167: 8 Ways to Find Products For Your Subscription Box

Ready to start your subscription box but don't know where to start looking for products? Maybe you already have a box and you need some more product options. On this episode, I'm walking you through 8 different ways to find products for your subscription box. And yes, I found products for my box in each of these ways. Grab your earbuds and come join me.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. Today we're going to talk about one of the most important aspects of our subscription box, and that's the products that we put inside of it. And I know that this can be challenging if you're brand new. Where do I start? If you're not new, how do I grow? How do I buy in bulk? These are all questions that we really ask ourselves as we're working through our subscription box plans and growing our subscription box business. But before you start shopping, you're going to need your sales tax permit and a reseller certificate. Sometimes they're called a resale permit or a certificate. Before you get started, you're going to want to make sure that you have filed for those sales tax permit And then once you have that, you'll be able to fill out a reseller certificate. Now we go through several stages when we are looking for products for our subscription boxes, and I want to talk about those stages and how we find product in each stage, because your journey starts at one place. Like, we all start at one place, and that might be brand new, never have bought any products before. But as we grow, we find ourselves in uncharted territory. I can relate to this so much because when I started my subscription box, I wasn't new to buying product, but as I started to grow rapidly, I was very new at buying product in bulk, how to do that, where to do that, what that process looked like, and so forth. So I've got this broken down into kind of 3 stages for you, whether you're just beginning, you're brand new to business, you have an established business and you need some more orders and you need some more vendors. And then I also have it as you're growing and you're starting to make bulk purchases or you're wanting to make bulk purchases. I have them broken down into 3 areas for you. So no matter, no matter where you're at on your journey, you can follow along here. So let's just start at the beginning. And this would be people that are brand new to business. And I'm using these 8 ways because I have used all 8 of these ways. Okay, so I'm going to give you my experiences as we talk through this today. But when I was brand new to business, I started really by partnering with local shops and local brands. There were a lot of great kind of small businesses in my area. And one of the first ways that I started my business was I was doing these kind of shows like these pop-up events. I would rent a booth at some show and I would set my stuff up. And that's how I got started in my business. And when the process of doing that, you meet a lot of other vendors in your area that are also doing these shows. And so the— one of the first ways that I started looking for products for my subscription boxes was through other local businesses. Who made things? Where could I get custom items made from? Who could I partner with on a box? And really, the ability to support the business owners in my own area was so important to me, and it was really special because that's something that you can do when you're starting small. I did it when I had even hundreds of subscribers, and it quickly got to be too much for my small local vendors. But that was one way that I really got started, is I just started reaching out to local businesses and telling them what I was working on and asking them if they could offer that— their services or their products to me. And so I want you to start there. I know it feels weird. Why don't you just go somewhere and buy it? You buy stuff in your local area all the time. What are your favorite places to shop from? What can you— where can you partner with someone that is a small business owner that doesn't hesitate to make 10 or 20 or 50 items for you for your subscription box? And I think it's a great way to start. So number 1 is local shops and brands. It's a great way to support your local community and really get in on the ground floor with building your reputation as a buyer. Okay, number 2, which is still a very great place to find vendors— I find a lot of vendors still in this way— but that's Facebook wholesale groups. A lot of wholesale shops, especially those on the smaller business side, have a wholesale group. They have a Facebook group where they pop in their new items, communicate with their buyers. And so you can start to really search on Facebook and look for some wholesale groups. Now, a lot of times to be able to join these groups, you have to provide your sales tax permit number or your resale certificate. So that's why it's important to get those knocked out right away so that when you're ready to start shopping, you can start looking for these things. But if I'm brand new to business, and I've never purchased any product, I would look in one of these two places. One, the local shops and brands in my community. And two, I would look for Facebook groups that sell wholesale that I can join and be a part of that community. It's just a good idea to look around and see what's out there, and it really gets your foot in to starting having, having a relationship and buying. So that is 2 for beginning businesses. Now, once you establish yourself and you have some orders behind you, I've got 3 different areas that you can jump into. When I say have some orders behind you, a lot of these places will require a reference of someone you bought from. And that's really hard as you're new because you're— you haven't bought from anyone yet. That's why number 1, local shops and brands, and number 2, Facebook wholesale groups, are great starting points because now when you get to 3, you have references for them. So number 3 is online marketplace such as Fair. Now there's a couple others, but I'm just going to use Fair as a great example because I use Fair often. But on Fair, it's basically an online marketplace for wholesalers, and it's in so many different categories. It's a great place where you can shop thousands of vendors in one platform, and they typically have a small minimum quantity or a small opening order dollar amount. And so it's a great place for you to start looking for products. But to