Role Overview
Clients don’t need just a polite communicator or a contact point—they need a strategist who can build and maintain profitable supplier relationships that fuel consistent inventory flow, competitive pricing, and operational leverage. In wholesale or reselling, the brand’s growth is directly tied to the trust, reliability, and negotiation power behind its supplier network. Your real value is in securing access to products that sell, at terms that protect margins, and with partners that scale with the business. That means spotting real opportunities, filtering out time-wasters, and keeping the supplier pipeline aligned with the client’s business model and numbers.
This isn’t just about sending cold emails or collecting price lists. It’s not vendor data entry or generic customer service. When supplier relations are done poorly, the client gets stuck with dead inventory, unreliable shipping, or razor-thin profits. When done right, the client has leverage, clarity, and a scalable supply chain. The role affects revenue, product viability, and long-term brand credibility—so the bar isn’t just output, it’s impact.
Standards You Must Meet
• You’re expected to bring in vetted suppliers offering in-demand products, reasonable MOQs, and pricing that protects margin — even after shipping and fees.
• Clients will expect confident communication and negotiation, not timid back-and-forths that waste time or weaken leverage.
• You’ll be judged by how well supplier terms support the business model — if shipping is slow, payments unclear, or stock unreliable, that falls on you.
• Don’t just stack data — filter, assess, and present supplier options with clear risks, advantages, and next steps.
• Your pipeline must be alive and aligned — dead ends, ghosting suppliers, or one-track sourcing will signal a weak strategy.
• Every supplier you recommend should come with a purpose: fits the store’s niche, serves the margin goals, and can scale to volume.
• Clients will notice if they’re constantly chasing suppliers or cleaning up miscommunication — keep things proactive and professional at all times.
• No surprise product gaps or weak availability — your role secures continuity, not just first contact.
What You’ll Be Doing
• Source and evaluate potential suppliers based on product demand, price viability, shipping speed, and compliance with resale standards.
• Lead supplier outreach with clear, professional messaging that secures responses and drives movement toward decision points.
• Negotiate and confirm supplier terms that protect margin — including cost-per-unit, minimum order quantities, and delivery timelines.
• Review and summarize supplier catalogs and proposals, highlighting aligned SKUs, pricing logic, and operational pros/cons.
• Keep the supplier pipeline current with weekly updates, timely follow-ups, and secondary options ready for key product gaps.
• Track supplier performance and flag delays, errors, or changes that could disrupt inventory availability or margins.
• Liaise between supplier operations and client expectations, ensuring all communication is complete, prompt, and conflict-free.
• Identify and recommend repeatable supplier-side tasks for automation to reduce manual load and improve process efficiency.
What You’ll Hand Over
• A vetted supplier shortlist with margin-safe pricing, MOQ details, shipping terms, and niche alignment — ready for client decision.
• A clear negotiation summary outlining agreed terms, margin impact, and payment schedules from confirmed suppliers.
• A maintained supplier tracker showing live leads, current partners, follow-up status, and product fit per supplier.
• A supplier proposal report with flagged risks, comparative offers, and suggested next steps for onboarding.
• An operational handoff doc detailing agreed fulfillment workflows, key contact info, and automation opportunities identified.
Tools You’ll Need to Use
• Shopify Admin – For managing supplier-linked product listings, inventory sync, and order routing.
• Google Sheets – For tracking supplier performance, pricing updates, product catalogs, and bulk edits.
• Slack – For real-time coordination with your internal team and cross-functional updates.
• Gmail / Google Workspace – For professional communication with suppliers and record management.
• Trello or ClickUp – For task tracking, supplier onboarding workflows, and documentation control.
• Alibaba / Faire / Syncee (or equivalent) – For sourcing, qualifying, and vetting new supplier leads.
• QuickBooks or Xero – For supplier invoicing, reconciliation, and cost-of-goods tracking.
Why Work Smarter
If you, as a Supplier Relations Expert, cannot spot—and automate—repeatable workflows, the client is losing ROI on every redundant manual task. Importing CSVs daily? Routine supplier updates via email or shared sheets? These are automatable. If you’re still handling it all manually, you are already behind.
You’re not expected to be an automation engineer, but you must be automation-aware. Knowing what can be automated (and which tools to use) is fast becoming the unspoken baseline. OES sets this as a standard because the market already demands it — not later, now.
Why Your Work Matters
The difference between growth and stagnation in wholesale and reselling often comes down to one thing: supplier leverage. Without the right suppliers—priced right, stocked consistently, and ready to ship fast—a Shopify-based business burns through cash on slow sellers, choked inventory, and margin-killing terms. This role closes that gap. You don’t just source products—you secure the partnerships that keep the engine running, protected, and poised to scale.
Mistakes in supplier relations cost real money. Weak negotiation eats into margin. Missed follow-ups mean stockouts and lost revenue. A disorganized pipeline creates chaos clients don’t have time to fix. Strong supplier strategy, on the other hand, wins trust, creates stability, and turns operations into a competitive advantage. That makes this role non-optional—if it breaks, the business bleeds. If it excels, the business scales.
What We Expect From You
As a Specialist-level Supplier Relations Expert in our Shopify + Wholesale stream, your job is to protect and scale product access across a portfolio of vetted vendors. You’re not here to “try things out”—you’re here to implement with precision. You know how to evaluate suppliers for both short- and long-term viability, you understand resale compliance, and you don’t ignore red flags just to hit short-term goals. We expect you to bring professional judgment to every supplier interaction, from onboarding and vetting to renegotiations and dissolution if needed.
This role rests on your ability to manage risk while driving margin and stability for the store. That means being disciplined with documentation, persistent with follow-ups, and exacting with details—especially when compliance or payment terms are at stake. You’re expected to represent OES standards, not just client preferences, and that takes the kind of accountability that doesn’t get distracted when things get busy. If you can keep the entire supplier ecosystem both functional and profitable, you’re where you belong. This role is critical to front-end revenue and back-end continuity—your precision makes the operation possible.
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$500 – $1,200
OES salary standards reflect real market benchmarks, tier and experience level, ensuring fair pay for VAs and realistic expectations for clients.
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