Start With the Market, Not the Stock
Most beginners start by asking "where do I buy iPhones cheap?" The operators who last start with a different question: "which market can I actually sell into?" A market is a combination of destination country, customer type (retail, repair shops, traders) and price band. Entry-level iPhone 11 stock moves differently in Lagos than in Jakarta. Read our Southeast Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Africa pages for region-by-region demand patterns, then pick one market to start.
Learn the Grading System Before You Spend a Dollar
The single biggest source of dispute in this trade is grading mismatch: the seller's B is the buyer's C. The fix is simple — trade only against a published grading scale, and agree the grade mix of your lot in writing before payment. Our grading scale (A/B/C with battery health bands) is an example of a published standard. Learn to read battery health data and cycle counts, because those numbers move real margin. Start with our grading systems guide and the battery health thresholds guide.
Vet Your Supplier on Five Points
When you talk to a supplier, probe these five points in order: (1) Is their grading scale published and stable? (2) Do they report battery health per unit or per lot? (3) Do they screen iCloud lock, carrier lock and IMEI blacklist before dispatch? (4) Do they factory-wipe devices? (5) Will they agree the grade mix in writing before payment? A supplier who answers all five cleanly is rare — and that rarity is the point. See how to choose a pre-owned iPhone wholesaler for the full vetting checklist.
Structure Your First Order Small and Mixed
Your first order is a learning order, not a money order. Keep it small, and ask for a mixed lot spanning two or three models in the price band you researched. A mixed first lot teaches you which models and grades your market actually absorbs — data that is worth more than the margin on the order itself. Our model pages list specifications per model; our wholesale team structures mixed lots for exactly this purpose.
Build After-sales Before You Need It
Every lot eventually has a dispute: a unit fails, a grade is challenged, a customer returns a device. Operators who survive their first year have an after-sales answer ready before the first complaint arrives — whether that is a repair partner, a replacement policy or a returns process. This is why after-sales / warranty fulfilment exists as a service line: resellers route post-sale issues to us instead of building a workshop.