be approved as a buyer on Faire, you have to have proof that you have a shop that's open, that you're selling products, or that you have references from other places that you've bought from. This is why it's important to do number 1 and 2 before you just jump into 3. Okay, number 4 are vendor wholesale sites. Now I loved this. This is where I got a lot of my vendors in the beginning. I would just go directly to the website. An example would be Swig. I saw the— and Swig was when it first came out. It's really popular now. It's a brand of cup that I carry, and I've carried it for a ton of years. But I saw a Facebook ad for this cup, and I thought, ooh, I wonder if I could put one of these cups, one of these tumblers, in my subscription box. And so I went to the Swig website, and I was looking for a wholesale link. A lot of times you'll see them in a couple places. You'll see them in the tab across the top, like you can find wholesale there. Or in the footer on the bottom of their website, they may have like FAQs, wholesale application, etc., about the company. There's lots of little things on the footer. So that's where you can look to see if you can apply for a wholesale account for any brand, any vendor that's out there on the internet. And a lot of times they want, again, your sales tax permit. They may require a reference. They want maybe proof that you have Sometimes some of them require that you have an online presence or a brick-and-mortar store, so you have to show proof of that with your website or your pictures of your location and things like that. So vendor wholesale sites is number 4. You just go directly to the brand and look to see if they offer wholesale pricing so that you can buy wholesale from them. Now, number 5 was one of the best things that I did for my business. And it really changed the way that I bought products over time. And number 5 was to go to markets or trade shows. Now, you might have heard me talk about market before. I try to go to at least once a year, sometimes twice, depending on when they are, where they are, and what my schedule looks like. But these are just scheduled events that happen across the country where hundreds or thousands of vendors come and connect with buyers. So these vendors rent a booth, rent a showroom, they bring their items— that could be the spring collection or fall collection, their 2024 collection, whatever collection they want to bring— and you walk through all these booths, you talk to vendors, and you place orders for your subscription box. These are great because number one, you get to touch and feel and see it's very different than just buying online product. Okay, so I'm getting to feel the product, I'm getting to touch the product. I'm also getting a connection with someone in that company or a representative for that company to place an order with. But it's so good for so many reasons because one, you can see the product and touch and feel it, and two, you're starting to network and create relationships with people. And these are going to be very important as I go through the next level of buying. But when I started to go to market, and market was overwhelming for me at first, and I'm glad I went with a friend the first time because navigating market is a little challenging when you're brand new. If you've never been in that situation, it could be a little overwhelming. So if you're going for the first time and you've never done anything like that, I would tell you to take somebody— your sister, your mom, your best friend, someone else that's in business that would want to go do that with you. I went with another business owner when I went And she just showed me the ropes. She had been going to market for a long time. She showed me the ropes on how to do that. You do have to register for market and they require some things. Again, they require your sales tax, they require your resale certificate. They also require that you have proof that you have a business, and they may even require you have references from other vendors before they let you into their show. But here's what I want you to get from this. It opened my mind to a ton of new brands that I had never heard of before. It helped me create relationships with vendors that I then grew years and still have to this day. And it allowed me to see trends. It allowed me to see what was up and coming. It allowed me to see a lot of market things market trends and things like that that I wouldn't have known sitting in my office at my desk in my little small town in Texas. Like, it allowed me to visually see what was up and coming for the different seasons. And so I want you to experience this. I want you to go to a market because it's so good for your business, no matter what industry you're in. And there are lots of different types of markets or trade shows that you can go to. Some of my favorites, we've got them listed in the show notes, but NY NOW, that one's in New York. Again, they're all over the country. Dallas Market Center is very close to me. It's the one I go to most because I can jump in the car and head over for the day. Las Vegas Market is great. And my other really great favorite that I go to a lot is the Atlanta market called America's Mart. And we've got links to their websites you can check out, but there are literally hundreds of these. Okay, all over the country, in whatever area you're in, there is a trade show, there is a market, and you're going to be able to really make connections with vendors that you can hopefully grow with. Because that's what happened for me when I started to go to market and meet vendors and make purchases. I might have been purchasing 20 or 30 of something and then I'd go back a few months later and now I was at 100 and then I would go back and I would be at 200. And there got to be this tipping point for me around the 200 to 300 mark where they could no longer fulfill my orders. They no longer had enough product in stock for me to be able to get the same thing. And I struggled for a while. And so I'd have to buy 100 of this color, 100 of that color, and 100 of that color to make enough for my boxes. And this is where these relationships start to come in. And I remember one of my vendors I'd been buying from for a couple of years and I'd been growing with said, hey, we're getting ready to place our orders for our spring collection. I'm going to go ahead and send you the lookbook. Now, this is top secret. We haven't sent this out to anyone. But if there's something in there that you want in your subscription box, I just need to know now so that we can increase our order for you. Because they might only be ordering 500 pieces. And if I want 300 of them, they don't have much to sell. Or they might sell that out before I grab it. So I would go through their upcoming catalog and I would select items that I wanted for my box, and they would place an extra order for me with their regular order. And that was the power of building these relationships. I did that with multiple vendors and I had relationships with them. Another really good reason to create these relationships is that we had some supply chain issues in in 2020, 2021. 