Selling at markets means you do the selling. Wholesale and consignment flip that: a shop does the selling, and you focus on making. It's a different business with different rules — real order minimums, resale certificates, pricing that works at half-price, and one golden rule you can never break. Here's how each path works, and how to choose.
Doing face-to-face sales, there's a ceiling on how much you can sell — you can only personally be in one place at a time, at so many markets in a season. So makers looking to grow inevitably land on the same idea: wholesale and consignment, a way to have your products in more than one place at once without cloning yourself. It's how you get on shelves across town, across the state, even across the country, all while you stay home and make. There are real benefits — but real pitfalls too. Let's walk through it the way I'd explain it to a friend.
Step back for a second, because this is the real fork in the road. Every way of selling falls into one of two camps:
None is better than the others — they're just different businesses. Some makers love the face-to-face energy of markets and the full margin. Others would rather be in the studio making, and happily let shops handle the selling for a smaller cut per item but far more volume. Many do all three. Knowing which one you want shapes every decision below.
Wholesale means selling your product, at a discounted price, to a business that resells it to their own customers at full retail. You sell a soap to a boutique for $5; they sell it to a shopper for $10. It's an ongoing, business-to-business relationship — not a one-time deal. Here's what actually makes an account "wholesale":
That resale certificate is almost a litmus test: a true wholesale buyer is a registered business that can hand you one. If someone can't, they're not a wholesale account — they're a retail customer placing a big order. Which brings us to the most common mix-up.
This trips up almost every maker eventually. Someone messages you: "Can I order $500 of soap for my daughter's bridal shower and get wholesale pricing?" The answer is no — and it's important to understand why, so you can say it kindly and confidently.
That person is the end customer. They're not reselling anything; they're buying a lot of product for one event. That's a large retail order, and it's wonderful — but it isn't wholesale. Wholesale pricing exists because a shop is going to resell your product over and over, ordering from you again and again, doing the selling so you don't have to. A one-time bulk buyer does none of that.
Volume alone doesn't make something wholesale. Wholesale is a relationship with a reselling business — resale certificate, opening order, reorder minimums, ongoing. A one-time large buyer is an end customer who should pay retail (you can absolutely offer a friendly bulk discount if you want, but that's your choice, not an entitlement). If they can't give you a resale certificate, they're not wholesale.
You can still reward big retail orders with a small "buy more, save a little" discount if it suits you — just price it so you still profit, and keep it clearly separate from your real wholesale program.
Here's the part that stops a lot of makers cold: wholesale is usually around 50% of your retail price (the classic "keystone" markup, where the shop doubles your price to get their retail price). So if your soap retails for $10, your wholesale price is roughly $5 — and the shop sells it for $10.
Read that again, because it's the whole game: your numbers have to work at half price. If you can't make an acceptable profit selling at $5, you can't wholesale that product — full stop. This is exactly why pricing your products correctly from the very beginning matters so much. If you've priced with healthy margin built in, wholesale works. If you priced thin, there's no room for a shop to take their cut and for you to still earn.
Run every product through the math before you offer it wholesale. Our Pricing Calculator shows you retail and wholesale prices side by side, and the full method is in how to price your handmade products for profit. Get this right first, and everything else in this guide becomes possible.
When you approach a shop, they don't want a chatty email — they want a line sheet. Think of it as your wholesale menu: a clean, professional one- or two-page document a buyer can scan and order from. A good line sheet includes:
A polished line sheet signals you're a real, organized business a shop can rely on — which makes them far more comfortable placing that first order.
My honest recommendation for most makers: payment on delivery, or before you ship — no terms. "Terms" (like net-30, meaning the store pays 30 days after they receive the goods) sound professional, but think about what they actually mean for you.
You've already bought the materials. You've already done the labor. If you then ship on net-30, you're handing over your product and lending the store the wholesale value of those goods for a month while they sell them at a profit. That's you financing the store's inventory out of your own pocket. Big established suppliers can afford to float that money and absorb the occasional account that pays late — or never. A maker usually can't.
