Sportswear Clearinghouse sells items such as T-shirts, caps, casual sport shirts, and socks imprinted with company logos, team names, and advertising slogans for 70% less than what you would find in a store. Non-imprinted items, such as sweatshirts are also available at good prices.  Sizes run from youth XS to adult XXXL. 

MASON SHOE MFG. CO. 

Chippewa Falls, WI 54729 

800-826-7102 

Mason Shoe offers over 400 men's and women's shoes for dress, casual, and work. The prices range from $25 to $135. They have a special program for dealers, who can earn a commission of 20% on shoes they sell, without investing in any inventory. 

Starting Your Own Business 

Up to this point, we've discussed how you can save money on all your purchases by buying at wholesale prices. Now we'd like to discuss one more step you can take to insure that you never have to pay retail for any purchase again.  

Setting up your own business is a great way to save money. In addition, it's a way you can actually make more money, even if you already have a job. By having your own legitimate business, you come out ahead both in spending and in earning. 

First of all, what are the advantages of having your own business? The main advantage in terms of saving money is that you will gain access to suppliers that you could not have access to as an individual. There are many companies that just will not sell to a consumer; it's against their policy. If they did sell to consumers, they would be competing against the stores they are selling to. But once you are set up as a legitimate business, you become automatically qualified to do business with many of these suppliers. 

As an example, when you have a business, you can go to trade shows, where suppliers display their products for all the retail stores to do their shopping. At these shows, suppliers will actually write up orders, often ignoring any minimum requirements they normally have for retail stores. They understand that stores must have samples to take back to their colleagues to study and decide if they want to carry the product in their store. This means that you can order samples from these suppliers at true wholesale prices. You could never do this without having a real business.  

Another major place that you gain access to is the permanent showroom in your area for all the wholesalers. All major cities have a large merchandise mart, where all the suppliers can display their products on a permanent basis. With a business card or a certificate showing that you own a business, you can gain access to these showrooms. Without a genuine business of your own, you would not be allowed to visit these showrooms. 

To find out where these showrooms are, you can either look under "wholesalers" in your yellow pages, or ask one of your local stores where they do their buying. 

To find out about the trade shows, you can ask the wholesalers or the stores. In addition you can contact the association related to the area you are interested in, such as house- wares or giftware. These associations know what major trade shows are coming up in their product area. The addresses and telephone numbers of these associations are listed in a huge directory called the Encyclopedia of Associations, which you can find in your local library (the librarian will know about this book). At your library, you can also look for magazines that are specifically geared toward a particular type of business, such as Gift Reporter for the gift industry, where there will be listings of upcoming trade shows.