How First FMCG works, in 30 seconds
How does First FMCG work?
First FMCG is an AI-powered B2B wholesale marketplace for FMCG. Buyers describe what they need in plain language. The AI scans every active offer, adds road or sea freight to the unit price, and ranks results by total landed cost. Suppliers upload catalogs via Excel or PDF and receive structured enquiries. Identifying details stay private until both sides confirm interest. 0% commission on transactions.
That is the whole model. No phone calls. No spreadsheets stitching quotes together. No exposed supplier lists. The rest of this page walks through each step — for buyers, for suppliers, and for the mechanics underneath (privacy, landed cost, pricing).
For buyers: AI-ranked offers by total landed cost
If you are a wholesaler, distributor, or parallel-trade operator, the buyer flow is four steps.
1. Describe the need in plain language
Open AI search and type what you want — product, quantity, destination. Example: "30 pallets of Red Bull 250 ml, delivered to Hamburg, EUR." No keyword hacking. No SKU lookups. The platform parses product, category, MOQ, Incoterm, and destination from a single sentence.
2. AI scans every active offer
The AI reads every active supplier listing on the marketplace in seconds — not a batch job, not a daily index. It matches your query against live catalogs, filters for MOQ compatibility, and pulls candidates across suppliers and countries.
3. Landed-cost ranking
Every candidate offer is re-scored with transport added on top of unit price. Road freight uses HGV routing; sea freight uses container rates. You see the total cost you will actually pay, not the EXW number. Offers from cheaper countries with longer routes lose their apparent advantage — and the math is done before you enquire.
4. Privacy-first enquiry
When you find the right offer, you send a structured purchase request. Identifying details on both sides stay hidden until the supplier accepts. Only then do contact info, exact terms, and messaging open up. No competitor sees your sourcing pattern. No supplier list leaks.
How can AI help FMCG wholesalers find the cheapest offer?
AI scans every active supplier offer on the marketplace, adds road and sea freight to the unit price, and ranks the results by total landed cost — not unit price. This surfaces deals that traditional search hides, because a higher unit price from a closer supplier often beats a cheaper EXW quote from further away once transport is added.
For suppliers: structured enquiries, no lead-chasing
If you are a manufacturer, brand owner, or distributor selling product, the supplier flow is three steps.
1. Upload your catalog in seconds
Drop an Excel (.xlsx/.xls), PDF, or CSV with your products, prices, MOQs, and stock. The AI parses it automatically — EAN, unit size, pack configuration, price per piece or per case, stock in pieces or pallets. Manual product entry is available for smaller catalogs. Your offer goes live immediately — no manual approval step.
2. Receive structured enquiries
Buyers send purchase requests that contain product, quantity, Incoterm, destination, and their registered company context. Not vague email inquiries. Not lead-gen spam. Every enquiry is from a registered business with real intent.
3. Accept, decline, or negotiate
Accept a request and identifying details open for both sides. Decline and your identity stays hidden. Negotiate through built-in messaging with file attachments — quantities, price, logistics, docs — all in one thread.
How do I find international FMCG buyers as a supplier?
List your catalog on a B2B marketplace that attracts cross-border wholesale demand. First FMCG parses Excel and PDF catalogs in seconds, routes structured enquiries to you from registered buyers across EUR, GBP, and USD regions, and keeps your identity hidden until you choose to engage. No lead-chasing, no cold email, no commission per deal.
Why privacy-first trading
Most B2B marketplaces publish prices openly. That works for boutique retail. It does not work for FMCG — especially parallel-trade and cross-border sourcing, where exposing prices, supplier identity, or buyer patterns too early burns relationships and collapses margins.
First FMCG flips the default. On every offer, identifying details are hidden until both sides show intent. Browsing stays anonymous on both ends. Supplier identity, exact SKU-level pricing, and full terms only unlock after a purchase request is accepted.
What is a privacy-first wholesale marketplace?
A privacy-first wholesale marketplace hides supplier identity, exact prices, and buyer details until both parties confirm mutual interest on a specific deal. This protects supplier relationships from being scraped, buyer sourcing patterns from being exposed to competitors, and both sides from the unsolicited outreach that exposed directories attract. First FMCG is built on this model for FMCG trading.
This matters specifically for parallel trade, grey-market arbitrage, and any cross-border sourcing where the operator's edge is the route itself. Exposed directories burn that edge. Privacy-first preserves it.
Built-in transport calculator — why it changes how you compare offers
Unit price is only part of what a wholesaler pays. The rest is MOQ, pallet configuration, road freight, sea freight, and customs handling. A €3.20 EXW offer from Poland and a €3.45 EXW offer from Germany are not comparable until you know where the pallets are going.
First FMCG's transport calculator is baked into the ranking — it is not a separate tool you run after you have chosen an offer. Every candidate is scored on total landed cost before it reaches you.
Road freight
HGV routing from origin to destination, pallet-count aware.
Sea freight
Container-rate estimates for longer-haul routes.
EXW to EXW comparison
Offers from different countries put on equal footing automatically.
