Thread: Where do you find Manufacturers and Wholesalers?

I have a product that I want to get manufactured

Where could I find the cheapest manufacturer, with the lowest minimum order? 1000 dollars or less

I also need to find the wholesalers where retail stores order from, like BestBuy CircuitCity etc etc
How do I find wholesalers worldwide, like in China or Japan?

How do I get the Wholesalers to buy my product and distribute it to retailers?

I can't stop wondering about it,
Some help would be much appreciated

I was also looking for books on the process but couldnt find any.
Any recommendations?

I am interested in this question as well!

inventionhome.com and similar sites like that that u can google, can help u get your idea into reality and into the stores, but they charge for presentation package in order to pitch it to the manufacturers, about $3000. more or less

Originally Posted by Team Player

inventionhome.com and similar sites like that that u can google, can help u get your idea into reality and into the stores, but they charge for presentation package in order to pitch it to the manufacturers, about $3000. more or less

What a scam. They charge YOU $3,000 to put together a pitch package to get your stuff made? That's like paying Best Buy $3,000 to be able to spend $15K there.


There's a gazillion manufactures that will gladly make what ever you want as long as you meet their minimums. Getting an item made is not rocket science

1) Come up with idea.

2) Hire an independent mechanical engineer/ CAD designer to design it for you. There's also a gazillion product design companies that will do everything for you. You just need to write the check. T2 Designs and Slingshot Product Development come to mind. I personally have been to T2.

3) Take designs to manufactures and they will make it.

4) Get package designers and get packaging made.


As far as getting on shelves, I don't know about Best Buy, but with Walmart you go to their main headquarters. There's an office there with little rooms filled with buyer agents. You pitch them your product and they give you feed back.

Originally Posted by Z5 FILMS

What a scam. They charge YOU $3,000 to put together a pitch package to get your stuff made? That's like paying Best Buy $3,000 to be able to spend $15K there.


There's a gazillion manufactures that will gladly make what ever you want as long as you meet their minimums. Getting an item made is not rocket science

1) Come up with idea.

2) Hire an independent mechanical engineer/ CAD designer to design it for you. There's also a gazillion product design companies that will do everything for you. You just need to write the check. T2 Designs and Slingshot Product Development come to mind. I personally have been to T2.

3) Take designs to manufactures and they will make it.

4) Get package designers and get packaging made.


As far as getting on shelves, I don't know about Best Buy, but with Walmart you go to their main headquarters. There's an office there with little rooms filled with buyer agents. You pitch them your product and they give you feed back.

This is great advice!

One word of advice on getting your product on the market shelves! Be persistent as hell and creative.

Ex: A friend of mine got a 150,000 dollar printing contract by tweeting at the CEO of a company!

Cheers,
Zach

one of the biggest and oldest manufacturing lists around is
ThomasNet® - Product Sourcing and Supplier Discovery Platform

you can find manufactures for almost anything, almost anywhere in the world
we used before for sourcing mold makers, and Injection molding builds.

good stuff

Z

I agree. Great advice z5.

$1000 minimum will be extremely tough even if your product costs 20 cents a piece. Most manufacturers require much higher minimums. If you do your research you will find its not a difficult process to get the product made. All it takes is a lot of patience since its a long process. The hardest part is going to be once you get your product and finding customers.

Also look into China for manufacturing. I got my product for a fraction of the price that I would have paid in the US.

Originally Posted by DjSuperman

I have a product that I want to get manufactured

Where could I find the cheapest manufacturer, with the lowest minimum order? 1000 dollars or less

I also need to find the wholesalers where retail stores order from, like BestBuy CircuitCity etc etc
How do I find wholesalers worldwide, like in China or Japan?

How do I get the Wholesalers to buy my product and distribute it to retailers?

I can't stop wondering about it,
Some help would be much appreciated

I was also looking for books on the process but couldnt find any.
Any recommendations?

I deal with China all the time so I hope I can help save you some time and money and give you some good insights with a good approach for your idea. And I hope I don't sound too discouraging. It sounds like you have an idea in electronics - a highly competitive area with a lot of big players involved. But here is how I would approach it...

Before I tell you my approach I want to give you a background on what is happening in China right now - factories are getting harder and harder to deal with because there are issues like labor shortages (especially coming up right after Chinese New Year) and increased demand for wages by the workers. With most factories being along the coast the workers take the money back home to inland China during CNY and many never return. Also, there are fluctuations with the RMB currency, and the costs for materials are rising. So with all of these fluctuations in costs factories will keep pushing you to the back of the line for larger orders if they have them. There are many other issues so I will just get too what I would do if I were you...

One approach could be to simply license your idea to a company already producing similar products - You would need to construct a sample or just show your idea works to someone who can manufacture and import it. Going this route I would recommend a book by Stephen Key called "One Simple Idea" which explains exactly what you should do.

If you decide to manufacture and import on your own - This is a huge task and theres so many things to consider that I won't go through them all on here. But I would first try and find a tradeshow in China that electronics factories attend and you would need to go over and source your own factories. In one shot you can find factories to quote you and give you lower minimum orders. When dealing with factories overseas their minimum orders will be in pieces usually and not dollars. You should still have a sample to present to buyers and try to PRE-SELL your product. IMO with distributors and wholesalers there are usually many additional costs so I would contact the bigger retailers directly - call the home office of that company and ask who the buyer is and keep calling and calling and calling until you can set an appointment. Going down this road can have big costs but if you place your idea in accounts it can be profitable.

Hope this helps a little.

Originally Posted by crockbar

One approach could be to simply license your idea to a company already producing similar products - You would need to construct a sample or just show your idea works to someone who can manufacture and import it. Going this route I would recommend a book by Stephen Key called "One Simple Idea" which explains exactly what you should do.

That book is AWESOME. I read it once. I need to go back and read it again, because some of the principles were new to me. But if you are looking to license a product, this book will certainly show you the way!!

Thanks, I saved ThomasNet.com to my bookmarks.
Great site!

I'm also currently reading the books "New Product Development for Dummies"
and "One Simple Idea" by Stephen Key