As a larger-small business we are always looking for new ways to widen our customer base. Obviously the answer is MARKETING. As a wholesaler, our marketing opportunities are less than a retail store. For example, when we would market our boutiques we had hundreds, or even thousands of places to advertise because our customers were pretty much anyone who wanted womens apparel and accessories. But, as a wholesaler you are selling specifically to businesses, which is a smaller market than “anyone”. With that being said, WholesaleCentral.com kept popping up as a “Great place to advertise” and all of the articles I read about WholesaleCentral made it sound super promising. I figured we should give it a try. Here’s what the results were:

COST:

The cost to be listed on WholesaleCentral.com is $399 for 6 months ($66.50 per month).  (Price is subject to change)

We joined in August 2019 and remained a member until August 2020… then did not renew. I know, you’re wondering why on earth we would cancel? Well, let’s take a look:

RESULTS FROM LISTING ON WHOLESALE CENTRAL:

From January, 2020 until August 20, 2020:, 

WHAT THIS MEANS:

So, our WholesaleCentral listing was displayed over 360,000 times on WholesaleCentral.com, but was only viewed 12,000 times (which is OK!) BUT…. 0 of those people ever came to BigBrandWholesale.com… which is insane.  

But, just to double-verify, I went into our Google Analytics account.  The image below may be hard to see, but I will tell you what it says:

According to Google Analytics, we actually did get some clicks to our site... only 118 total, which resulted in $0 of purchases. 

The reason this is crazy is because we can run a Facebook ad, Instagram Ad, Google or YouTube Ad for only 1 week and have multiple sales from each ad... in addition to Mailing List Subscribers and Abandoned Carts that eventually convert to additional sales.  Even crazier, during the same timeframe we have less clicks from the BBB.org (Better Business website... we are not even a BBB member and have never advertised on this site), but the BBB clicks have resulted in sales!  So sites we aren't even paying to be on produce better results for us than $800 spent at WholesaleCentral.com 

MAYBE I'M WRONG?  LET'S FIND OUT...:

I thought that maybe this data is wrong, so I asked my buddy who owns a wholesale company and also advertises on Wholesale Central. Shockingly, his results are nearly identical to mine:

To make this even easier to read, let’s put mine and his side-by-side (his is on the left, mine is on the right):

As you can see, he got almost 100,000 more “Company Listings” than me (this means that his business APPEARED on the WholesaleCentral.com website 100k more times than my business, during the same time frame), but this only resulted in him getting 3,000 more “Company Listing Clicks” than me (This means 3,000 more people clicked his WholesaleCentral.com listing). Also, he has 1,000 more “Store Icon Clicks” than me because I got 0. This simple means that people clicked on his logo, for example:

was clicked ON WholesaleCentral.com

However we both ended up with 0 “product clicks”, 0 “clicks” to our websites and 0 “Clicks from Profile Page to Social Media”. If you don’t understand what this means, let me explain:

It means that people on WholesaleCentral.com aren’t *really* interested in buying Designer Brand Wholesale (which is what both of our companies sell). It means that, in 8 months, 800,000+ people were “window shopping”, at best. They weren’t even interested enough to actually LOOK at my website or his. It means that, essentially, the people on WholesaleCentral aren’t remotely “QUALIFIED LEADS” for many types of wholesalers; instead they’re just people, browsing the internet. They’re watching cat videos, playing Minecraft, clicking some WholesaleCentral links then Google searching “How to get HBO Max for Free”.

BUT, I never want to misrepresent any fellow small business, so I would like to notate that I have *seen* “success stories” that are, supposedly, a result of WholesaleCentral.com. Here’s 3 reviews BUT I have additionally included screenshots of these happy-users stores, so you can see what they sell:

REVIEW #1:

WHAT THEY SELL: A quick look at their site appears to be dollar store items. I could be wrong, but this was my quick impression

REVIEW #2:

WHAT THEY SELL: A quick look at their site appears to be a large variety of masks and trinkets. I could be wrong, but this was my quick impression

REVIEW #3:

WHAT THEY SELL: Boutique merchandise. I personally have bought from both ShopForBags and KatyDid and the quality is awesome. This is NOT name brands, so don’t expect to get Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger or Betsey Johnson. This is Katydid merchandise. But I swear to you, it is really nice and boutique buyers do love it. Not the best items for eBay / Amazon / etc, but perfect for physical locations:

IN CLOSING

Wholesale Central might work for some businesses, but it clearly doesn't work for our type of business. If you really want to give it a try, MAKE SURE you are also running (free) Google Analytics so you can compare the results provided by WholesaleCentral.com with the results in you Google business account.  ALSO, keep in mind that "clicks" do not mean "CLICKS".  If a WholesaleCentral member "clicks" to view your profile but never leaves WholesaleCentral.com, it's virtually useless to you.  Many people are going to be window shopping... actually they're not even "window shoppers", they're more like "window washers" who happen to be looking in the window while they wash.  These view do not help you in any way, even if there's 300,000 of them.  The window washer isn't looking to purchase wholesale.  

In my opinion, Wholesale Central is best suited for dollar store merchandise, flea market merch and boutique apparel.