Wholesale versus retail: what are some key definitions, examples and pricing strategies?

The background article Wholesale and retail explained: Definitions, examples, and pricing strategies sheds light on the differences between retail and wholesale. Retailers are the businesses that sell fashion items directly to consumers, buying fashion items from wholesalers or directly from the manufacturer and selling them in physical or online stores, or a combination of both.

Wholesale, on the other hand, refers to the sale of goods in large quantities to other companies or ‘middlemen’ such as boutiques, department stores, or online retailers who then sell the products to consumers. Many fashion brands employ a mix of both retail and wholesale strategies, selling their products through multi-brand retailers as well as their own stores.

One key difference between wholesale and retail is the difference in the price of fashion items. How do production costs, transport and import costs affect the wholesale price and what is the ‘recommended retail price’? This article offers an answer to these questions and more to help readers develop a thorough understanding of fashion's two primary distribution channels and their pricing mechanisms.

This article text has been partially generated with an AI tool, and then edited by Veerle Versteeg.