Amazon does not offer a wholesale program that helps a brand sell to other retailers. Vendor Central is Amazon buying from you as a retailer; Amazon Business is other businesses buying on the marketplace; neither puts your product in a store. An Amazon brand wholesale program is something the brand writes itself: the set of prices, minimums, terms and policies that a retailer or distributor agrees to when they open an account. This article is what goes in it, in the order a buyer reads it, and the choices that matter for a brand whose main channel is still Amazon.
A program is also the brand's defence. A published reseller policy is what lets a brand tell Amazon which sellers are authorised on its listing and which are not.
Why write it down at all?
Sellers coming from Amazon are used to Amazon setting the rules. In wholesale, the brand sets them, and a buyer's first question after "does it sell" is "what are your terms." A brand that answers differently to each buyer ends up with twenty accounts on twenty deals, none of which it can enforce, and a listing full of resellers who all claim they were told something.
A written program does four jobs. It makes quoting instant. It makes the brand look like a supplier. It makes every account comparable. And it gives the brand a document to point at when a reseller undercuts the shelf price or turns up on the ASIN.
It fits on three or four pages.
Page one: pricing tiers
The program starts with the price architecture, and for an Amazon brand the anchor is the listing's everyday price, because that is what every buyer checks first.
A worked structure for a $28 product:
- Suggested retail price (SRP): $28, the same as the Amazon list price.
- Wholesale, direct to retailers: $14. This is the price a store pays when it buys straight from the brand.
- Distributor cost: about $10.50, a quarter off wholesale, for a distributor who resells to stores at around $14.
- Volume breaks: optional and simple, for example $13.50 a unit on orders of 24 cases or more.
Publish wholesale and SRP openly on the line sheet. Keep distributor pricing on a separate sheet issued only to distributors. Every tier has to survive the brand's own landed cost, and the way to check that is the model in wholesale economics for an Amazon brand.
One rule for the tiers: the same account type gets the same price. A store that discovers a competitor a mile away buys cheaper stops trusting the brand.
Page two: minimums, packs and terms
This is where buyers look for reasons to say no, so it should be short and reasonable.
Minimum opening order. Enough to make shipping worthwhile, small enough for an independent to try: two cases, or a dollar amount like $150.
Reorder minimum. Usually one case per SKU, or a lower dollar floor than the opener.
Case packs. Stated per SKU. Sold by the case only, no split cases, unless the brand chooses to allow inner packs of 6.
Payment terms. First order prepaid by card or transfer. Net 30 on reorders after a credit application. Distributors and chains will ask for net 60; the program can say net 30 standard and note that other terms are by agreement, which keeps the default in the brand's favour.
Shipping. Who pays, and the threshold. A common structure: shipping at cost, free on orders over $500, freight collect on pallets to a distributor.
Lead time. Five business days from confirmed order to ship for stock items, stated plainly. Buyers plan against it.
Damages and returns. Transit damage credited if reported within five days with a photo. No returns of saleable stock without written agreement.
Everything here is a default, not a law. The point is that the buyer sees a default and negotiates from it, instead of the brand inventing terms live on a call.
Page three: the MAP and reseller policy
For an Amazon brand this page matters more than the prices, because it is the page that protects the listing.
Minimum advertised price. The lowest price at which any reseller may advertise the product, typically the SRP or a small margin below it. It applies to the brand's own Amazon listing too; that is the credibility of the policy. Promotions are allowed only as scheduled events the brand announces to accounts in advance.
Authorised resale channels. Where the product may be resold. The usual language: in the reseller's own physical stores and on the reseller's own website. Not on third-party marketplaces, and specifically not on Amazon, unless the brand grants written authorisation. This clause is the difference between a distributor's pallet ending up under an unknown seller on the ASIN and the brand being able to do something about it.
No diversion. The reseller agrees not to sell to other resellers. Distributors get a version that names their approved account types.
Consequences. Loss of pricing tier, then loss of the account. Stated once, without drama.
A policy like this, on the brand's letterhead and attached to every new account's paperwork, is what lets a brand answer a rogue seller on its listing with a documented source of truth rather than a guess. It is also what serious distributors expect to see, and its absence is a reason they pass, as described in how distributors work for Amazon sellers.
Page four: onboarding — how an account opens
The program should tell a buyer exactly how to start, because friction at this step loses orders that were already won.
- A new account form: business name, resale certificate number, ship-to and bill-to, buyer contact, and the store's channels (physical, online, both).
- A resale certificate on file before the first invoice, so the brand does not charge sales tax on a resale.
- A signed acknowledgement of the MAP and reseller policy. One line at the bottom of the form is enough.
- A line sheet and order form, or a simple online wholesale ordering page, so the buyer can order without emailing back and forth.
- A welcome note with the lead time, the invoice contact and the reorder minimum, so the second order is easy.
Collect the resale certificate every time. It is the one document a brand cannot reconstruct later, and it is what keeps a wholesale sale from being taxed as a retail one.
How does the program interact with the Amazon listing?
In two ways, both worth deciding in advance.
First, the listing's price is now bound by the MAP. Subscribe and Save discounts, coupons and deals have to be reconciled with the policy. Most brands settle on a small standing Subscribe and Save discount disclosed in the policy, plus two or three announced promotional windows a year.
Second, the brand decides whether any wholesale account may sell on Amazon. The safe default is no. If a large account insists, the brand can authorise it in writing for that account only, with the same MAP, and keep control of the detail page through Brand Registry. Unauthorised sellers can then be reported with the policy and the authorised list attached, which is far stronger than a bare complaint.
The relationship side of keeping retail partners happy with the listing's behaviour is covered in how retail partnerships work for Amazon sellers.
Where sellers over-engineer it
A first program does not need volume rebates, co-op advertising allowances, exclusivity schedules or a forty-page distributor agreement. Those arrive when a chain or a national distributor asks for them, and each will send its own paperwork anyway. A brand with a four-page program, held consistently, is ahead of most of the brands a buyer sees.
Two things are worth over-building from day one: the MAP and reseller policy, because retrofitting it after resellers exist is painful; and the price tiers, because changing a wholesale price after twenty accounts have it in their systems takes a season of explanations.
Who should receive it?
The program is only useful once it is in front of the right buyers, and the right buyers are the stores and distributors whose shelves already hold products like yours. Paste the listing into WholesalePilot and the preview shows who would stock the product, which gives the program its first mailing list. Send the line sheet and the terms in the first email; send the full program with the account form once the buyer says yes.
From there the program does its quiet work: every account on the same terms, every reseller on the same price, and one document the brand can hold up when the listing needs defending.