Selling wholesale
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Wholesale in supplements begins with a document request rather than a purchase order, and brands without the file lose the account while assembling it.
The documentation arrives first
Retailers in this category carry real exposure from what they stock, so the diligence is heavier than in food. Expect the request before the order.
What a buyer will ask for
A line sheet with case quantities and pricing. Full Supplement Facts and Other Ingredients. A certificate of analysis for the batch being supplied. Evidence of 21 CFR 111 compliance, and increasingly a third-party audit or certification. Product liability insurance at a named minimum. Tamper evidence. A lot code on every unit. And a shelf life with evidence behind it.
None of that is unreasonable and all of it takes longer to assemble than a buyer will wait.
Margin and the halving
Wholesale is roughly half retail, and neither your packaging nor your per-formula testing gets cheaper because the buyer is a shop.
A product comfortable at retail and marginal at wholesale is a product that cannot grow through stockists, and the arithmetic should be tested before pursuing accounts rather than after winning one.
Which accounts
Independent health stores, gyms, clinics and practitioners, where the owner is the buyer and your technical story travels.
Be careful with marketplace resellers who will price against you, with chains whose trial terms include returns, and with any account large enough that losing it would end the business.
And be careful with unauthorized resellers generally: a supplement bought cheap, stored badly and resold is your brand carrying somebody else's handling.