Intopia Strategies: The Wholesaler

Do you look at Walmart and think "They just pay their workers to damn much!". Did you watch the Lorax and root for the axe? Are you willing to ruthlessly exploit the lower class firms that don't have their shit together? 

The wholesaler may be for you! 

Ok maybe i'm being a bit over the top. You don't have to be evil to play wholesaler. I'm considering them for my run. But if you're going to get screwed over, it's probably going to be a wholesaler who does it, more on that to follow. 

Wholesalers don't produce anything. Instead, they focus exclusively on building sales offices and marketing to consumers. In exchange for getting out of the producing business completely, and a modest $500,000 registration fee, wholesalers receive a flat 20% bonus to marketing efficiency, an unspecified reduction in marketing costs, and never lose consumer goodwill due to stock outs. Obviously, you'll need to get your stock from somewhere so you'll be trading with other players. 

That brings us to the point I mentioned earlier about wholesalers being a little evil. 

The more the company on the other end of a transaction has messed up their own sales and marketing strategy, the more desperate they'll be to unload of their inventory. Remember, there's a cost to storing stuff between rounds. The same goes for component producers that haven't been able to reach out and find other teams. Now it's worth noting that you can sell products to consumers without sales offices via manufacturing agents (Intopia Administrator). But commission for using these agents range from bad to terrible. Moreover, whoever the wholesaler is in a negotiation, can very easily calculate exactly how much those commissions on a sale will be — meaning they'll know exactly how bad you need them. 

Honestly, I wouldn't be a jerk with this information though. As the game ticks on to later turns companies will have the chance to invest in and optimize their own sales and marketing infrastructure. If you act like a vulture, then all your contacts are going to do exactly that until eventually you have precious little to sell. If, on the other hand, you can build relationships with a large number of companies, then those companies won't feel pressured to spend a ton on sales offices and marketing campaigns — they'll always have inventory to get rid of. This will ensure a steady product flow into the late game. 

The biggest threat you'll face as a wholesaler though, is OTHER wholesalers. You'll be in direct competition with firms just like you for the entire game. Since there is no swapping back to production after you've sold everything and dumped it all in sales offices and marketing, you are just going to have to out market and out negotiate your rivals. If a ton of people embrace this strategy, all of them will do awful and they'll be completely stuck. Consequently, if you read this and thought wholesaler sounds great! Stay away. If this made wholesalers sound awful, maybe consider putting you're bad guy cap on.