B2B Wholesale Marketplaces - Stats from A Vendor

UPDATED 1/5/23

You think you're confused? We're all confused. It seems a few times a week my customers ask me if they should be buying our fair trade jewelry on this site or another. Or should they order direct at www.dunitz.com? They want to know how all these sites differ. Since I am not a buyer, I can't share with you how these sites operate from a buyer's perspective. I can share with you how they vary from a vendor's.

FAIRE is the market leader when it comes to B2B gift buying. Their site is the most sophisticated and their fees are the largest for vendors.  An opening order comes with a commission of 25%. Reorder commissions are 15%. Dunitz is on FAIRE. 

Technically FAIRE is the vendor. They collect money. And they pay us on the terms we agree upon with them.  FAIRE collects all resale tax information from buyers.

We choose to have all FAIRE orders paid out on Net 30. The other options for vendors is to be paid in 2 or 3 days at an additional cost of 3%.

If you can prove a relationship with a store (in the form of an invoice during the previous two years, or email communication, or registration on your back-end) FAIRE will remove the commission fee. One way to expedite this process is to upload your entire customer list to the FAIRE system. FAIRE says they don't use our lists for any reason other than to help prove prior relationships.

 Vendors can purchase mailing labels for orders through FAIRE. In this case the vendor assumes the risk of loss since boxes will not be insured. At this time (1/1/23), FAIRE reimburses vendors for pre-paid labels. This is always our choice because we insure all of our wholesale orders.

 

ABOUND seems to be #2 in order generation. It definitely is a smaller organization that has a more mom & pop feel about it. But that's ok. We like that "feel."

Similar to Faire, ABOUND is the vendor. They collect money. And they pay us on the terms we agree upon with them.  ABOUND collects all resale tax information from buyers.

As of 1/1/2023, ABOUND has updated their payment terms. They now send out payments to vendors quicker (Net 30 vs Net 45 based on tracking receipt of orders) and commissions have been raised to 15% and 10% for new customers and reorders respectively.

The other options for vendors is to be paid in 3 or 5 days. In this case, I believe vendors pay ABOUND higher commissions. 25% on first orders. 15% on reorders. If you're going to sell on ABOUND, double check this.

If you can prove a prior relationship with a store on ABOUND, they will wave the commissions.

When shipping through ABOUND, you can have them pre-pay your mailing labels. In this case, your shipments are not insured and vendors carry the risk of loss during transit.  (If their system purchases a label through UPS or FedEx, boxes are insured for $100.) We purchase mailing labels and insure everything. For this we are reimbursed. Recently ABOUND changed their formula for what they will reimburse vendors for shipping labels. As of 1/1/2023, it appears they are not covering 100% of label fees. For instance recently we asked to be reimbursed $7.15 for a USPS label, and after entering the information, the ABOUND system told us they would only reimburse us $6.84.  

 

 

MSA Marketplace As of 1/1/23, this venue has been closed down.

FTF Marketplace As of 1/1/23, this venue has been closed down.

Juniper  As of 1/1/23, Juniper (operated by International Market Centers) has redefined their B2B site to only support vendors that physically participate in their trade shows. We had signed up for their B2B site early in 2022 and went through a laborious on-boarding process. We were told that IMC exhibitor rates were half that of non-exhibitors. We were OK with that, given that more business is more business. We garnered no business from their portal and at the end of the year asked to be removed as an active account. We learned today 1/5/23 that IMC sent an announcement out that their site would only accommodate their trade show exhibitors going forward.  Clearly if the site had been generating revenue and activity, this is not a decision they would have made.

 

Tundra -  Honestly, I have not researched this one completely and as of 1/1/23 it still seems to be active for business.  My colleagues who have signed up to sell on Tundra have not been particularly successful.  Tundra does not charge vendors commissions for collecting orders.  My understanding is a vendor must pay advertising fees to be seen by buyers that log in.  If you're reading this and you shop and/or buy on Tundra please let me know how it works for you. 

DUNITZ & COMPANY is our proprietary site we built so you can work with us directly. It is the easiest for us to manage. We can offer more options on our own site.  Managing all of the others is a bit cumbersome. Want to order a bunch of Starry Night earrings for your store? On our site you can.  On the other sites, we can only make "assortments" available. Managing special orders and back-orders is easily done when working direct. With restrictions on other sites, it is more difficult. We also have some items we offer with lower margins. Our Judaica Collection is an example. We can't afford to list these designs on FAIRE and pay 25% commission. We've also learned that with FAIRE and ABOUND, they expect orders to ship almost as quickly as they are received. We need to limit what we offer on these sites to the items we stock deep and can ship super quickly.

 

Do I think everyone, everywhere is creating a B2B buying website to snag a piece of the pie? Yes. At the end of they day, I'm thrilled to obtain new business where-ever it comes from.  It's like that old story of which credit card I prefer. Visa or Amex? Truth is it's all good. I like it all. I'm not going to eliminate one because they charge me a larger fee. Are some of these B2B sites easier to use than others? Yes. Might I prefer one over another? Yes. Am I happy to have business come in from any of them? Yes. The bottom line is no matter where you shop, I appreciate you shopping Dunitz & Company's fair trade jewelry.

Please share with me your experiences with these sites. I'd love to hear from you. And thank you for being our customer. -ND