Wholesale baby stuff????

[lukenick1]

Looking to start a diaper cake business but have no idea how to buy the baby items cheap. Any ideas where to find wholesale gerber, gund, carters, and johnson & johnson stuff???

 

[NotUrsula]

Try opening a subscription to Baby Shop magazine.

Also, consider attending the ABC Kids Expo (this year it's in Las Vegas -- two weeks from now. http://www.theabcshow.com/) If anyone has a particular type of business relating to babies, there will be products for that market at the ABC show.

I've heard that if you are going for a juvenile products small business, you probably won't want to try to carry a lot of inventory from the big JP mfrs.; WalMart and TRUS will undercut you every time. Most successful small shops carry brands that you can't buy from the big box stores. If what you are really selling is the labor and convenience of a "craftsy" gift all ready to go, then the prices of the single items are not too important; the trick is pricing the service aspect to cover the overhead and still leave you a decent profit.

 

[fallcolors]

Inquire at small specialty shops. Sometimes they have items that they want to get rid of to make room for new inventory or because item isn't selling. Explain to them your project/purpose and hopefully they will have ideas to share.

 

[crobinv]

In order to attend the ABC Expo, you have to be approved. Also, I would say that most of the items there are not geared to what you are planning on doing. I owned a brick & mortar high end baby store boutique. I learned quite a bit while I ran it and I made diaper cakes that I would sell in the store. I used diapers from Wholesale Club (Sam's, Costco), but it really depended on what my customer wanted considering so many of the customers wanted all white diapers. I used Seventh Generations diapers for some cakes if the theme was more in line with taupe color.

Also, I did not put items in the diaper cakes. I strictly used diapers, ribbons, silver-line cake bases, ribbon, and flowers.

Wishing you the best of luck! I still make diaper cakes for friends and family members, but after having my daughter... I got out of the high-end baby business.