Am I wrong or are Adafruit, Makerbot, Sparkfun and others are?

Recently I have been asking some companies like Adafruit, Makerbot and Sparkfun if I could become a distributor of their products in my country. Amazingly (or not?) I have been sort of rejected from all of them. For example in a trending company such as Adafruit, I asked about the requirements to become a distributor and I told them that I had the intention to develop an online shop to resell their products - They told me to contact them again once I had the online shop up and running and taking orders from customers.

I replied that if all companies asked things like these, there would be no companies at all. Which company would be the first to let me sell their products without having already a prosper business?

Anyway, the stories are similar with the others. With Makerbot for example, they told me that I had to invest $250,000 USD to become an authorised reseller. Please correct me if I am wrong, but don't you think that a company that started like Makerbot should be the first to understand how businesses develop? Please! $250,000 USD? Of course they would let me buy "a few" printers if I wanted (well thanks a lot...) maybe with their permission I could do that!

The less frustrating experience was with Sparkfun, where they told me they "already feel very well represented" in my country. At least this could be understandable since there are probably deals in place with the current distributors, but even so, if somebody comes to me asking to sell my products, it wouldn't matter to me to have another sales representative, but again, maybe that's just me.

I don't pretend to have the truth, but I would be very happy to hear what other people think.

You are right, volume discount is less risky for any business. Nice way to put it, thank you. But anyway, I sometimes believe that some new companies turn too fast into "small" large inaccessible corporations! It's a good thing to take this in consideration for all startups out there.

Many people become resellers in order to buy product for themselves and friends at a discounted price. This trend is rampant in the car-modification and hotrod cultures of the United States.

Perhaps without a shop they are suspicious of your intentions.

Distributors (or, commonly, a "channel") are generally expected to bring something tangible to the table in the relationship. Sometimes, they have a large book of clients or have access to a market that the supplier can't tap. Often they also take on first tier support, installation, service and/or training. In many cases, they smooth out the suppliers cash flow by pre-booking and/or stocking product locally. A requirement to pre-purchase demo gear and/or have a certain number of employees trained/certified on the products is common.

So, based on what you've said, you don't have a sales pipeline, don't have a sales mechanism (and a web site isn't a particularly interesting one to companies who already sell primarily via the web), aren't willing/able to put in a significant cash investment in the relationship, and haven't mentioned support and training. They probably have a couple of dozen people a month come to them with "I have nothing to offer but why don't you trust your reputation to me, give me a big discount and let's do business together!". Their reaction really shouldn't be surprising.

I'm agreeing with "qq66". If you wanna make a real business out of this, you should follow qq66's advice and get yourself the producers on board. They however would wanna see prospected sales pipelines and some forecasts. In addition to that, you might need to agree on fixed sales per year in order to be recognized as a distributor. Alternatively, you could go with a luggage full of money to some small Asian trade fairs..