How can a retailer compete with wholesalers or manufacturers offering very low prices online?

This is a question about Retailing versus Wholesaling. I am currently a retailer of bargain products. Having very recently joined the retailing industry, this is what I have discovered about many of my suppliers—several wholesalers. Many of my current wholesale suppliers sell their same products online for prices lower than what I can charge after I have purchased from them, and had the items shipped to me. In other words these wholesalers have priced their products so that I cannot compete with them in online sales. Yet, if I offered the same products in my bricks-and-mortar storefront, many customers would check the Internet on their cell phones and/or go home and might consider buying from the wholesaling supplier rather than me as the retailer.One of my wholesalers is from outside of the United States and sells within the United States on another organization's U.S. web site at extremely low prices. How can I compete with the wholesaler on these prices? To clarify, these are bargain items and not newly released products although the products are new.My question is: Shouldn't there be some wall up that prohibits the wholesaler who obtains items for sale at very low prices from the manufacturers be restricted from competing with retailers if they are offering products barely above wholesale prices? Read More

Answered 02/03/2011Bernardine WuPost a comment