Your local packaging distributor is not doing anything mysterious. For most of northern Europe, a large share of bin liners, stretch film and catering film is made in Poland, and the distributor is buying it there.
The question is not whether their supply chain is better than the one described on this site. It is usually the same supply chain. The question is what the difference in price buys you.
What the markup is
A distributor’s gross margin on commodity packaging runs at 25–40%. That is not a criticism; it is what covers a warehouse, a sales force, a delivery fleet, credit risk and stock that sits until someone orders it.
If those things are worth 30% to you, a distributor is the right answer, and this page will not argue otherwise. Three cases where they clearly are:
- You order in small, unpredictable quantities. Below a pallet, freight per unit makes any import worse than buying locally, whoever arranges it.
- You need next-day delivery from stock. Nobody ships next-day from Poland.
- You want one supplier for two hundred lines, of which packaging is nine.
What you are also buying
One source of supply. A distributor has a supplier, usually one per category, and every commercial reason to keep you with it. When that plant has a resin problem in October, you find out as a lead time, not as a choice. Our network runs to eight to ten plants, so a quotation that comes back wrong can be re-quoted elsewhere, and that is the whole reason to have more than one.
A contract with a reseller. Your supply contract is with the distributor, not the producer. So is the Declaration of Conformity chain, and so is the answer to where the goods were made — which, under PPWR and under most customers’ own audits, is a question you increasingly have to be able to answer about your own packaging.
A specification you do not control. A distributor sells what it stocks. If the gauge drops 2 µm to protect their margin against a resin move, the product code does not change. When the specification is yours and the contract is with the plant, that substitution is a claim rather than a surprise.
What changes if you buy factory-direct
| Distributor | Factory-direct through us | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract with | the distributor | the manufacturer |
| Price | factory price + 25–40% | factory price |
| We are paid by | — | the manufacturer, same rate at every plant |
| Specification | theirs, may change | yours, written and inspected against |
| Sources per category | one | two or three quoted, eight to ten in the network |
| Minimum order | a case | typically a pallet |
| Delivery | next day from stock | 12–15 working days ex works |
| Documents | via the reseller | from the producer that issued them |
The trade is real and it runs both ways: you give up next-day availability and small-quantity buying, and you take back the markup, the specification and the producer relationship.
The honest version of the switch
Most buyers do not switch everything. They move the two or three lines they buy in volume and keep the distributor for the tail, which is the arrangement that survives contact with a real stockroom.
If you tell us what you buy in volume, we will tell you which lines are worth moving and which are not.
Send us a specification — or read why not go to the factory yourself, which is the other half of this question.