Policies
✔ Offer multiple payment methods (PayPal, bank transfers, credit cards, etc).
✔ Set a clear refund and return policy.
✔ Consider flexible/special payment options for bulk buyers.
📌 Example: A wholesale electronics store can allow Net-30 payment terms for frequent B2B customers.
Build Strong Relationships with Suppliers & Shipping Partners
✔ Choose reliable suppliers to maintain product quality.
✔ Negotiate better pricing and shipping rates for long-term partnerships.
✔ Use shipment tracker to improve customer satisfaction.
📌 Example: In the case of importing from abroad, find trusted suppliers on Alibaba and partner with DHL or FedEx.
Stay Updated with Industry Trends & Best Practices
✔ Follow market trends and adjust your products accordingly.
✔ Stay updated with e-commerce laws, tax regulations, and the wholesale industry.
✔ Attend trade shows and online business forums to network and discover new opportunities.
📌 Example: Wholesale packaging suppliers should shift towards eco-friendly materials to align with trend.
Conclusion
Here, in this blog, you have learned about:
- Benefits of Home Businesses
- How to start a wholesale business from home
- Tips and tricks to be successful in online wholesale business
Now, it’s your turn to shine. Follow these steps and start earning. Be your own Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, or even become a successful couple like Kaplun & Faybusovich.
If you already have a wholesale business, comment on your tips for newcomers here.
FAQs
Can I open a wholesale store with no money?
Ideally, no business can be started without any investment. However, if you are eager to find a solution without money, you should try being an affiliate. This way, you can earn a commission for sales through your reference.
Can I manage a wholesale business with no inventory?
Yes, you can operate any wholesale business without inventory management. The idea is called dropshipping. This way, you will take orders and deliver them directly from your manufacturer or supplier.
Should I start with small or large business operations?
It depends on your capability. If you’re new to the business, I recommend you start with a small operation. You can grow when you grasp the theme of it. On the other hand, if you are shifting from a physical store to an online one, you can easily resume your large operation in a digital platform.
Should I take a silent partner from the beginning?
A silent partner can boost your business significantly in the beginning. If you can find such a suitable partner, I would suggest you go for it. Any financial strength will be helpful to grow your business faster.