2021 was actually worse than 2020 because it took time for the supply chain to hit that hiccup. It all started in 2020, but we didn't really see it on our side as far as in the product pipeline until 2021. And there was a lot of product that just I wasn't going to get. And so when one vendor said, hey, I'm really sorry, but we're not going to get this to you in time because of XYZ, I had other people I could reach out to and I said, hey, I'm not going to get my product in time for this box. Do you have product in stock? Can you give me a bulk discount? Can we make a deal on it? I need some product for my next subscription box. And that was one of the biggest benefits I could tell you. And still to this day, I have some issues I run into. And the great thing is that I've got a Rolodex of vendors that I've worked very closely with over the years. That won't hesitate to jump in and help me find something, give me a great deal, and get it shipped out to me immediately. And had I not built those relationships with these vendors, when I get in a bind, I don't have anyone to call. So it's something I want you to think about. But number one, let's go back to the beginning. Number one, local shops and brands. Start locally. Number two, jump on Facebook. Dig into some wholesale groups. Okay, then once you get a couple orders under your belt, let's look at number 3, which is online marketplaces. An example is Faire, where you can shop online with lots of vendors. Number 4 would be the direct vendor wholesale sites, like the example with Swig. I found Swig products, I went to the Swig website, I applied for an app— I applied for a wholesale account, I got approved, and immediately could start ordering Swig. Number 5 is markets and trade shows. This is where your relationship building starts, and you're going to discover so many more brands and products and vendors that you couldn't online yourself. Now, when you get to the point where I was, where I was just growing so fast, so fast, and it was time to start making bigger bulk purchases For me, I had never bought overseas before. Now I know a lot of the wholesale that I was buying was coming from overseas, but I didn't understand that process. Sarah, I'm going to repeat that because I just had a notification on my computer. Now I know that the products I've been buying wholesale had been coming from overseas, but I didn't understand how that process worked. It felt very risky to me. It felt uncomfortable for me. I'd rather pay a little bit more, and because I had these trusted wholesale vendors, but it got to a point where they could no longer get my product for me in the amounts that I needed it. And so I had to start thinking about these bigger bulk purchases and how I was going to navigate that. And so the first thing that I did was I got onto some global marketplaces. And when I talk about a global marketplace, I'm talking about Alibaba, and another great resource that I used was India Mart. And these places opened my eye to a whole new level of profit margins. I hadn't even realized at the time I was buying wholesale how much more profit margin I could get by going directly to the manufacturer. And I started with just a couple items. I'm still using my vendors. I'm supplementing some of my smaller items through these global marketplaces, just testing it out, trying not to make a huge purchase there at first, but buying the scrunchie there, buying the hair clip there, buying the keychain there, buying something smaller that went with my bigger items until I got comfortable with buying my bigger items there. And I got involved with that. Now, whatever I was buying, I had to give it more time because since these items were coming overseas, I needed more lead time when ordering. So I had to start getting more ahead of my planning so that, so that when I was making these orders, I'd given myself plenty of time because the goal here is to get them on a boat, not to get them on a plane. A plane will get here faster, obviously, but it's going to cost you about 4 times more than getting it on a boat will. And so we need about 45 days for it to come across the ocean and get through customs and get on a truck and then come across the US most times. Sometimes it's quicker than that, but you've got to give yourself time. There's also the manufacturing process. So I know I need 30 to 45 days on the water. I know that it takes X amount of time to get my order in depending on the manufacturer. So we have to allow for that. And right now that's several months to get something manufactured. So number 6, is global marketplace. Alibaba, Indiamart, AliExpress. There's some others out there, but don't hesitate to start to look into it like I did because it saved me a ton of money. Now, number 7 was something that I didn't know about either as I was growing. I was very green in building a subscription box business. I figured a lot of this out on my own. And I'm proud of that. But I'm going to give you the shortcuts because it took me way too long to figure all of this out. But I started to white label from one of my existing vendors and white label, private label, it's all the same thing. But basically a few of my vendors allowed me to custom make product under their supply chain, under their manufacturing process. And they would put my label on the tag instead of theirs. So the tag will say Framed instead of whatever vendor it would normally come from. So I started to create my first product, all my first custom product on my own. I was white labeling it from the vendor I'd been using for a couple of years for my subscription box. And I knew it was going to be great because their products were great. And so I started to white label from some of my vendors. And once I did that once, I saw how easy the process was because they already have the supply chain figured out. They