For the tea drinker, visiting a well run tea room or high quality hotel or restaurant that serves high quality loose leaf tea can be a very enjoyable experience. In addition to the taste and sense of well being and serenity that high quality loose leaf tea offers, the tea drinker can also enjoy the value added benefits that tea resellers add.

Tea resellers add significant value to the tea drinking process in the form of tea related food (for example: sandwiches, cakes, pure drinking water and full meals) and a warm elegant environment that encourages socializing and friendship among tea drinkers.

It is important to understand however, the business relationship between the tea supplier and the reseller/wholesaler that allows the creation of value for the tea drinker.

What is a tea wholesaler?

A tea wholesaler is a business that buys high quality loose leaf tea in bulk and at a discount from the retail price and then serves the tea to its customer in a tea room, restaurant of other establishment. The tea serving is almost always combined with value added offerings of other products like quality food and beverages,

What is a tea supplier?

A tea supplier is a business that purchases and imports tea in bulk from the country of origin like China, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan or other tea producing country. Many suppliers will blend raw tea using recipes for unique flavors that the supplier has developed. Blends like Earl Grey, Coconut Pouchong, Vanilla Jasmine, Kashmiri Chai and others are included with basic black, green, wu long, white and pu-erh teas are in the product line of the supplier.

The essence of the wholesaler/supplier relationship is the value created as a result of the products and services offered the wholesaler by the supplier and the benefits received by the wholesaler.

What should the wholesaler look for in a supplier?

Tea Quality

The starting point for any tea relationship is the quality of the loose leaf tea. Without quality tea and tea blends, the business relationship will fail. Wholesalers should look for suppliers with a reputation for supplying the highest quality tea.

Customer Service and Support

Many wholesalers are tired of trying to reach the supplier and getting lost in endless phone trees or automated responses. Choose a supplier that will be assign a dedicated live phone representative to help with orders, track shipments, provide billing support, and help you with anything else you need

Pricing and Profitability

A wholesaler should earn the best discount for the volume purchased? With some suppliers wholesalers can earn greater profits through larger volume based discounts based upon multiple-tiered pricing structures.

Discount Velocity and Reliability

Are the discounts offered as an integral part of the business relationship and on a consistent basis that allow the wholesaler the ability to construct a profitable business model? Some suppliers offer large discounts that often are reduced at a later date and this practice is very detrimental to the wholesaler.

Look for a supplier with a wholesale program that offers auto-adjusting price levels that reward higher volumes in real time as well as a status indicator that tells you how close you are to that next price break

Easy Access to Your Account for 24/7 Account Management

For wholesalers who purchase after hours some suppliers offer wholesale tea programs that provide unique account logins that allow account management 24 hours a day.

Easy and Cost Effective Ordering

Some suppliers offer wholesale programs that can load previous orders with a single click and a few also offer autoship programs that will ship your wholesale tea order every month at a discounted price. Some of these programs are also manageable 24 hours a day through online. This feature saves the wholesaler time and money.

Manageable Order History

For those wholesalers who only order teas during specific seasons it is important to deal with suppliers that offer comprehensive order history lookup whereby the supplier can see every order placed and the exact date the order was placed. Never again will the wholesaler forget that best selling tea during Mothers Day, Valentines Day, or any other peak holiday.

Multiple Delivery Locations

For wholesalers with multiple locations look for suppliers with wholesale programs that allow shipments to multiple locations without having to place several orders also keep this information on file that allows easy lookup in the future.

Tea wholesalers are a very important part of the loose leaf tea business but they must work with a reliable supplier that produces only the highest quality tea and offer a business model that allows the wholesaler long term, sustainable profitability.

Jon Stout is Chairman of the Golden Moon Tea Company. For more information about tea, green tea and wholesale tea go to goldenmoontea.com

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