What Are the Pros and Cons of Buying Wholesale Luggage?

Some pros of buying wholesale luggage are the potential to receive deep discounts and the ability to band together with other people to get even deeper discounts. On the other hand, the cons of buying wholesale are the marginal discounts when making small orders and the likelihood of accidentally buying poorly made products or counterfeit items. Teamwork and careful research are necessary to avoid these problems, but there is always some risk in ordering a new product from a company never dealt with before.

A major pro of buying wholesale luggage is the potential discount a buyer gets over buying retail price. Luggage is typically an expensive purchase, but when bought wholesale, that price might fall to about 50 percent of the going retail price. The total discount largely depends on how many pieces the customer purchases and how much profit the manufacturer wishes to make off each piece.

One potential con of buying wholesale luggage is that a person must sometimes buy a lot of luggage to get a good discount. A piece is one luggage container or set, and the wholesale company may require all customers to purchase a minimum amount to do business with them. For example, it is not unusual for wholesale companies to place a minimum of six pieces on most items. If the luggage sets are not for resale but for the customer's own use, he or she can group together with others to buy many pieces of luggage and receive a deeper discount than offered when buying alone.

Sometimes wholesale luggage is of inferior quality and not designed to last more than a year with regular use. The luggage handles may break, the wheels pop off, or the clasps snap off. There are a lot of things that can go wrong with cheap luggage that does not happen with well-made luggage containers until after a decade or so.

Another potential con of buying wholesale luggage is the likelihood of purchasing counterfeit items. Some expensive name-brand companies make their own luggage sets, and while these sets are occasionally offered at a discount, they are unlikely to be found new at a small percentage of the going price. Wholesale counterfeit luggage is a real problem similar to counterfeit clothing and jewelry. Sometimes the counterfeit manufacturers hint that the wholesale luggage is not authentic with phrases like “authentic replica name-brand luggage set,” which can be confusing, but basically means the item is a real fake.