Candid Wholesale Review and Maker Tips

Updated March 2024

Editor’s note: Originally, Candid started at well under $100/month with unlimited users. But as of March, 2024, Candid’s price increased to a minimum of $179/month. For many small makers and brands this may be well out of range as a fee that makes sense. This article was originally written when the tool was more affordable, but at that higher price, think carefully about whether it makes sense for you before proceeding.

One of the most common questions we get from makers is: What is the best way to present my line to store owners? Should I make a PDF line sheet, create a wholesale website, or do something else altogether?

In the Wholesale In a Box course, we share everything we’ve learned about presenting your line to store owners — including the most effective ways to create/structure a line sheet, our pdf line sheet template, simple ways to catch store owners’ attention, and key storytelling tips.

Often, we recommend creating a simple PDF line sheet to share with store owners. Especially if you’re good with graphic design, this can be an inexpensive way to tell a vivid story and present your line clearly. This isn’t always the case, though. Some makers need to add and manage a lot of products, present many variants, or handle frequent changes and updates. Other brands want to offer online ordering but don’t have the bandwidth to create a really good wholesale site. Many makers struggle with graphic design or don’t have the time to do it. In all of these cases, a PDF line sheet isn’t ideal — but for a long time, there wasn’t a great alternative.

So I was thrilled to be introduced to the co-founders of Candid Wholesale. It is a subscription software that meets the need of creating a simple, updateable online storefront for wholesale AND managing orders and invoices in a lovely, elegant, thoughtful way. 

One of the things that makes Candid especially compelling is that its co-founder is from the maker world, not the tech world. Avery co-founded the beloved North of West in Portland along with his wife Leah and her sister Krista — and as he puts it, “learned how hard it is to run a business that sells THINGS.”

(And just to clarify — we’re not an affiliate of Candid or any other marketplace or tool— just excited about their approach and wanted to tell you more about what they’re doing as one option to consider.)

What Is Candid and How Does It Work?

Founded in 2016, by Avery Bloom and Dave Lowensohn, in Portland, Oregon. Candid is not a wholesale marketplace, but a software subscription that lets you create a wholesale “storefront” (or online catalog) and manage wholesale orders, shipments, payments, and relationships. It also has the ability to sync product and inventory data with your existing Shopify or Squarespace store.

You can see a quick run-through of what Candid looks like here: 

How Does Candid Wholesale Work For Makers?

• Brands choose a tier and sign up for the service. 

• Then, set up their wholesale product catalog, which is especially easy if you have your products on Squarespace, Shopify, or WooCommerce. If you don’t use one of these products, you can still easily upload with a CSV file as long as it has the basics (product title, option, primary image, etc.) You’ll massage the look and feel of your storefront (adding story, colors, logo, etc.) 

• Next, use Candid’s tools to put together an order for, or accept an order from, a buyer. Either you or the buyer can add or remove items until the order is ready and you approve it.

• From there, you can take payment (per your terms), manage shipments, and make sure your invoice is paid in full. 

A Q&A with Avery and Dave, Candid Wholesale Co-Founders

We were able to chat with Candid’s co-founders, Avery and Dave, about their approach and tips for using Candid successfully.

Q. What are Candid's guiding goals and principles as a company?

A. Candid grew out of the challenges we faced when building our wholesale business at North of West. We had fantastic tools when it came to our Direct To Consumer (DTC) sales, but on wholesale we were getting bogged down in spreadsheets, PDFs, and email. The modern options that were available were a bad fit if we wanted to build a successful brand. We were going to have to either put an extremely expensive middle man between ourselves and our retailers, or overspend on a complicated tool built for the top 1% of companies.

So we built Candid to fill the gap and make it easy to bring your wholesale business online. With Candid you create a wholesale storefront backed by powerful tools that help you find customers, drive sales, and manage your day-to-day.

We believe that the world is a better place when independent businesses thrive. Wholesale is a part of that, and our mission is to make wholesale easy and affordable for everyone. We believe that when tools level the playing field, creativity can flourish, and small authentic businesses can compete and win. Finally, we believe that you – not your technology vendors – should be the ultimate owner of your data, your relationships, and your brand. 

Q. How is Candid different from a marketplace? How is it different from something like Brandboom?

A. The two poles of wholesale software are marketplaces, and tools. Marketplaces are primarily a way to get new buyers, and tools help you manage and grow your direct relationships. Candid falls primarily into the “tools” camp, focusing on letting you grow and run your wholesale business simply.

Like Candid, Brandboom provides wholesale tools, but we’re a little different. With Candid we wanted to put relationships at the heart of the app. That’s why ordering is collaborative until approval, direct-messaging is built right into the order, and the storefront is elegant and customizable to put your brand’s message first.

