Buying vanilla direct or through a sourcing desk: an honest comparison
Last reviewed
Should I buy straight from an exporter in Madagascar?
Below roughly 200 kg a year, buying direct rarely pays: the letter of credit, the inspection and your own time cost more than the margin you save. Above it the case is worth examining — but the saving assumes you can obtain alone the terms that a relationship built on the ground secures, which is the part most comparisons skip.
The case you will read everywhere
Search for vanilla sourcing and you will find the same argument, forcefully made: intermediaries add 15 to 20 % for administrative handling, wholesalers blend lots and destroy traceability, and Western brokers sell mid-grade at premium prices under cover of quality control. Cut them out, buy direct, keep the margin.
We are, by any reasonable definition, one of those intermediaries. So here is the version of this comparison you are unlikely to get from either side.
What is true in it
Most of it. Taken one at a time:
- Stockholding wholesalers do add margin, and they have to.They buy, finance inventory, carry the risk of unsold stock and take a markup on the goods. That cost is real and it is passed on.
- Blending lots does destroy traceability. A warehouse consolidating several origins to fill a large order cannot give you a single lot analysis, because there is no single lot. This is the strongest argument of the three.
- The expertise really is in Madagascar. Curing is a nine-month manual process, and judgement about it lives with the people who do it. Anyone in Europe claiming superior product expertise should be asked what exactly they know that the curer does not.
We hold no stock, so we blend nothing — but we are not going to pretend the third point does not apply to us. It does. Our value is not knowing vanilla better than the people who cure it.
What the argument leaves out
Buying direct is not free. It transfers work and risk from a supplier to you, and that transfer has a price which is rarely counted:
- Recourse. If a shipment does not match the specification, what is your practical remedy against a company in Antalaha? Litigation is theoretical at these order values.
- Prefinancing. A letter of credit costs money and administrative time. Paying by transfer without one means carrying the counterparty risk yourself.
- Remote quality assessment. You will judge a lot from photographs and a report — which is fine if you knowhow to read the report, and expensive if you do not.
- Fraud exposure. The patterns in this trade are well documented, and first-time direct buyers are the primary target.The recurring schemes →
- Your own time. Time zones, language, working days, document chasing. On a 50 kg order, the hours often exceed the saving.
And one more thing, rarely said out loud: an exporter telling you to buy direct is telling you to buy direct from them. They are an intermediary too — between the growers and you. Someone always performs the intermediation. The honest question is not whether an intermediary exists, but whether they say so and what they do for their money.
The three models, compared
| Direct from exporter | Sourcing desk | Stockholding wholesaler | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who invoices you | The exporter | The exporter | The wholesaler |
| Purchase price obtained | Whatever you can negotiate as a new buyer | The desk's own negotiated terms, built on a relationship on the ground | Wholesale price plus margin and inventory financing |
| Lot traceability | Intact | Intact | Often lost to blending |
| Lead time | Production and shipping | Production and shipping | Immediate, from stock |
| Small volumes | Poorly served | Workable | Well served |
| Who carries the admin | You | The desk | The wholesaler |
| Recourse in a dispute | Limited, cross-border | A named counterparty in your time zone | Contractual, local |
Where the line falls, in practice
Rough thresholds, offered as orders of magnitude rather than rules:
- Under about 50 kg a year — a stockholding wholesaler is usually the sensible answer. The margin you would save does not cover the complexity of importing.
- Between roughly 50 and 200 kg a year — a sourcing desk earns its place. Enough volume to justify importing, not enough to justify building supplier management in-house.
- Above 200 kg a year — this is where the usual advice says to go direct, and where it deserves a closer look. The saving assumes you would obtain the same purchase price alone that a long-standing, committed buyer obtains. Sometimes you will, once you have built that history yourself. Often you will not, and the visible saving turns out to be a higher unit price plus the admin you have taken on. The test is simple: compare like for like, same grade, same specification, same incoterm.
- First import, whatever the volume — do not go direct until you have done it once with support. The learning curve is paid in shipments, and the first one is the expensive one.
Where that leaves us
We are a sourcing desk. We hold no stock and we blend nothing, so the lot you receive is the lot that was analysed.
On price, we will be direct with you, because the assumption behind “cut out the middleman” does not hold here. Our purchase price is built on a relationship established on the ground, over repeated stays, and on the recurring business we bring — neither of which a first-time buyer has. A new customer approaching the same exporter alone starts at that exporter's list price for an unknown account, which is not the price we work from. Removing us does not hand you our terms; it hands you the terms you can negotiate yourself.
That is a claim, and you should treat it as one until it is tested. So test it: ask us for a price, ask elsewhere for the same specification and volume, and compare. We would rather be measured than believed.
Beyond price, what we sell is not vanilla expertise. It is a named contact in your working hours, documentation prepared before your customs authority asks for it, grades matched against your written specification rather than against a brochure, and someone answerable when something goes wrong.
If none of that is worth anything to you, buy direct. It is a legitimate choice and this page was written to help you make it properly.
Questions we get asked
Is buying vanilla direct from Madagascar cheaper?
On the unit price, usually yes. On the landed cost of a first order, often no: a letter of credit, a pre-shipment inspection and the buyer’s own time frequently exceed the margin saved below a few hundred kilograms a year.
What is the risk of buying direct?
Limited practical recourse in a dispute, prefinancing carried by the buyer, quality assessed remotely, and exposure to the fraud patterns common in the trade. None of these are reasons not to buy direct — they are costs to budget.
When should I use a sourcing desk?
For a first import, for irregular volumes, when your team has no bandwidth for supplier management, or when you need documentation prepared to a specific standard. Once you buy the same specification regularly from a supplier you trust, the case for a desk weakens.