Silverware

Are you interested in setting up a home business selling cutlery online? Buying wholesale from suppliers is easier than you might think and you will save a huge percentage on retail price - leaving you a decent profit after sales. This article is a guide to the product itself, buying your merchandise and finding the correct supplier for you.

As with many other products, there is a high demand online for silverware and cutlery that can beat prices on the high street. Plenty of high quality cutlery is available from wholesalers, and the low overheads from an online business means you could well stand out from the crowd.

Silverware and cutlery is a broad topic. As well as your typical fork, knife and spoon set, consider looking at other steel work. High quality carving and kitchen knives are highly in demand. There is also a market to restaurants for this kind of merchandise. Some wholesalers also stock even more exotic products that may stretch the limit of the term "cutlery". For example "United Cutlery" deals almost exclusively in swords and throwing knives! The choice is obviously yours what you want to stock. Even within the seemingly limited frame of reference of a cutlery store, there are many options: restaurant specialist, home silverware, hobby knives and so forth. Choosing something you have some experience with is probably the best way to go.

Most cutlery these days is made of high-grade stainless steel, which, due to it being alloyed with chromium, corrodes considerably less than other steel. It is important to seek out high quality grades of steel when sourcing your products. At a cheap price, you may be getting an inferior product, and therefore being ripped off. Low quality knives will only lead to demands for refund and severe customer dissatisfaction. If you are not sure about steel quality, look around online. There are many guides to help you if you think you are being ripped off.

Traditionally, the heart of the cutlery and steel industry was the north of England, particularly Sheffield, but in recent years all this has changed. The steel mills of Sheffield and Birmingham are mostly closed and production stopped. Steel cutlery is now more likely to be sourced from Japan, the US or Germany. For this reason, the process of finding a silverware wholesaler is considerably internationalised. Wholesalers can also now be found easily online, with showcases of their wares and easy ordering for retailers. This also provides a wider range of prices for retailers to examine.

One of the most overlooked factors when buying any type of wholesale merchandise is shipping and all aspects of international commerce related to shipping. More important than the cost of shipping is the the opportunity cost created by the time factor. How much business will you lose if there is a time delay due to any component of the shipping chain? If you can live with this, then there are hundreds of wholesale distributors, it is simply a matter of finding the one whose products (and prices!) appeal most to you and to what you think your market will be.

So there you go, your guide to buying cutlery cheaply through a wholesaler.