Buying Digital Cameras At Wholesale
Prices
Conventional wisdom is that wholesale is better than retail
because it offers the identical item (eg. Digital Camera) at a
significantly lower cost than buying that item at a retail store.
This is probably true, but there are some disadvantages of buying a
Digital Camera at a wholesaler. It's worth mentioning these
disadvantages before continuing with our discussion on how to buy
that camera from a wholesale supplier.
Wholesale is not always 'significantly' cheaper than retail
anymore for big-ticket (ie. expensive) items such as DSLR cameras.
Bulk warehouse type retail stores often offer these items as loss
leaders in a practice called 'headlining'. They put a very small
margin on the main item sold, and then plan to sell the accessories
such as memory cards, carry cases, chargers, or interchangeable
lenses at full retail price. There profit is all in the
accessories. So, if you are not planning on purchasing these, it
might be just as cheap - and more convenient - in buying your
camera from this type of store.
If you decide to purchase wholesale, you need to establish
yourself as a 'credible' wholesaler. You need to do this because
wholesale suppliers protect their genuine customers (retail stores)
by not selling directly to the public. Strictly speaking, the
public should buy at retail stores, not wholesale suppliers!
One obvious thing which will certainly blow your cover is if you
ask product-specific questions at the time of purchase. To get the
answers to these questions, its best if you do your homework by
either asking these questions to retailers who sell the item, or to
contact the wholesaler anonymously by telephone and ask those
questions. The other give away is your method of payment. Genuine
customers of wholesalers never pay by credit card, cash or paypal!
Get yourself a business checking account, and offer to pay by
company check. This is surprisingly easy to do. A visit to your
local bank and a friendly chat with your bank manager is usually
all you need to do.
The final item we need to cover is where to find that wholesale
supplier. Try google or even the old fashioned paper-based yellow
pages! There are some trade portals such as Alibaba.com. But be
sure to check that the supplier is legitimate before making any
payment! Some well-known wholesale suppliers of digital cameras are
Tiger Direct and Costco.com.
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