So, you're a small creative business with incredible products that you want to sell. Maybe you've been selling them on Etsy or your website one at a time, and have started dabbling in wholesale. At some point, you've heard about Faire, with recommendations to join.
But how does Faire Wholesale work?
Faire is a wholesale platform that connects retailers to suppliers through a bespoke marketplace. Cool, what does that actually mean?
You are a supplier, with products to sell to retailers. One of the biggest difficulties you face is finding new stores to stock your products.
Retailers are faced with the difficulty of finding awesome products like yours in the forest of the internet, especially when sourcing internationally. Traditionally, trade shows like Top Drawer in London have been the facilitator, bringing loads of suppliers and retailers together under one roof, giving suppliers the chance to show off their wares and chat to buyers.
Platforms like Faire are the new digital facilitator connecting buyers and suppliers worldwide.
It basically works the same way as Etsy - suppliers create their own Shop Page and populate it with their products, and buyers, well, buy them.
Faire takes a cut in terms of a commission fee for bringing you new customers, and takes a commission with every reorder. I'm not quoting the percentages here because they're just about to change, but will update the blog as soon as it's published.
The Faire platform also has an in-built email marketing system where you can design and send campaigns to your customers.
There's a lot of pros and cons to using wholesale platforms like Faire, and people seem to either love it or hate it.
I'm not a business specialist, though, I'm a specialist in SEO for small creative businesses, and the reason I love Faire is because optimising your Shop Page and product listings actually makes a big difference to your visibility on Faire.
Suppliers often ask me, "how does Faire wholesale work with SEO". Interestingly, Faire uses its own search and ranking algorithm, and there are loads of really easy things that brands can do to improve their product visibility.
Faire has grown massively in the last 18 months or so, and my fear is that it will become too large for small businesses to be able to make their mark. Other wholesale platforms like Ankorstore attempt to compete with Faire, but many have already closed down and I honestly believe that Faire will acquire Ankorstore before too long.
If you're wondering how does Faire wholesale work to get set up, it's surprisingly easy, though they've announced that they're only accepting limited applications at the moment. Apply using my referral link so that I get a cheeky bonus cash, and wait to be approved. You can scrape your product listings from your existing online store, which is an easy way to get started, but I recommend optimising your settings, brand story and product listings to match the Faire requirements as soon as possible.
I developed The Ultimate Guide to Faire SEO in response to this question, providing suppliers with all of the information and knowledge on how to optimise their store to make sure their products are getting in front of the 600,000+ buyers that use the platform.
If you have any questions about Faire or about SEO in general, don't hesitate to reach out via the contact form or book a free consultation.
