How to Find Manufacturers as a Distributor

Not every SKU deserves a factory relationship. Direct makes sense when the wholesaler layer is eating 8–12 points you cannot recover, when you need a pack or label the middleman will not do, or when annual volume will clear a real MOQ without wrecking turns. A $2,000-a-year item can stay with a wholesaler. A $180,000 family should meet the plant.

Factories ignore vague interest. Bring a 12-month unit view by SKU, the channel (independent, banner, bid), and a credit-ready packet. 'We have lots of customers' is not a forecast. Eight named doors and a starter set is.

If you cannot fund the first container or the first domestic truckload without starving the rest of the book, you are not ready to go direct. You are ready to pre-sell or to stay with a wholesaler who will split cases.

Expo West, AAPEX, ASD, and the vertical equivalent are still the fastest way to stand in front of a plant manager who can say yes. Walk with a 15-name list. Skip booths that cannot produce a quality contact and a sample lead time on the spot.

Import records and Census foreign-trade style public data will tell you who already ships your category into the U.S. That is a list of plants that understand a U.S. distributor. It is not diligence — it is a starting roster.

Reps and brokers can open a line or block it. Ask who else they represent in the same aisle. A broker with four competing sauces will not lose sleep over your fill. A focused rep might. Write the expected call frequency before you rely on them.

Manufacturers pick channel partners the way you pick doors: who will not wreck price, who will stock, who will train, who will not leak into a marketplace. Lead with territory map, account types, warehouse cutoff, and how you enforce MAP. Enthusiasm is free and they have heard it.

If you want exclusivity, say what you will hit by month 6 and month 12 in units, and what you will not do — no Amazon storefront, no selling to a known diverter. Exclusivity without those sentences is a wish.

Bring last quarter's fill number if you have one. A plant will take a smaller new house that can prove 97% on a short line over a larger house that shorts them. Numbers travel better than adjectives.

Ask how they police MAP and unauthorized sellers in your zips. If the answer is a shrug, your authorized price will leak by Friday. The FTC supply-chain guidance is the public context; the dealer agreement is the private one. Counsel before you sign a clause you cannot live with.

Tell them where you have seen gray cartons. Brands already know the problem; they do not always know the county. That list is more useful than a second tote of samples.

Do not buy around the brand 'until authorization comes through.' The plant will hear. The banner will hear. You will have trained both that you are a diverter with a warehouse.

Compare price next to who pays freight, insurance, and customs. A low EXW quote that dumps origin trucking on you is not low. Write Incoterms 2020 with a named place on the PO. FCA at the factory with your forwarder is often cleaner than EXW. DDP from a plant that cannot act as U.S. IOR is a fiction.

Claims: who files, photos, and days to credit. A plant that 'handles claims internally' with no clock will handle them never. Put 14 days to disposition in writing.

Lead-time remedy: priority production, a credit, or the right to buy cover and bill the difference. Without a remedy, a late container is just an apology you will read to 11 bakeries.

Launch a defined set, a reorder trigger, and a 90-day review. Track conversion at the door, fill, and hours to fix a miss. Broad catalog share before those three are boring is how you fund a museum of the plant's slow movers.

Worked pilot. Eight SKUs, $22,000 opening buy, 11 independent shops. Day 90: six SKUs turning, two dead, fill 97%, one label miss they credited in 9 days. You used that file to ask for a better tier and a mix-SKU MOQ. They said yes because you had evidence, not a vibe.

Use the pilot to kill the relationship too. A plant that misses twice and argues the PO is not a long-term partner. Exit while the dollars are small.

FOB $7.10, first container clean, second container 9% wet and a 16-day roll. No written claim clock. You owned $8,400 of wet goods and a banner that dual-sourced you. The first container's 8% 'savings' versus domestic was $3,100. The second container erased it and then some. Written remedies are cheaper than charm.

After that: no second container until the claim path is tested on a real miss — even if you have to stage a small one. Trust the file, not the dinner.

GS1 case labels and a lot code you can trace should be in the plant's packet. If they 'will add barcodes later,' later is never. Budget your own label or walk.

Dual-running a wholesaler on the A item during the factory pilot is ugly and cheaper than a stockout. Kill the dual-run on a fill-rate date, not a hope. Plants hate this. Fill rate does not.

Tell the wholesaler the truth if the relationship is decent: you are testing direct on a slice. Some will tighten terms. Some will compete and make the plant honest. A surprise cutoff is how you lose both.

The SBA cash reminder applies: factory MOQs plus wholesaler leftover is how DIO explodes. Cap the combined buy.

They will ask for three trade references, a bank letter, warehouse photos, and whether you sell on marketplaces. Have the packet in one PDF. Fumbling for a COI on your phone in their booth is how you look like a broker. If you do sell on a marketplace, say so and show the MAP controls. Lying is how you lose the line in month four when they find the listing.

They will ask about competing lines. Name them. A plant that cannot live next to a competitor you already carry is a plant you should know about before you print the line card. A plant that demands you drop a working line for a hopeful exclusive is asking you to fund their launch with your fill rate.

They will ask for a forecast you cannot defend. Give a range and a starter set. A confident 40-foot forecast from a house with 12 doors is how you get an MOQ and a silent treatment when you miss. Under-promise units. Over-deliver OTIF on the units you took.

A plant that offers private label on the first call is often a trader with access to a line, not a factory with spare capacity. Ask for the minimum, the artwork clock, who owns the mold or the formula, and who takes leftover. Private label MOQs of 2,500 cases on a flavor you invented last week are how reserve fills with your own mistake.

If you do private label, budget artwork, a second quality check, and a sell-down plan before the PO. Your brand on a wet carton is your problem in a way a national brand never will be. Insurance and a written spec sheet are not optional because the plant 'does this for everyone.'

Do not private-label a category you are still learning as a branded distributor. Learn the returns, the dates, and the doors first. Private label is a second company wearing your logo.

Same-week follow-up: thank-you, the one-page territory map, W-9, resale certificate, warehouse photo, and the three SKUs you want to pilot. Plants forget badges. They remember houses that send a complete file before the flight home is unpacked. If you wait ten days, you are in the pile with everyone who 'loved connecting.'

Copy the brand manager and the regional if you have both names. One inbox is how a packet dies when someone is at a different show the next week.

Put the next date in the email: 'I will call Tuesday at 10 your time if I have not heard about the sample lead time.' Then call. Silence is not a process.

Ask monthly output, how much is already sold to other U.S. houses, and what happens to your allocation if a national takes a spike. A plant at 95% capacity that still wants your 40-foot is selling you leftover. Write a minimum allocation in units for the A SKUs during Q4.

Ask who else they authorized in your state. Two new houses in the same county is how MAP leaks and how your exclusivity poem dies. If they will not name the others, assume they exist.

Tour or inspect before the second container. A clean first lot and a dirty second is the pattern. The second lot is the relationship.