The holiday gifts and novelty season is upon us. Halloween is here and the Christmas season is just around the corner. This the season when retailer’s fancy turns to thoughts of decorations and those perfect items for under the tree. Merchants are running full speed to their wholesale suppliers with orders dripping with holiday enthusiasm.

However, their joy is often short lived once they get there. Good gift items and holiday decorations are harder to find than many other wholesale niches, apparel and house wares for example. Retailers with holiday orders are often forced to look beyond their regular suppliers to fill these invaluable holiday orders. If they don’t already have a good one waiting in the wings panic and despair become the order of the day.
My advice for those looking for merchandise beyond handbags and shoes is to take a look at Roden Imports. The Trinity, Alabama company has been a leader in the close out wholesale industry since 1977 and offers some the best prices around. They offer an amazing variety of unusual gift items, collectibles, and seasonal merchandise. Roden’s slogan “We specialize in a little bit of everything” sums it up fairly well.

The merchandise are name brand close outs and as any experienced retailer knows that means excellent prices on highly desirable goods. Make no mistake, these aren’t beaten up floor models but excellent quality goods ready for your customers.

Roden’s website has their products divided into six categories and you’ll notice that all are perfect holiday gift classifications. The categories are books, collectibles, house wares, lawn and garden, seasonal merchandise, and a general category. Each section contains hundreds of individual products, all of them brand new, in perfect condition, and available at very good prices.

A short review of some of the categories will give you a good idea of the variety of merchandise Roden makes available but keep in mind new stuff arrives daily. For example, the books section at present contains 146 different titles. The bulk of the titles are children’s books but there is also how to books, art books, religious titles, and literary classics.

The licensed collectible contains such popular items as Coca-Cola collectibles, Betty Boop merchandise and Precious Moments collectibles. They carry a number of calendars, which are always big holiday gift items as well as many other high demand licensed products.

Placing an order with Roden Imports is a relatively simple matter. When you find the items you are interested in you click on it. This will bring up a large picture and a long description that contains the number of units in a case. You will need to remember this number since you must order full cases. Once you click “Add To Cart,” the order form will have all the information about the item except that quantity. For example, if the case quantity is 12 and you want 1 case, you would click “Add To Cart” and put a 12 in the quantity blank. However, if you wanted to purchase 4 cases, you would put 48 in the quantity blank.

Regardless of the number of cases you order your total must reach at least $100. While it is possible to establish a credit account with Roden that will provide net 15 or 30 payment terms most orders will have to be prepaid. They accept Visa, Master Card, or Paypal and these methods naturally result in a quicker turn around time on your order. They will also accept mailed payments by check, money order, and cashier’s checks.

If your business, like many others these days, depend on drop shipping directly to your customers Roden can do that too. Having merchandise shipped directly from your supplier to a customer saves a bundle on shipping and inventory costs but keep in mind that the whole case limit still applies. So the average retailer won’t really benefit from the drop-shipping program but if you wholesale it is a tremendous opportunity.

So, as this holiday season approaches merchants should take a look at Roden Surplus Imports and maybe the gift you give this year will be to yourself and your business’s bottom line.

Art Micklewraith is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Top Ten Wholesale. He can be reached at Content and Solutions or by email at artmicklewraith@gmail.com.