Like making deals and money but don’t care for the daily grind? Then consider becoming a middleman—the wholesaler—who buys goods from the manufacturer and sells them to retailers for a profit. With millions of products on the market already and new ones coming every day, the wholesale economy has plenty of room for growth. This easy-to-read guide covers locating manufacturers and retailers, securing product exclusives, and identifying prime locations for wholesale distributorship. With insider secrets for beating the competition and step-by-step instruction on how to start making money today, this fully revised third edition also covers he Internet’s growing role in distribution, effective strategies for dealing with shrinking profit margins, and specific product lines to focus on for maximum success.

A guide to starting a profitable business includes advice, tips, and strategies for assessing one's tolerance for risk, taking advantage of one's skills, avoiding common mistakes, and focusing on what one loves to do.

This report is part of a multi-volume technical report series entitled, Running a Food Hub, with this guide serving as a companion piece to other United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports by providing in-depth guidance on starting and running a food hub enterprise. In order to compile the most current information on best management and operations practices, the authors used published information on food hubs, surveyed numerous operating food hubs, and pulled from their existing experience and knowledge of working directly with food hubs across the country as an agricultural business consulting firm. The report’s main focus is on the operational issues faced by food hubs, including choosing an organizational structure, choosing a location, deciding on infrastructure and equipment, logistics and transportation, human resources, and risks. As such, the guide explores the different decision points associated with the organizational steps for starting and implementing a food hub. For some sections, sidebars provide “decision points,” which food hub managers will need to address to make key operational decisions. This illustrated guide may assist the operational staff at small businesses or third-party organizations that may provide aggregation, marketing, and distribution services from local and regional producers to assist with wholesale, retail, and institution demand at government institutions, colleges/universities, restaurants, grocery store chains, etc. Undergraduate students pursuing coursework for a bachelor of science degree in food science, or agricultural economics may be interested in this guide. Additionally, this reference work will be helpful to small businesses within the food trade discipline.