Default to payment up front or on delivery (sometimes called COD): you hand over the product, you get paid, clean and simple. Only offer terms once you genuinely have the financial cushion to carry that money comfortably and absorb a buyer who pays late — and even then, start small, with accounts you trust, and put it in writing. Your cash flow is the lifeblood of your business; don't lend it away.
This is the golden rule of wholesale, and breaking it can blow up a relationship faster than anything else. Once a shop carries your product, you must never undercut them.
Picture it: a boutique buys your soap wholesale and sells it for $10. Then you set up at a craft show in the same town and sell the same soap for $7 because you "don't have the overhead." You've just made that boutique look foolish to its own customers, and you've competed directly against the very business that's reselling your product. They'll notice, they'll be (rightly) furious, and they won't reorder. You've traded a repeat wholesale account for one weekend of sales.
The same goes for your own website. If you wholesale to shops, you can't turn around and sell direct to consumers for less than they do. Keep your retail price consistent everywhere — your booth, your site, and your stockists' shelves — so no one who carries your product ever gets undercut. (This is also why marketplaces like Faire require consistent wholesale pricing, as we'll see next.)
A stockist is doing your selling and marketing for you — never compete with them. Keep your own retail price (at shows and online) at or above what your shops charge, and be mindful of selling at a market right next door to a store that carries you. You want shops to feel safe carrying your line, not nervous that you'll undercut them down the street. Protect them, and they'll keep reordering for years.
These days, a lot of makers find their wholesale accounts on Faire — an online wholesale marketplace that connects independent brands with hundreds of thousands of boutique retailers. Instead of cold-emailing shops or working trade shows, you list your products and stores discover you. It's free to join (you apply and get approved), and you set your own wholesale prices and minimums.
Here's how the money works. Faire is commission-based: you pay a percentage only when you make a sale through the marketplace (commission on shops Faire introduces you to runs roughly in the 15–25% range, plus a small payment-processing fee). The clever part is Faire Direct — for retailers you bring to the platform yourself (shops you met at a market, say), you pay 0% commission and just use Faire's order and payment tools. So you can move your existing wholesale accounts onto Faire and pay nothing but processing.
And here's where it connects to the payment-terms advice above. Faire lets eligible shops take 60-day payment terms and offers them free returns on their first order — which makes stores far more willing to try you. But Faire pays you on your own schedule and carries the credit risk, so you're not the one floating the money or chasing the invoice. In other words, Faire is the one situation where a store can have terms while you still get paid promptly — the platform absorbs exactly the risk I told you not to take on yourself.
Faire requires your wholesale prices to stay consistent with your other wholesale channels, including your own — undercut it elsewhere and you risk being suspended or buried in search. That's the "never compete with your stockists" rule, enforced by the platform. Decide your wholesale price once, and hold it everywhere.
Consignment is the other way to get into shops — and it works very differently from wholesale. There are two main flavors, so let's take them one at a time.
With traditional consignment, you place your product in someone else's shop, the shopkeeper displays and sells it alongside their other goods, and you only get paid when it actually sells. Until then, it's sitting on their shelf but it's still yours. When a piece sells, you and the shop split the money — a common split is around 60/40 in your favor, though it varies. The shop does the selling and the merchandising; you supply and restock.
The second kind is common in antique malls, maker collectives, and vendor markets. Here you rent a booth or space inside their building, and you decorate it, set it up, and stock it yourself — it's your own little storefront inside someone else's shop. You control the look, the display, and the merchandising. Typically you pay monthly rent (sometimes plus a small commission), and the host shop runs the register when something sells, then pays you out.
There's a middle lane between "you sell" and "a shop sells" — having another person or group do the face-to-face selling on your behalf, at a place you can't be. The two most common versions:
The appeal is obvious: it's how you get to more than one place at a time without cloning yourself. But like everything here, it comes with trade-offs.
