Kids tricycle wholesale: how the price actually works

Wholesale on tricycles is never one price per piece. It is a carton price divided by pieces, plus a freight charge that depends on carton volume rather than on the tricycle. Once you see those two lines separately, comparing suppliers stops being guesswork.

What wholesale means on this range

Our wholesale unit is 50 pieces per model, not a container load. The partner factories we buy from in Pingxiang pack 5 or 6 tricycles into one carton, so 50 pieces is 9 cartons — small enough to test a shell, big enough to get a factory price.

That single decision changes what a first order looks like. Instead of committing 500 pieces to one model, you can take 50 of three models and see which one your market actually buys. The freight is the same either way, because a 40HQ holds cartons, not model numbers.

The twelve models, ranked by what they cost to ship

Read the fourth column. It is the volume one tricycle occupies in the container, and it is the number that decides your landed cost — not the front figure, not the colour way, not the FOB price you negotiated.

V1099 is the cheapest to ship at 0.0312 CBM per piece. VF9 is the most expensive at 0.0408, because it packs 5 to a carton instead of 6 while using the same 0.204 CBM carton as the V888. That is a 31% spread inside one product range, and it is invisible on a price list.

Why two quotes at the same FOB price land differently

Take any 40HQ ocean rate — USD 3,000 is a convenient example — and divide it by the pieces-per-40HQ column. On V131 that is 3,000 ÷ 1,770 = USD 1.69 per tricycle. On V1099 it is 3,000 ÷ 2,178 = USD 1.38. Same container, same freight bill, 31 cents per unit difference.

Now imagine a competing supplier quotes a slightly lower FOB price on a model that packs 0.245 CBM per carton. The unit price looks better and the landed cost is worse. This is the single most common mistake in tricycle sourcing, and the fix costs nothing: ask for carton size and CBM before you discuss price.

What to send us for a wholesale quotation

• Models — a model number from this site, or a photo of a shell you want matched.
• Quantity per model — 50 pcs minimum each, and tell us if you plan to mix.
• Destination port — so the freight we quote is the freight you will pay.
• Customisation — logo, colour box, decals, or a colour outside the listed way.
• Packaging — standard carton is assumed unless you ask for something else.

You get back, in writing: carton size, CBM, gross weight, pieces per carton, FOB Tianjin price, and the MOQ confirmation. Usually within one working day.

How colour ways affect a wholesale order

Every model in the range lists three or four colour ways, and those are the ones the factory runs as standard. Colour on a tricycle is not a sticker: the PP parts are moulded in colour and the steel parts are painted in batches. A colour outside the listed way means a paint batch for your order alone, which is why factories price it differently — sometimes with a higher MOQ, sometimes with a setup charge.

Ask before the deposit rather than after. On a 50-piece trial the answer is often no, and it is better to hear that early than to discover it when the carton is already loaded.

Where wholesale pricing actually falls

We do not publish prices, for a boring reason: steel, ocean freight and the colour-box print run all move independently, and a number on a web page is wrong within a month. What we publish instead is the part that does not move — carton data, CBM, pieces per carton, container loads. Check those against any other supplier's numbers and you will know which quote is real.