already have the system and processes in place. They're just making my own product and putting it in with their product for the, for the month or the quarter or wherever they're doing that. So once you get into that, once you've built relationships with vendors, ask them about private labeling. Hey, do you guys do private labeling? I'd love to create my own X. For me, my first private label was a blanket. I had put a couple blankets in from my vendor, um, from this particular vendor a few times, and I said, what would it cost for me to make my own blanket? We could do that. We could do that really easily. And if I buy all the pieces, they don't have to worry about selling it. And I started to white label, and I white labeled some cardigans, some bags, and do that from existing vendors, just my own designs. And then number 8 would be sourcing services. So I've come full circle. I've come full circle on this list from 1 to 8. I started my business at number 1 with local brands and shops, just collaborating and getting what I could, to joining some wholesale groups on Facebook, shopping on Faire, going to that Swig site and signing up for a wholesale account, going to my first market and building relationships and going back over and over again and seeing that same person to buying my first product on Alibaba. Scared, nervous, not knowing where I just sent my money. I white labeled my custom product for the very first time, and now I'm at number 8, and that's sourcing services. And what that means is that I have a someone on my team that does all my sourcing for me. And basically we have a meeting once every 2 or 3 weeks and we walk through the products that we need. I submit my designs and she is a sourcing agent and she works with several different manufacturers and she will get my products made for me at really great price. And sourcing agents can do that because they have other clients that they're sourcing for. So if I want a custom tumbler and somebody else is making a custom mug, that's probably from the same vendor. So she can source them together, get us a great deal, and get them to our shops. And I don't have to worry about it. I'm not having to watch the tracking. I'm not having to follow up. I'm not checking on things. And it's something that has been really great for me to take off my plate because She handles all of it. And I just check in with her every couple of weeks. And it's like clockwork. When I was in charge of all of the sourcing and buying and curating, there's a lot of balls in the air at one time, especially when we're talking about working 6 to 8 to 9 months out at a time. There's a lot of pieces out there from a lot of different vendors that you have to keep track of and follow up on. And I was so busy, I didn't— I wasn't great at that. And so I recognized that about myself and my business. It was one of the bottlenecks. It was causing me a lot more money because I was having to put stuff on a plane instead of a boat because I wasn't getting ahead of it like I should have been. And having sourcing services in my business has been a game changer because she handles it. I pay her a fee for that. She gets me the best prices and the best deals, and we move on and we're all happy and I don't have to follow up on things. I'm still private labeling. I'm still working with some of my vendors just one-on-one with me and them. But there's steps to this. You don't have to start your business and start hiring someone to source from you. There are 8 steps that I went through and there's still— I still go to market. I still buy from Faire for my shop a lot of times. And here's another thing about Faire. They have sales and clearance a lot. I just bought hundreds of earrings from one of my vendors that had them on sale, and I got a great deal, and it's going to create a great profit margin in my business because I got them at a discount. I still do those things. So I want you to take these 8 things, and I want you to realize that there— it's a journey, it's a process, and they're not mutually exclusive to each other. But you've got to start somewhere, and you have to build to the next one, to the next one, to the next one. Now I've got 3 pieces of advice for you when it comes to finding products, buying products for your subscription box. The first one, and I've already talked about it a little bit, the first one is to use several different vendors. Don't just stick with one. If you put all your eggs in that one vendor's basket and something happens, you're stuck. You have no way out. You have no one else to turn to. Use several different vendors. Build relationships. That's number 2. Build relationships with people. Get a rep from that company that you're— that's the same person you get to talk to over and over again. Every time you go to market, you talk to that one person. Every time you send an email, it's to that one person. Every time you jump on a Zoom call to go over products or whatever you do, it's with that one person. Get a rep. Build a relationship with them. They will go to bat for you. They will help negotiate prices for you. And keep in touch with them even if you're not buying products for 6 months from them. Reach out to them. Keep in touch with them. Relationships are so important in our business. And number 3, prices are negotiable. Don't be afraid to ask. Worst thing they can do is say no. Always ask for bulk pricing. Always ask for a discount. Always ask for free shipping or free product. We're building a business here. We got to be sustainable. We got to have cash flow. Always ask. Prices are negotiable. The bigger your business gets, the more buying power you have. Now, if you're working on, say, a t-shirt subscription, I've got a great free resource for you. I want you to check out my favorite t-shirt brands and the styles. I've made it into a PDF for you. We've added the link to the show notes. So if you're building a t-shirt subscription or adding a t-shirt to your subscription, you can check out Sarah's favorite t-shirt brands and styles. This will help you on what to get, because there's endless options out there for t-shirts. So I hope this has been helpful for you. Don't forget, it's a journey. Your buying process is a journey. Finding the products you need is a journey. Never stop on that journey. Start somewhere and keep going. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to Launch Your Box with Sarah.com. Get on our waitlist and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.