It comes back to that first fork. Ask yourself honestly: do you want to do the selling, or do you want to make?
Most makers land on a mix: some markets for the full margin and customer connection, a handful of wholesale accounts for steady volume, maybe a consignment booth for a standing presence, and the occasional fundraiser. There's no single right answer — just be clear-eyed about which work you actually want to do, price so every channel profits, and never, ever undercut the people selling for you.
Wholesale is an ongoing business relationship with a shop that resells your product to its own customers — it involves a resale certificate (so you sell tax-exempt), an opening order minimum, reorder minimums, and pricing at roughly half of retail. A bulk discount is just a price break you might offer an end customer on one large order, like someone buying $500 of soap for a bridal shower. That person isn't reselling anything, so it's a big retail sale, not wholesale. The simplest test: a true wholesale buyer is a registered business that can give you a resale certificate.
Wholesale is typically about 50% of your retail price — the shop buys at half and sells at full retail (the classic keystone markup). The key is that your numbers have to work at that half price: if you can't make an acceptable profit selling at wholesale, you can't wholesale that product. This is why pricing correctly from the start, with healthy margin built in, matters so much. Run each product through a pricing calculator to confirm both your retail and wholesale prices leave you a real profit before you offer it to shops.
For most makers, the safest answer is on delivery or before you ship — no terms. Offering terms like net-30 means you've already paid for materials and labor and are now lending the store the value of the goods for a month while they sell them, which is financing their inventory out of your own pocket. Only extend terms once you have the cash cushion to carry that money and absorb a late or non-paying account, and even then start small with trusted accounts and put it in writing. (Marketplaces like Faire are an exception, since the platform pays you on schedule and carries the risk.)
Be very careful here. The golden rule of wholesale is never to compete with the shops that carry you. If a nearby store sells your soap for $10 and you set up at a market down the street selling it for $7, you undercut them in front of their own customers — and they'll likely stop reordering. Keep your retail price consistent everywhere (your booth, your website, and your stockists' shelves), and think twice before selling right next to a store that carries your line. Protecting your stockists keeps them reordering for years.
Faire is an online wholesale marketplace where independent makers list their products and boutique retailers discover and order them. It's free to join after you apply and get approved, and you set your own wholesale prices and minimums. Faire takes a commission only when it brings you a new retailer (roughly 15–25%, plus a small processing fee), but charges 0% commission on retailers you bring yourself through Faire Direct. Faire lets eligible shops pay on 60-day terms while paying you on your own schedule and carrying the credit risk, so you're not floating the money. One rule to note: your wholesale prices must stay consistent with your other channels, or you risk being suspended.
Fundraisers are a hybrid — a group like a school, team, or church resells your product to their supporters and keeps a cut, which makes it behave a bit like wholesale. But it's usually a one-time or seasonal event rather than an ongoing reorder relationship, and the group typically isn't a registered reselling business with a resale certificate, so it doesn't fit the strict definition of a wholesale account. Think of it as its own channel where someone else does the selling for you. We cover it in depth in our guide to growing by selling to fundraisers.
With wholesale, a shop buys your product up front (usually at about half of retail) and then owns it — they've paid you, and any unsold stock is their problem. With consignment, you place your product in the shop but you only get paid when it actually sells, splitting the proceeds with the shop (often around 60/40 in your favor). Consignment is easier to get into because the shop risks nothing, but you carry all the risk of unsold stock and you're not paid until it moves. Wholesale gets you paid sooner; consignment can be a lower-barrier way to test a shop.
A booth or rented space — common in antique malls and maker collectives — is a spot inside a larger shop that you rent, decorate, set up, and stock yourself, like your own little storefront within their store. You usually pay monthly rent (sometimes plus a small commission), the host shop runs the register, and you keep most of each sale. The big difference from traditional consignment is that you control the display and pay rent whether or not you sell, whereas in consignment the shop merchandises your product and you only pay them a cut when something sells.
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