Candid is also priced to work for independent businesses at well under $100/mo “batteries included”. [Editor’s note: Candid started at well under $100/month with unlimited users, but as of March, 2024, Candid’s price increased to a minimum of $179/month. For many small makers and brands this is may be well out of range as a fee that makes sense.]

I think it’s worth digging into the Marketplace model a little deeper and how we believe they fit in. Marketplaces can be helpful for finding new buyers, and if that part is working for you, by all means it can be a good piece to the puzzle.  However it’s important to be aware of the serious long term risks to businesses that rely on them deeply. Marketplace business models are centered on charging you a high commission, then subsidizing  buyers to find you on the platform. That creates a deep conflict between your best interest, and the marketplace’s.

When the platform makes ~150% as much profit from a stream of 1-time orders than if they helped build strong, long-term relationships between you and your retailers there’s a problem. Would a marketplace rather you get your 5th reorder or have that retailer buy from a competitor for the first time instead? 

That’s why we don’t charge commissions even if you’re discovered by a buyer in Candid. We want to align our business with what’s best for your long term growth. 

Q. Is everyone able to use Candid?

A. Yes! If you have products to sell wholesale, you can do that easily with Candid. If you’re not sure how Candid would work with your products, get in touch – we’re happy to walk you through it.

Of course if you use one of the "big three" e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Squarespace & WooCommerce) it’s even easier and you can make use of features like product imports, inventory sync etc.

Ultimately Candid is a very flexible system, and you can use many of the pieces a-la-carte if you have unique needs. For instance, we have an integrated payment processor that you're free to use, or not. We integrate with accounting & shipping tools like Quickbooks and Shipstation, which you can use, or not.  We really, really don't like "double entry" and essentially built the app to get the number of "I have to copy this information from here to here" steps as close to zero as humanly possible.

Q. What are some advantages of Candid over making a PDF line sheet?

A. PDF line sheets and lookbooks can be helpful selling tools, and if you or your customers rely on them, it’s dead simple to include them as a seller. However, selling online is generally a huge step up for you and your buyers and leads to higher conversion rates, larger orders, improved quality orders, and fewer miscommunications.

One of the biggest differences is that when you catch your buyers’ interest in placing an order, you want them to be able to quickly put together an order and send it to you in minutes. Candid lets just them do that. With PDFs it’s a tedious process of manual order forms, spreadsheets and disjointed email threads that lead to miscommunication and dropped balls on both sides.

Secondly, when you’re sending an email to your buyers, it’s much safer to send out a link to your catalog on Candid than a 20+MB PDF that is often blocked by email providers. Finally, the moment you send out that PDF it’s out of date. Adding a product? Changing a price? Fixing a typo? Too late.

With Candid, everything is always up to date, you can see who’s viewing your catalog, and there are sharable links to use regardless of if your audience is approved buyers or a mix of consumers and retailers. 

Q. What tips do you have for creating a strong catalog on Candid?

A. Your catalog is the heart of selling on Candid. Once you’ve chosen which products to publish, you’ll want to merchandize them by organizing into sections.  When you’re doing this, it’s helpful to think about your catalog from a retailers' perspective, which may be slightly different from your own view as a brand. Are there products that merchandize particularly well together in person? Can you give them hints or ideas of an ideal order? Are there thematic groups that could help add valuable context to a group of products? The work you do to not just organize your products but to tell a story will have a huge impact on retailer ordering.

Q. How are orders placed within Candid?

A. Our "live" order form is fully dynamic, and collaborative. Until the order is approved, you can both discuss and make edits.  It behaves almost  like a shared Google Doc that you can iterate on together. You can still print it out or export to PDF and email it, but in comparison to consumer orders, wholesale tends to have more back and forth before things are set in stone, whether it's about quantities, substitutions, or ship dates. Letting both parties edit it directly until it's officially approved saves a lot of time and removes opportunities for miscommunication. Our most successful sellers use new orders in Candid as a great starting place. Ultimately, you as the brand are the expert in your products. You know what works best and by engaging in a conversation you can help your retailers put together the most effective orders possible.

Q. What options do you offer with terms and payments?

A. We like to say "you don't have to change the way you do business to do it better with Candid," and this is exemplified in how we handle invoicing and payments. You can set whatever terms you want. You can use our integrated payment processor, or simply mark orders as externally invoiced and paid. You can send orders directly to your Quickbooks and handle invoicing there, or you can send a link to the live order in Candid for direct payment, or you can print out a PDF and fax it to that one buyer who insists on sending cashier checks – really whatever you want to do for that order. We know this can be the trickiest part of the process, especially with first time buyers, so our approach is to give you maximum flexibility and otherwise get out of the way.

Q. What does it look like to get started with Candid?

A. It can seem daunting to change your systems, even if what you’re doing right now isn’t working particularly well. We’ve seen it all and we love to help. Whether Candid is a good fit often comes down to specifics, and a 1-1 onboarding can help you know if it’s something you should spend time on or not.

