An independent guide to
All Imports is an independent guide to the wholesale import trade, covering how to source and import toys and novelties, bags and coin purses, seasonal goods, and general merchandise, how minimum order quantities, customs, and duties work, and how the Los Angeles wholesale district fits the supply chain, written for buyers, resellers, and small importers who want to understand the business before they place an order.
Why a guide, not a catalog
We chose to explain the trade rather than sell from it. In wholesale importing, the buyer who understands the chain, the minimums, and the rules makes better orders than the one who only sees a price list.
A trade of distinct categories
Hover to linger on each. The same import chain carries novelty toys, fashion bags, seasonal goods, and the paperwork that moves them across a border.
What this is
All Imports is an independent guide to the wholesale import trade, covering how to source and import toys and novelties, bags and coin purses, seasonal goods, and general merchandise, how minimum order quantities, customs, and duties work, and how the Los Angeles wholesale district fits the supply chain, written for buyers, resellers, and small importers who want to understand the business before they place an order.
Product categories
Each category here has its own buying logic, packaging, and safety realities. Start with the one you sell, or want to.
Wholesale toys and novelties cover impulse-priced items like bump-and-go and friction toys, bubble toys, pull-back and wire-control toys, toy guns and swords, toy telephones, lite-up novelties, novelty keychains, and stationery novelties.
Wholesale fashion bags and coin purses are seasonal accessory goods.
General merchandise, often shortened to GM, is the wide, mixed category of everyday low-cost goods a general importer carries: gifts, hairbrushes, umbrellas, and assorted household and impulse items, plus closeouts and overstock.
Seasonal and floral novelties are holiday-driven and artificial-flower impulse goods bought on a forward calendar.
Import guides
The process side of importing, from finding and vetting suppliers to minimums, customs, and the role of the LA wholesale district.
Wholesale importing is the chain that moves goods from an overseas factory to a US reseller through a series of roles: manufacturer, trading company, importer or distributor, wholesaler, and retailer.
Find suppliers through trade shows, B2B marketplaces, domestic importers and distributors, and wholesale districts like Los Angeles.
A minimum order quantity (MOQ) is the smallest amount a supplier will sell, often expressed through case packs and inner packs.
Importing into the US means classifying goods under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS), paying any applicable duties, clearing the goods through an entry process usually handled by a licensed customs broker, marking country of origin, and meeting product-safety rules.
The Los Angeles wholesale district is a dense downtown concentration of importers, distributors, and showrooms selling toys, general merchandise, accessories, and apparel.
Why All Imports
Most wholesale sites drop you straight into a price list and an order form. We do the opposite. This is an independent guide built to help you understand the wholesale import trade before you spend money: the chain from factory to reseller that decides who you should buy from, what minimum order quantities really mean, how customs and product safety work, and what each product category, from novelty toys to coin purses, actually involves.
We deliberately do not sell product or publish live prices, because that information changes constantly and is specific to each supplier and order. When you want real options, we point you toward vetted suppliers and a sourcing checklist through clearly-marked placeholder slots. Explore the guide to how importing works, the sourcing guide, the MOQ guide, and the customs guide to get oriented.
Explore in depth
If you are getting oriented to the trade, the sections below go deeper on the import chain, the product categories, sourcing, minimums, and customs. Open whichever is useful.
Wholesale importing is the business of bringing goods made overseas into a market and moving them, in volume, toward the businesses that sell them to the public. Between the factory and the shop shelf sits a chain of roles: the manufacturer, often a trading company that aggregates factories, an importer or distributor that brings the goods into the country and warehouses them, a wholesaler that breaks bulk into smaller lots, and finally the retailer. Understanding where each role sits is the first thing that makes the trade legible, because it tells you who to buy from and what that choice costs you.
Most small buyers do not import directly from a factory. They buy from a domestic importer or distributor who has already handled the freight, the customs entry, and the minimums, and who sells in quantities a small business can actually use. That convenience has a price, since each link in the chain adds margin, but it removes the risk and complexity of importing yourself. The categories this guide focuses on, toys and novelties, bags and coin purses, gifts, and general merchandise, are classic examples of high-variety, low-unit-cost imported goods that move through exactly this kind of distribution.
The toy and novelty category is the broadest, and it is built on impulse and variety rather than brand. It includes bump-and-go and friction-powered toys, bubble toys and solution, pull-back and wire-control toys, toy telephones, toy guns and swords, novelty keychains, stationery novelties, and lite-up items. These goods sell in dollar stores, party stores, vending, carnival and prize operations, and at markets, and the recurring theme is packaging and safety: how the item is carded or bulk-packed, and whether imported toys meet current consumer-safety testing and labeling rules, which you must verify against the actual requirements.
