Wholesale Cameras

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.