Some of the best ways to find wholesale hat suppliers

As a retailer or buyer, finding a good wholesale hat supplier is an important task. But with so many wholesalers out there, the choices can be overwhelming. So how do you find a good one? Your first inclination might be to start on the Internet. A Google search of “wholesale hats” will give you hundreds of thousands of results. However, many of these results will be middlemen, someone buying from a wholesale supplier and re-selling at a mark-up, and not the actual wholesale supplier themselves.

While the Internet can be a valuable resource, it can also make it difficult to differentiate between a good wholesale hat supplier and a shoddy one. Do your research, make some phone calls, and use your best judgment. If there is a particular brand of hat that you are looking for, find the manufacturer online. Then contact them to see if they sell direct and in the quantities you need; if not, ask them who distributes their product in your area. If you live in a large city, such as Los Angeles, there will also be many local wholesalers. Check the phone book and local listings online.

The benefit of a nearby location is that you can physically check the wholesaler for quality and resolve any problems in person. You will also save on freight costs if you’re ordering small quantities and pick up the merchandise yourself. Call the wholesalers you’re interested in, get pricing and sales policy information on the phone, and then try to carve a few hours out of the day to visit their locations and check the merchandise.

Another great resource to find wholesale hat suppliers is at tradeshows. The Magic Tradeshow in Las Vegas is one of the largest tradeshows in the apparel industry. There you will find hundreds of manufacturers and wholesalers – not the middleman you will find in an online search. The Magic Show will be at the Las Vegas Convention Center in February of 2009. You can also join a site such as salehoo.com, which lists reputable wholesale suppliers and drop shippers and updates regularly. You will have to pay a one-time fee to have access to their database, but depending on the size of your business and the amount of time you want to spend searching for a wholesale supplier, it might be a worthwhile expenditure.

There are many ways to find wholesale suppliers, all of which will take time and research on your part. The time you spend to find a good supplier will pay off in the end, however, with the best pricing and fewest problems. So don’t neglect this important task – find a supplier you can trust for years to come.