Bags and coin purses are a fashion-accessory category with a seasonal rhythm, spanning PVC and synthetic bags, mini bags, and coin purses, where material, stitching, and zipper quality separate good lots from bad. Gifts and general merchandise is the catch-all of the trade, covering items like hairbrushes and umbrellas alongside closeouts and assorted-case buys, and it rewards a breadth-over-depth approach. Seasonal and floral novelties carry their own calendar, since they must be ordered months ahead and carry real markdown risk if they do not sell through in their window.
Suppliers come from a handful of reliable channels: trade shows, business-to-business marketplaces, and domestic importers and distributors, including the wholesale districts of cities like Los Angeles. Each channel has a different profile. A domestic distributor is the lowest-friction starting point, while importing direct from a factory offers the best unit cost at the price of large minimums and real logistics. The right channel depends on your volume, your tolerance for risk, and how much of the import process you want to own.
Vetting matters as much as finding. Before you commit money, confirm a supplier is a real, verifiable business, request and inspect samples, ask for references, and understand exactly what you are buying, including case packs, lead times, and who bears which costs. Red flags include pressure to pay by irreversible methods, prices that are too good to be true, and vague answers about the product or the terms. Buying from a domestic importer shifts much of this diligence onto a party who has already done it, which is part of what you pay for.
Minimum order quantities, or MOQs, are the smallest amounts a supplier will sell, and they are usually expressed in case packs or inner packs rather than single pieces. They exist because production runs, packaging, and handling all carry fixed costs that only make sense above a certain volume. A factory's MOQ for a direct import is typically far larger than a domestic distributor's, which is the single biggest reason small buyers start with distributors: the distributor has absorbed the large minimum and resells in lots you can actually move.
MOQs should drive your buying strategy, not surprise you at checkout. If a category requires a large commitment to import direct, that is a signal to either buy domestically, find partners to split a load, or wait until your sell-through justifies the volume. Always confirm the exact case-pack and inner-pack structure before ordering, since it determines both your true minimum and how the goods arrive. We do not publish specific MOQ figures because they vary by supplier, product, and order; treat any number you see as something to verify with the supplier directly.
If you import goods yourself, you step into customs. Every product is classified under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which determines its duty rate, and most commercial importers use a licensed customs broker to classify goods correctly, file the entry, and handle the paperwork. Goods must be marked with their country of origin, and the entry process has its own timelines and documentation. None of this applies when you buy from a US distributor, because the importing has already been done; that is one of the clearest advantages of buying domestically when you are starting out.
Product safety is the other half of importing consumer goods, and it is especially pointed for toys and novelties. Imported toys are subject to consumer-safety testing and labeling rules covering things like small parts and choking hazards, and the responsibility for compliance does not disappear because a product was made overseas. We describe these realities qualitatively rather than quoting specific rates or rules, because they change and vary by product and origin. Verify current duty rates with US Customs and Border Protection and the tariff schedule, and confirm safety requirements with the relevant authorities and a qualified testing partner.
All Imports is an independent educational reference, not a live catalog, a storefront, or a distributor, and it is not affiliated with or a continuation of any company that previously used this domain. We deliberately do not publish live inventory, prices, MOQ figures, or duty rates as fact, because those numbers change constantly and depend entirely on the supplier, the product, the country of origin, and the specific order. What we offer instead is durable, accurate guidance on how the wholesale import trade works and what each product category involves.
Where the site shows a supplier directory slot or a request form, it is a clearly-marked placeholder that the operator connects to a real system later; nothing here collects or transmits your data yet, and we never sell your information. This content is general information rather than personalized trade, customs, legal, or tax advice. Sourcing practices, minimum order quantities, customs rules, and duty rates vary and change, so confirm anything decision-critical with the actual supplier, a licensed customs broker, and current official sources before you buy or import.
Next steps
Because we do not sell product here, this is how you move forward. Tell us what you are sourcing, or ask for the sourcing checklist. Forms are clearly-marked placeholders until connected. No obligation.
Start here
All Imports publishes general information about the wholesale import trade. It is an independent educational reference and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a continuation of any company that previously used this domain, and it is not a live catalog, storefront, or distributor. Nothing here is an offer to sell, a price quote, or trade, legal, customs, or tax advice. Product categories, sourcing practices, minimum order quantities, customs rules, and duty rates change constantly and vary by product, country of origin, and order, so confirm every detail with the actual supplier, a licensed customs broker, and current official sources before you buy or import.