Wholesale Handler
A cafe owner asks if you can supply them with ten dozen a week. You say yes. You shake hands. And just like that, you're a wholesale egg supplier.
Except nobody told you what to agree, what to write down, or how to actually manage a recurring trade account. The internet has plenty of guidance on licensing, grading, and labelling - the regulatory side of selling eggs. What it doesn't cover is the operational side: how to run the account once the paperwork is done.
This article is about what happens after you've said yes.
What to agree before the first delivery
These conversations are easier to have now than six months in. Get them out of the way upfront.
Delivery day and frequency
Weekly is standard for most cafe and restaurant accounts. Agree which day. If you're already doing a round on Tuesdays, the new customer goes on the Tuesday run. Simple - but say it out loud and confirm it. "I'll deliver every Tuesday morning" is clearer than "I'll drop them round each week."
Quantities and products
Ten dozen large? Six dozen large and four dozen medium? Mixed sizes? Get the specifics. "About ten dozen" becomes a problem when you're packing and don't know whether to load ten or twelve.
Order changes and cutoff
Customers will want to change their order. That's normal. What you need is a cutoff - a point after which the order is locked for that week. "Let me know by Sunday evening if you need to change anything for Tuesday" gives you Monday to pack with confidence. Without a cutoff, you get texts at 6am on delivery day asking for extra trays you haven't packed.
Payment terms
Agree these now, clearly, in writing. Common arrangements for small wholesale egg accounts:
- Payment on delivery (simplest, but not always practical for the customer)
- Weekly invoice, payment within seven days
- Monthly invoice, payment within fourteen or thirty days
The longer the payment terms, the more you're funding. A customer on monthly terms who pays late is sitting on six weeks of your eggs, paid for with your feed money. That's fine if you've agreed to it. It's not fine if it just happened because nobody set terms.
Price and price changes
Agree a price per dozen or per tray. Also agree how you'll handle price changes - feed costs move, and your prices may need to move with them. "I'll give you two weeks' notice of any price changes" is reasonable and avoids the awkward conversation where you turn up with eggs and a new price on the same day.
Mistakes that seem small but aren't
No written agreement
You don't need a contract drawn up by a solicitor. But an email confirming the basics - delivery day, quantities, payment terms, cutoff time - gives both sides something to refer back to. "We agreed payment within seven days" is much easier to say when you can point to the email.
Saying yes to everything
The customer asks to change their delivery day. Then asks for a one-off order on a Thursday. Then starts texting orders at random times. Each request is small. Together, they turn a simple account into an unpredictable one. It's easier to hold boundaries from the start than to claw them back later.
Not invoicing from week one
Send an invoice after the first delivery. Not the third. Not "once we've settled in." The pattern you set in the first month is the pattern you'll be stuck with. If you invoice from day one, that's just how it works. If you wait, introducing invoicing later feels like a change - even though it shouldn't.
How the account evolves
Your first wholesale customer will teach you everything you need to know about the next ten. Here's what to expect.
The first order change
It'll happen within a month. "Can we have twelve dozen instead of ten this week?" This is fine - it's why you set a cutoff. The issue isn't changes. It's changes without notice.
The first late payment
Almost guaranteed. It usually isn't malicious - it's a busy cafe owner who forgot. How you handle it sets the tone. A quick, matter-of-fact message - "just a reminder, last week's invoice is outstanding" - is all it takes. The longer you leave it, the harder it gets.
The first "can you come a day early?"
This is the one that tests your boundaries. If you can, fine. If you can't, say so. "I'm only in your area on Tuesdays" is a perfectly good answer. The alternative is rearranging your round for one customer and regretting it when three more ask the same thing.
How Wholesale Handler solves this
Wholesale Handler gives your customer a portal where they can see your products and place orders. From the first delivery, the account is set up properly - orders come through the system, not through texts. There's a cutoff time, so you know when orders are final. Invoices are built from processed orders, so you're not writing them by hand.
It's the difference between starting professional and trying to become professional later. Your first wholesale customer gets the same experience as your twentieth.
