The W&S dealer program
Built for the Hobby. Built for Dealers.
A W&S account exists to solve three things independent hobby shops consistently cannot get from national distribution: purchase quantities matched to a single store, replenishment measured in days rather than weeks, and a written basis for how scarce product is allocated.
No application fee. No account fee. No minimum purchase to keep an account open.
Who qualifies
Four requirements, applied to every account.
Verification protects the retailers already on the network as much as it protects W&S. A distributor that does not verify is a distributor whose product ends up outside the channel it was sold into.
- A registered business
- A legal entity or registered sole proprietorship with a federal EIN. Business identity is verified against public records.
- Valid resale credentials
- A current Florida Annual Resale Certificate for Sales Tax, or the equivalent for accounts outside Florida. Certificates are re-verified each applicable year, and an expired certificate suspends purchasing until it is replaced.
- A genuine resale channel
- A retail storefront, an online retail operation, or another legitimate channel through which product reaches end customers. W&S sells for resale.
- Accurate information
- Everything on the application is verified. An application that misstates the business is declined, and an account found to have misstated it is closed.
The dealer commitment
Eight commitments we can be held to.
Each one is written down with its exact scope, because a promise you can plan against is worth more than a promise that sounds bigger. These are the terms of the relationship, not a list of aspirations.
We do not compete with you
W&S sells to retailers. No consumer storefront, no break channel, no marketplace presence bidding against your customers.
This is structural rather than a matter of good intentions. The wholesale business has no consumer arm to feed, which means every box W&S buys is bought to sell to a shop.
Scope
Covers what W&S does. Other distributors make their own choices about the consumer channel.
Every account is verified, every time
Business identity, federal EIN and a current resale certificate are verified before an account can purchase — for every account, not a sample.
This is a commitment to the shops already on the network as much as to our suppliers. A distributor that does not check who it sells to is a distributor whose product turns up in the channel you compete against. Certificates are tracked to expiry and purchasing suspends when one lapses, rather than being trusted to renew.
Scope
Covers who W&S sells to. Once product is sold to a verified retailer it is theirs to sell, and W&S has no say in what other distributors admit to their own networks.
Street dates held, without exception
No product leaves our building before the manufacturer street date — for anyone, at any volume.
Release dates are enforced at the point of order rather than trusted to memory, and preorders are staged and released on date. Breaking street for one account devalues the release for every other shop that honored it.
Scope
Where a manufacturer sets no street date, product ships when it arrives. Where one exists, it is absolute.
Pricing that keeps your margin intact
W&S prices to protect the economics of the store buying from it, and never undercuts its own dealers in a public channel.
Before a product is purchased, landed cost, dealer price and the prevailing retail reference are compared. If the spread does not leave workable margin for both W&S and the shop, W&S does not buy it.
Scope
W&S does not set your retail price and does not police what others charge. It controls its own cost to you and its own absence from the consumer channel.
Buy the quantity your store can sell
Box and inner-case quantities on every line where the product structure allows it, instead of a full case on everything.
This is the single thing independent shops most consistently cannot get from national distribution, and it is the main operational reason W&S exists.
Scope
Some products are supplied to us in case quantities we cannot break. Where that is true it is stated on the product, not buried in terms.
Real availability, including what we do not know
You see the actual status of every product — in stock, allocated, on preorder, expected, or unknown.
Where W&S has no confirmed arrival date, the record says so. An expected date we already know is wrong is worse than none at all, because you plan cash against it.
Scope
Upstream dates move without notice. This commits us to telling you promptly when one does, not to knowing in advance.
Replenishment measured in days
A working delivery loop out of Palm Harbor covering Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco, with dealer pickup by appointment.
Addresses beyond the loop run on scheduled routes and by carrier, and we route to whichever genuinely gets product there soonest rather than to whichever suits us.
Scope
Fulfillment tier describes how an address is served, not how fast a box arrives. We do not quote windows that depend on traffic and bridges.
Allocation you can have explained
Scarce product is allocated against published criteria, and any decision affecting your account can be explained to you.
