How to tell a real stock buyer from a broker: seven questions before your stock list leaves the building
The riskiest minute in selling a lot comes before the price. It is the moment your stock list first leaves the building, because from then on it can be copied. This page is the checklist that belongs before that. It is written for any buyer in this trade, this desk included, and none of the questions costs you anything except the willingness to ask them.
- Seven questions that belong before the first stock list, not after the first offer
- Each question with the answer you want, and the answer that should end the call
- The difference between a buyer on own account and a chain of intermediaries
- Our own answers sit alongside, so they can be held against us
Why the check belongs before the list, not before the signature
In most sales the checking happens once a price is on the table. With a stock lot that is too late. The damage does not start at the price, it starts earlier: a stock list with articles, size runs and quantities is a fingerprint in this trade. Anyone who bought the same season reads off which house it came from, and no letterhead is needed for that.
So the only check that works is the one that happens before the file goes out. After that you are only checking how carefully somebody handles information they already have.
The seven questions
All seven can be answered on the phone in ten minutes. A buyer who deflects is not being discreet, he simply has no answer.
- Do you buy on your own account, or do you broker? The answer decides who carries the price risk. In a brokered deal you keep carrying it, however the call sounds.
- Who exactly is the contracting party, and where is it registered? Legal name, seat and register belong on the website, not in an email signature.
- When is payment made, and what does it depend on? Before loading is one answer. After receipt of goods, after resale, or in instalments is a very different one.
- What does the purchase contract say about resale? A verbal assurance is nothing you can put in front of your own board later. Ask for the wording of the clause, before signature.
- Do you sign a mutual NDA before the stock list? Mutual means the buyer also names neither your house, nor the goods, nor the terms to third parties.
- Does my list go to third parties, and if so, to whom? Shopping your list around the market for prices is the normal working method of a broker, and the reason your lot suddenly becomes known.
- What do you not buy? A buyer who takes every category has a sales channel of his own for none of them. A desk that can name its refusals has a profile.
Answers that should end the call
A handful of phrases come up again and again in this trade, and each of them means the same thing. They sound accommodating and in fact move risk or responsibility onto you.
None of them proves bad faith. Each of them is a reason not to send the list yet, and to ask one more question instead.
- Tell us your price expectation first. From there the negotiation runs against your own figure, and you have bid against yourself.
- Just send the list and we will have a look. The list is precisely the thing that should not go out yet.
- We will do the NDA later, it is a formality. An NDA that arrives after disclosure protects nothing.
- On resale, you have our word that nothing comes back. That is not something you can produce internally.
- We pay once we have resold the goods. Then the price risk is still yours, only now without the goods.
- We take pretty much everything. Then your lot gets passed along, and you pay the chain's margin.
How this desk answers the seven
A checklist is worthless if we do not submit to it ourselves. So here are our answers, in the same order, short and without deflection.
The supporting material is open: the sequence and the contract extracts sit in the overview of the model, and the categories we decline sit on their own page with a reason for each line.
- We buy on our own account, not on commission and not as an agent. The price risk transfers with the signature.
- The contracting party is a company with a seat and a register entry, and the buyer stays the same person from first contact to loading.
- Payment is made in full by bank transfer before the goods are loaded. No commission, no cash, no payment terms after receipt of goods.
- The purchase contract forbids us to resell into your home market. You read the wording before signature.
- The mutual NDA sits before the first stock list, on your own template if you prefer.
- Your list does not go out to third parties for price checks and is not passed on as an offer.
- We decline: children's ranges, furniture, sanitary ware, FMCG and lots under 1,000 units, each with a reason.
What the next few days look like
Ask, do not send
The seven questions can be answered on the phone. Only once the answers stand do we talk about specific goods. Brand or category and the approximate volume are enough until then.
Mutual NDA
Signed before the first list, on your template if you prefer. It binds both sides and continues to apply even if no purchase follows.
Firm price
Within 48 hours of a complete stock list there is a firm price for the whole lot, made against current demand and named in the conversation.
Payment, then collection
First the purchase contract with the stock list attached, then payment in full by bank transfer, then loading. Collection is arranged by us.
Put the seven questions to us
You need no file and no calculation for that conversation. Brand or category, approximate volume from 1,000 units, and whether you want to talk about selling. A buyer replies within one working day and works through the list above in order.
Three facts are enough: brand or category, approximate volume from 1,000 units, and whether you want to talk about selling. We never ask what you want for the lot.
Received. Your offer is being prepared.
A buyer comes back to you within one business day, with a firm offer within 48 hours. Everything is handled under NDA.
Common questions
Is it rude to put these questions to a buyer?
It is standard practice in every other kind of purchasing. You check a supplier before you order, and here rather more is at stake: a complete lot out of your warehouse, and a list that lets the market draw conclusions. A buyer who reads these questions as distrust has not understood what he is asking for. A buyer who expected them answers in ten minutes.
How do I spot a broker who introduces himself as a buyer?
In three places. First the price risk: a broker cannot say it transfers on signature, because he is not buying. Second the payment: anyone who pays only after reselling is selling your goods rather than buying them. Third your list: if it is needed to check prices in the market, it necessarily travels on. Ask directly, and the answer is usually unambiguous.
The buyer wants a list before committing to anything. Is that a bad sign?
Not automatically, because without a list nobody can name a number you could rely on. The sequence is what matters. First the mutual NDA and the resale clause, then the list, then the figure. A desk that inverts that and pushes the paperwork to the end is asking you to go first at exactly the point where you cannot take it back.
What about references and reviews?
In this trade they are weak evidence. A buyer working under NDA cannot show his sellers by name, and one who shows them anyway has either broken the NDA or invented the reference. So check documents rather than stories: the register entry, the contracting party, the wording of the clauses and the moment of payment. Those are verifiable; a reference list is not.
We are bound to confidentiality towards the brand. Does that conflict with checking?
No, because none of the seven questions requires you to name the goods. Category and approximate volume are enough to establish how somebody buys, when he pays and what the contract says about resale. Obligations under your own agreements are untouched by that and should be discussed before an offer, not at the loading dock.