Hookah shop Questions!

[Moh]

Hi guys,

My brother & I are planning on opening a hookah store In America. We would like to sell hookahs, hookah tobaccos, vipers and other hookah accessories. Been talking about it for quite some time, got some money saved up and ready to open a store here in Nebraska. The only problem now is we have almost no idea on where to buy any of that stuff from, to sell in our store.

We manage to find some sites online, some are expensive and wont make us any profits and other are little sketchy and the people selling them don't even speak English,  so it was little hard to communicate.

Would very much appreciate it if someone could tell us a place where they sell hookah whole sale, legit and can make profit off.

Thank you so much in advance and will be waiting to ready any sort of help/tips from you guys!

[Coleman]

i cant help with where to buy but i dont think selling vipers would be very safe, those things spit venom lol

[mushrat]

Unless you are prepared to buy by the Pallet load from manufacturers you will have to work out something with some of the big wholesalers. When you say you looked at the prices of stuff online, were you looking at their retail prices or did you get the wholesale price lists from them? What you see on their sites are what they sell to the public, when you are buying in quantity you will find the prices much different. Most wont talk to you about wholesale until you can show them an EIN or a Tax Id number.

If you are interested I can tell you who I used and who some folks still in the business use for their stock.

[Moh]

Thanks for the reply Mushrat, Thats what I thought what those prices were for too, but never really saw or heard about any of the bulk prices, so i guess they wont talk to me without an EIN or a Tax ID like you said.. I would love to get some info and some of your contacts that you go through to get a better understand at what kind of product I should focus on. Any website for any types of items you prefer to use and any system you use for shopping if you have any would help enormously!  I'm also willing to travel to companies in the US if needs be to negotiate prices or setup a deal.

Thanks in advance and I'll be looking forward to hearing from you soon!

P.S. I'm very active on my email so if you would like to email me anything that would work even better; redhusker90@gmail.com.

[mushrat]

I ahvent had my own shop since 2010, so my advice may be outdated, but I doubt it. Almost every major retailer, Texashookah.com, Socialsmoke.com, Southsmoke.com, hookahcompany.com myahookah.com all have wholesale divisions.  Getting an EIN is easy online and costs nothing. 

   Contact them directly and ask what they need from you to be given a wholesale price list. A rule of thumb is retail has about a 100% mark up.

   As far as products, look around you. When I set up my shop i used this forum as a sounding board for ideas and suggestions for products. We arent as active now mind you but ask people what they would BUY. You will find many people who are willing to give their opinions on what you should sell, trust me. 

    Look at the review sections, see what products people like. What you carry may also be somewhat area specific. Get to know some of the hookah smokers in your area and see what products they use. I am assuming from the wording of your OP that you are looking to open an actual shop in a real storefront, is this correct?

   

[Moh]

Thank you so much man, I just applied for an EIN number, will call the sites you provided to me on Monday and hopefully get something sorted out from there. I will update you oh how things go, once again thank you for your help, it's much appreciated.

[mushrat]

ya man. keep asking questions.