This article contains everything you need to know to learn how to buy wholesale clothing for a boutique.
Table of Contents
Steps to obtain the requirements needed to purchase wholesale clothing
Where to buy clothes for a boutique
Online Fashion Market Place
Apparel Mart
Free Wholesale Clothing Vendor List
Other options
If you are looking for boutique wholesale clothing, you must first make sure you have taken all of the legal steps to do so. If you are interested in learning more about this process, click here.
How to Find Wholesale Clothing Vendors and Suppliers For Your Online Store
Online Fashion Market Places
Wholesale fashion market places make it easy for store owners to browse multiple wholesale clothing brands all in one place. The benefit of shopping directly on an online fashion market place is that you do not have to register for individual brands and can easily discover new wholesalers every time you access the site.
There are two main downsides to shopping only from these types of websites. First, you are likely going to be purchase the same products as many other online retailers. If you are planning to stock items that will be exclusive to your store, you will want to avoid these sites. The second downfall to shopping from online clothing wholesale market places, is that most brands do not include all of their stock on these market places. They might only upload items that they are trying to offload, while requiring that you register with their website directly to view their newer items. For new store owners, they are a great place to get started becoming familiar with popular brands and begin browsing various styles. Eventually you may consider registering for your favorite brands directly as you narrow them down.
Looking for more fashion market places? Check out this blog from Medium.
Apparel Markets
Apparel markets are a great way to find new wholesale vendors in person. Hundreds of wholesale vendors travel to each market to meet with buyers and store owners. You’ll have the chance to view and purchase items for the following season and feel the fabric and quality in person. This makes it easy to distinguish high quality boutique wholesale clothing from the cheap styles that you might find online. Apparel markets take place in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York. I highly recommend attending these shows, whether you can drive to one nearby or need to plan a future trip. Some have permanent wholesale companies year round, while others are limited to Apparel Shows at set dates. Find out when the next Apparel Show near you will take place in 2020.
Check out my experience at Americasmart for the Atlanta Apparel Show!
Free List of Wholesale Clothing Vendors
If you would like to download our free list of clothing vendors for boutiques, you can do so by signing up below.
This list includes over 40 young contemporary style clothing vendors and will be delivered to your email inbox. The list also includes a tracker to keep up with which wholesalers you have registered and purchased from.
Other Options
Alibaba – ensure the quality is up to your standards by requesting samples (this can add up $$$)
Faire – Shop apparel, beauty, home decor and more wholesale products on Faire
Destash groups (be wary of fakes) – other boutique owners who have a surplus of inventory in a particular size may use destash groups to offload
Wholesale district in downtown Los Angeles – visit these wholesale companies in person
Looking at the labels of tags in your closet – please avoid stealing local boutiques vendors but if you are purchasing clothing online from bigger stores check out what brands they use (some will add their own tag to their products) and see if you can find a new vendor
Steps to obtain the requirements needed to purchase wholesale clothing
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Thank you , it helped me a lot !!