Price Like a Distributor, Not a Spreadsheet

Most wholesale pricing conversations start in the wrong place: the invoice. The number that should drive your pricing isn't what a unit costs — it's how fast that unit leaves the shelf, and what it costs you every day it doesn't.

Velocity beats margin, almost every time. A handset that turns twelve times a year at eight points of margin makes you more money — and more repeat customers — than one that turns three times at twenty. When you evaluate a buy, put turn rate next to margin on the same line. The best operators in this business price to keep their fast movers fast, and let the slow shelf pay rent or leave.

Tier with intent, not habit. Volume tiers exist to buy loyalty, not to give the bottom of your range away. Set the first tier where a serious buyer naturally lands, make the second tier feel earned, and reserve the top tier for partners who forecast with you. A tier a customer can hit by accident isn't a tier — it's a discount with paperwork.

Respect the empty-shelf tax. A stockout doesn't just cost the sale in front of you; it sends your customer to a competitor's counter, and habits form fast. When you weigh holding a little extra stock against squeezing the last point out of a purchase order, remember that availability is a pricing strategy too — the most underrated one in the industry.

Publish your structure and honor it. Buyers talk to each other more than distributors like to think. A pricing sheet that means what it says — clear tiers, clear terms, no quiet exceptions — compounds into the kind of trust that survives a bad quarter. Opaque pricing wins a deal; transparent pricing wins a decade.

Pricing is a relationship tool wearing a spreadsheet costume. Treat it that way, and the margins tend to take care of themselves.