How to order low priced bike supplies through a distributor?
Hi, I volunteer with Bikes del Pueblo, a volunteer-run non-profit bike collective in San Diego, CA. We teach bike mechanics and offer very low priced, free, or donation based used bikes and parts.
We want to find a bike supply distributor (such as JBI, QBP, etc) to work with to start ordering bike supplies, tubes, and parts at their wholesale prices. I've been finding that these companies ask for an application to be completed first with required documents like a state sales tax certificate, license for selling and repairing bikes, and other stuff that bike shops would have but we don't have any of.
We have insurance, 501c3 non-profit status, and a space to operate out of, but don't do sales tax, don't have licenses, and don't have a formal sales floor vs repair areas.
Would other bike coops/collectives have recommendations of wholesale bike distributors to get in touch with for ordering that would accept collectives like ours without needing to be a standard style bike shop or have all those official documents?
Thank you! Leslie
I'm a Canadian so someone in the US might have more suggestions but Midway Bicycle Supply as far as I know has the least stringent requirements for getting an account.
On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 8:03 PM Leslie Fisher lesliefs31@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, I volunteer with Bikes del Pueblo, a volunteer-run non-profit bike collective in San Diego, CA. We teach bike mechanics and offer very low priced, free, or donation based used bikes and parts.
We want to find a bike supply distributor (such as JBI, QBP, etc) to work with to start ordering bike supplies, tubes, and parts at their wholesale prices. I've been finding that these companies ask for an application to be completed first with required documents like a state sales tax certificate, license for selling and repairing bikes, and other stuff that bike shops would have but we don't have any of.
We have insurance, 501c3 non-profit status, and a space to operate out of, but don't do sales tax, don't have licenses, and don't have a formal sales floor vs repair areas.
Would other bike coops/collectives have recommendations of wholesale bike distributors to get in touch with for ordering that would accept collectives like ours without needing to be a standard style bike shop or have all those official documents?
Thank you! Leslie ____________________________________
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I know this may not be what you want to hear, but if you're selling low-priced items you still need to charge and pay sales tax.
We've used Midway and HLC.bike. HLC and JBI have been easy to work with. We have not had luck with QBP yet. -A
On Thursday, August 6, 2020, 5:12:27 PM PDT, David Oliver <nowhere3@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm a Canadian so someone in the US might have more suggestions but Midway Bicycle Supply as far as I know has the least stringent requirements for getting an account. On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 8:03 PM Leslie Fisher lesliefs31@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, I volunteer with Bikes del Pueblo, a volunteer-run non-profit bike collective in San Diego, CA. We teach bike mechanics and offer very low priced, free, or donation based used bikes and parts. We want to find a bike supply distributor (such as JBI, QBP, etc) to work with to start ordering bike supplies, tubes, and parts at their wholesale prices. I've been finding that these companies ask for an application to be completed first with required documents like a state sales tax certificate, license for selling and repairing bikes, and other stuff that bike shops would have but we don't have any of. We have insurance, 501c3 non-profit status, and a space to operate out of, but don't do sales tax, don't have licenses, and don't have a formal sales floor vs repair areas. Would other bike coops/collectives have recommendations of wholesale bike distributors to get in touch with for ordering that would accept collectives like ours without needing to be a standard style bike shop or have all those official documents? Thank you!Leslie____________________________________
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Whether or not you are charged or have to charge sales tax varies state by state. Here in AZ, nonprofits are exempt from both. I would check in with your state nonprofit commission. If you get a hold of a rep from whatever distributor, they will often work with you to find alternate documentation for "non-traditional" organization structures. We have accounts with both QBP and JBI. Although...we currently cannot order any tires, tubes, cables and a number of other items, and haven't been able to for months. 😬 ~Carlyn
Also not a great suggestion I know, but Ebay and Niagra cycle have prices that in some instance beat QBP. Several online retailers feature a "we'll beat any competitor's price" guarantee that, coupled with bulk ordering, makes them a comparable solution to a distributor.
Ordering from China (where a lot of these products come from regardless) is also sometimes even cheaper than QBP, but requires a *lot* of premeditation since the best prices take weeks or months to arrive.
We had a QBP account for almost twenty years, until earlier this year when they deleted our account because we hadn't ordered from them in too long. No one here knew that was a danger. I'm not all that upset about it so far, QBP has gotten very pricey lately, hyper-focused on high end sales, and not particularly friendly to community shops.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2020-08-07 01:26, BICAS wrote:
Whether or not you are charged or have to charge sales tax varies state by state. Here in AZ, nonprofits are exempt from both. I would check in with your state nonprofit commission. If you get a hold of a rep from whatever distributor, they will often work with you to find alternate documentation for "non-traditional" organization structures. We have accounts with both QBP and JBI. Although...we currently cannot order any tires, tubes, cables and a number of other items, and haven't been able to for months. 😬 ~Carlyn ____________________________________
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participants (5)
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Andrew Yee -
BICAS -
Cyclista Nicholas -
David Oliver -
Leslie Fisher