These days it seems like every company in the world claims to be "fanatically focused on the customer," and we're no exception. We really like talking to folks using Candid, whether it's giving a product tour or helping get started, or answering questions that come up down the road. We find that staying in regular communication with the people actually using Candid gives us a steady stream of feedback on what's working, what isn't, what's missing, and what we should work on next.

Plus, going back to that earlier question about our goals and principles, we seriously love working with independent businesses. There's a vitality and enthusiasm shared by every single person who's started their own business that energizes, refreshes, and motivates us on the support and success side. We're helping real people follow real dreams and it's all just way more fun than it has any right to be.

Interested In Trying Out Candid?

Although Wholesale In a Box isn’t an affiliate of Candid, they did offer us a special (pretty significant) bonus for Wholesale In a Box makers. When you join the Wholesale In a Box course, you get Candid’s one-on-one onboarding service (worth $299) for free. You can access that right inside the Wholesale In a Box course.

Maker Reviews of Candid

We reached out to several makers who have strong wholesale businesses and experience with Candid. They were both generous and honest in sharing their thoughts on Candid, in terms of its impact on their business and what they would recommend to other makers.

From an Anonymous Maker of an Established Handmade Line:

We’ve been using Candid for a few years now. We initially used it exclusively, but now it’s one of three choices we give stores. Here are the pros and cons of Candid that I see:

Pros:

• It’s convenient that Candid synchronizes with Shopify.

• Usually, blasting through order processing is very fast: confirm, shipment splitting, shipment notification, invoicing, etc

• We set the payment terms.

• We’ve actually gotten one or two new stockists through Candid’s marketplace.

• We’ve received great customer service.

• Instead of preparing an elaborate PDF each season, we make a short look book or even a scrolling one-sheet, and point people to Candid (and elsewhere).
  

Cons:

• The interface can be confusing at times (they make frequent changes and that thing you’re looking for is never where you think).

• This relates to the previous point, a couple of our stockists agree with this, and they prefer not to use Candid. We recently gave them the options of Bulletin and Faire for this reason.

From an Anonymous Maker of a Larger Jewelry Line:

While I love the Candid crew and think the product could be amazing I find it a bit cumbersome and clunky at times. A few of the things I struggle with are: It's not easy for new buyers to figure out what to do when signing up to be a buyer and to view my catalog. When I send them a link I'd like them to be able to view it right away. After all, I've given them the link, which should be permission enough.

The part I struggle with the most is that viewing your order as a buyer is not clear, especially in terms of seeing both photos and prices. And when you export as a PDF, the information is broken up in ways that are confusing and not useful in terms of providing a printed invoice with an order.

On a positive note, I've been to several events like West Coast Craft and Urban Craft Uprising. They've attended these events to market their product and always bring a cart of snacks and water around to the makers, which I always think is just the sweetest. Their staff is also super helpful and responsive when major things come up and I appreciate that.

Our Take On The Pros And Cons For Handmade Lines 

Pros Of Using Candid:

• If you use Squarespace, Shopify, or WooCommerce, setting up your store is really easy. 

• The interface and way they’ve structured the storefronts is elegant and seems to do a good job letting your story, aesthetic, and products shine. 

• If you have a lot of products or update them regularly, you can do that easily. 

• It makes taking orders (and collaboratively “building” orders with retailers) easy. If you have terms like “50% at order and 50% due when order ships” terms, they are easy to track and manage in the system. 

• Creating a wholesale website is often much more difficult and time-consuming than folks anticipate, and Candid is a great alternative for offering online buying.

• You don’t need to bother with the graphic design or layout considerations in creating a PDF line sheet.

• If you’re doing direct outreach to stores (as we describe in the Wholesale In a Box course), Candid is a hassle-free way of sharing your line with them.

• There is no commission and you own all of the relationships with store owners now, and into the future.
  

Cons Of Using Candid:

• Your control over the story you tell is more limited than with a PDF line sheet. With a document you design and lay out yourself, you can control exactly how you tell the story of your products, process, and line and how you present variants and photos. 

• They no longer offer a free tier. So, users pay their comparably steep monthly fee no matter your incoming sales. As we mentioned about, this may not be a wise investment unless you’re a very well established wholesale brand.

• You may still want to be on the marketplaces. Candid does have some “discovery” elements but is meant more as a sales/buying tool than as a way to find buyers.

• You’ll likely still have sales that come in through other channels (the marketplaces, email, etc.) which means it’s not a “all things wholesale in one place” tool, unfortunately.

How We Can Help You Grow Wholesale:

More Free Resources On Growing Wholesale:

• Wholesale Line Sheet 101 Guide

• A Resource If You’re DIY-ing a Shopify Site

• Want New Stockists Faster? Avoid These Rookie Mistakes

• Simplify Your Wholesale Ordering Process: 15 Do’s and Don’ts

• How To Compare and Choose The Right Marketplace For You