The criteria are on this site in full. They are not weighted to favor the largest account, they are not a loyalty scheme, and geographic distribution is among them — so a release reaches shops across the territory rather than landing in one submarket.
Scope
No allocation exists until W&S confirms it in writing, and meeting every criterion does not entitle an account to a specific product. Discretion is retained and stated rather than hidden.
Account standing
Tiers describe history. They are not a claim on inventory.
Many distributors publish tiers as though reaching one entitles you to product. It cannot: the distributor's own upstream supply is not guaranteed, so downstream allocation cannot be either. What a tier honestly reflects is the history that the published allocation criteria weight.
A verified account in good standing. Every approved dealer starts here and many stay here by choice.
Full catalog access at dealer pricing, with allocation considered on the published criteria.
An account with established purchase history across the calendar and breadth across more than one category.
The same catalog, with the standing history that the published allocation criteria weight.
A long-tenured account with sustained volume, broad category participation, and a record of taking the allocations it was given.
The same catalog. Tier is a description of history, not a separate price list or a claim on inventory.
Payment
Accounts are prepaid at launch.
W&S accounts are prepaid at launch. ACH is preferred; card and wire are accepted. Trade terms are not generally available, and any account that is offered them will be offered them explicitly and in writing.
Accounts interested in applying for trade terms in the future can indicate that on the application. It records the interest; it does not create an entitlement and it does not affect approval.
Prepaid is standard for a new wholesale account anywhere in this industry, and a new distributor offering open credit freely is taking a risk that should concern you more than the prepayment does.
Channel controls
What we do, so your channel holds.
- Accounts are verified before they can purchase, every time — not sampled.
- Resale certificates are tracked to expiry and purchasing suspends when one lapses.
- Dealer pricing is not published, not indexable and not present in public page source or structured data.
- W&S does not knowingly sell to unverified resellers, and does not sell to consumers.
- Supplier and manufacturer channel restrictions are enforced as conditions of the account, not as guidance.
- Where a product carries a geographic or channel restriction, it is applied at the point of order rather than after the fact.
Questions
What retailers ask before opening an account.
A registered business with a federal EIN, a valid resale certificate, and a genuine channel through which product reaches end customers — a retail storefront, an online retail operation, or an equivalent. W&S sells for resale only. We do not sell to consumers, and we do not sell to buyers without verified resale credentials.
No. Online retailers are a legitimate account type and are approved on the same standard as brick-and-mortar stores. What matters is that the business is real, the resale credentials are valid, and the product is going into a resale channel rather than a personal collection.
Typically a small number of business days once the application is complete and the resale certificate is attached. Incomplete applications take longer, and the single most common cause of delay is a missing or expired certificate.
Business identity and entity type, federal EIN, your Florida resale certificate, contact and authorized buyer details, your business type and retail footprint, your current purchasing profile and categories, your existing sourcing and its pain points, what you would want to buy from W&S, fulfillment preferences and payment method. It takes about fifteen minutes with your certificate to hand.
Because it tells us what to stock and where the real gaps are. W&S is built to complement your existing distributor relationships rather than replace them, and knowing what you already source well means we can concentrate on what you cannot get. The answers are commercially confidential and are not shared with suppliers or other dealers.
No. There is no application fee and no account fee. There is no minimum purchase requirement to keep an account open.
Purchasing is suspended until a current certificate is on file. The account is not closed and nothing else is affected. We track certificates to expiry and contact accounts in advance rather than discovering it at checkout.
Where the product structure permits it, yes — box and inner-case quantities are available to approved dealers on many lines. This is the main operational reason W&S exists. Some products are only offered to us in case quantities, and on those we say so on the product rather than implying every line is flexible.
Because wholesale pricing behind a login is a normal commercial requirement and, for several product lines, an explicit condition of supply from upstream. Dealer pricing does not appear in the public site, its page source, its metadata or its structured data. That is a deliberate technical decision, not an oversight.
There is no standing minimum order value. Individual products may carry a minimum purchase quantity where the case structure requires it, and that is stated on the product.
Open a W&S account.
About fifteen minutes with your resale certificate to hand. Your progress saves as you go.