Candid

Candid Wholesale is a software company based in Portland, Oregon that provides an all-in-one platform for businesses to buy, sell and get paid for wholesale orders. The product covers a virtual wholesale storefront that can be embedded into a brand's existing website, hosted as a microsite on Candid's domain, or used as a B2B portal; a collaborative order form with built-in messaging and approval workflows; invoicing, digital payments and shipment tracking; and analytics and reporting at the product, order and customer level. Additional features include multiple catalogs and collections, a purchase management dashboard for retailers, an in-app private messaging system connecting brands and retailers, a relationship-focused CRM, customizable inventory management with linked products and case/bulk pack support, and a system of record for orders.

The platform integrates with tools brands already use rather than replacing them: product and inventory syncing with Shopify, Squarespace and WooCommerce; shipping via ShipStation; order management via Extensiv; accounting via QuickBooks Online; and Zapier for other connections. Candid states it does not replace a company's DTC store, accounting software or shipping software, does not charge buyers fees, does not market other brands to a seller's customers, and is not a wholesale marketplace. Onboarding is positioned as taking hours rather than months, with support provided over email and Zoom during Pacific-time business hours.

The company frames wholesale as an underserved software category, citing that roughly 80% of wholesale transactions still occur on paper, email and phone, against a US wholesale market it describes as trillions of dollars annually.

Founding story

Founder Avery Bloom spent about a decade building an apparel brand with his wife Leah, designing and manufacturing womens' and kids' apparel in Portland. As the business grew, wholesale consumed increasing time at lower margins and with less consistent results than direct-to-consumer sales, and the team cobbled together roughly a dozen software tools to manage it while the ecommerce side ran on established technology. Talking to other businesses, they found the same gap: online marketplaces on one side and expensive, sector-specific licensed tools on the other, with nothing in between. Candid was built to fill that gap.

Business model

Candid sells subscription software to brands and retailers rather than operating as an intermediary marketplace. Brands pay monthly or annual subscription plans across tiers including a Pro tier; use of Candid Pay, the in-app payment processor, carries a standard processing fee, while invoices paid outside Candid Pay may incur externally processed payment fees of up to 0.8% per transaction depending on plan. The platform is free for buyers, and new brands can take a 7-day free trial of Pro-tier features excluding Candid Pay.

Recurring monthly and annual subscription fees paid by brands, plus payment processing fees on transactions run through Candid Pay and per-transaction fees of up to 0.8% on invoices paid outside Candid Pay.

Traction

Customer-referenced brands include Pigeon Toe Ceramics, North of West, True Collaborative Fashion and PortlandMade. A customer testimonial cites a 42% increase in average order size after adopting Candid, and the company states users can save up to 70% of time spent on repetitive tasks such as onboarding buyers and reviewing repeat orders.