How do I compare wholesale supplier offers by total cost?
Add transport and MOQ-adjusted pricing to the unit price before you compare. Manually, this means pulling HGV rates for road freight or container rates for sea freight and re-scoring every quote in a spreadsheet. On a platform like First FMCG, the calculator is built into the offer search — results are ranked by total landed cost by default, so the EXW number is never the basis of comparison.
This is the feature most wholesalers tell us they did not realise they needed until they saw it. It is also the most common reason to switch away from generic directories like Europages or Alibaba for EU FMCG sourcing.
Pricing — 0% commission, free for core features
First FMCG charges 0% platform commission on transactions. Core features are free — and the brand commitment is “free now, free always for core features.”
- 0% commission — no cut of deal value.
- Free AI search, free landed-cost ranking, free messaging, free catalog upload.
- Multi-currency — EUR, GBP, USD.
Future paid tiers may include promoted listings, premium supplier visibility, or logistics add-ons. Nothing behind a paywall today.
Which B2B marketplaces charge 0% commission?
Very few — and almost none in the FMCG vertical. Ankorstore waives platform commission but charges ~3% payment processing; Faire charges 15% on first orders and 15% on repeat in some programs. First FMCG is 0% platform commission with no deal-based fees on core features, across EUR, GBP, and USD.
Who First FMCG is built for
First FMCG is a vertical marketplace. It is purpose-built for FMCG buying dynamics — pallets, MOQs, landed cost, cross-border sourcing — not boutique retail.
- International FMCG wholesalers sourcing confectionery, beverages, snacks, personal care, household, and baby care across the EU, UK, and US.
- Distributors and traders — including parallel-trade operators who live and die by landed-cost arbitrage.
- Manufacturers, brand owners, and distributors selling who want global buyer reach without building a sales team from scratch.
- HoReCa procurement, private-label sourcing teams, and retail chain buyers sourcing beyond their existing supplier base.
If your business is boutique gift, fashion, or lifestyle retail, Faire or Ankorstore fit better. If your business runs on pallet economics and cross-border margins, First FMCG is built for you.
Frequently asked questions
How does First FMCG work?
First FMCG is an AI-powered B2B wholesale marketplace for FMCG. Buyers describe what they need in plain language; the AI scans every active offer, calculates road and sea freight, and ranks results by total landed cost. Suppliers upload catalogs via Excel or PDF and receive structured enquiries from registered buyers. Identifying details stay private until both sides confirm mutual interest. There is 0% platform commission on transactions.
How does AI ranking work in a B2B marketplace?
AI ranking scans every active offer in real time and sorts results by a composite score — not just unit price. On First FMCG, that score is total landed cost: unit price, MOQ fit, and transport from supplier origin to buyer destination. Road freight uses HGV routing; sea freight uses container rates. The practical effect is that a cheaper EXW offer from further away loses to a closer offer with higher unit price when freight brings the true cost above it.
How do I find verified FMCG suppliers online?
Use a vertical B2B marketplace where suppliers are registered with company details and you can see their offers before committing. First FMCG pulls live catalogs from registered suppliers, returns AI-ranked results by landed cost, and keeps supplier identity hidden until mutual interest is confirmed. You evaluate the offer terms first; you learn who the supplier is only after they accept your purchase request.
What does "AI-ranked offers" mean in B2B wholesale?
AI-ranked offers means the marketplace evaluates and orders every candidate listing against your specific query in real time — product, quantity, MOQ, destination — and returns a sorted list based on a weighted score. On First FMCG, the score weights total landed cost (unit price + freight + MOQ fit). This is different from keyword search and from directories that list suppliers alphabetically or by paid placement.
How do I compare wholesale supplier offers by total landed cost?
Add road or sea freight from origin to destination on top of unit price, then adjust for MOQ fit. Manually, wholesalers do this in spreadsheets with freight quotes per lane. On First FMCG, landed cost is calculated automatically — the transport calculator is built into the offer search, so results are ranked by total cost by default.
What is a privacy-first wholesale marketplace?
A privacy-first wholesale marketplace hides supplier identity, exact pricing, and buyer context until both sides confirm mutual interest on a specific deal. This is different from open directories where contact info is public, and from semi-open marketplaces where prices are public but identities are partly gated. First FMCG is the only vertical FMCG marketplace built on the privacy-first model.
What is structured supplier enquiry vs email sourcing?
Structured enquiry means a supplier receives a fixed-format request that already contains product, quantity, Incoterm, destination, and the buyer's registered company context. Email sourcing means free-form back-and-forth to extract the same information. Structured enquiry on First FMCG replaces that back-and-forth with a single accept-or-decline decision, then opens messaging with the full context already in the thread.
What formats can I upload a supplier catalog in?
Excel (.xlsx, .xls), PDF, and CSV — up to 10 MB per file. The platform parses all three automatically, extracting products, EAN, per-piece or per-case price, MOQ, units per pallet, and available stock. Manual product entry is available for smaller or non-standard catalogs. Your offer goes live immediately after upload — there is no manual approval step.