How do smaller leather suppliers source hides from premium tanneries?

[lehmanjack945]

Hi everyone,

I'm curious about how smaller leather suppliers source their hides.

I understand that many tanneries have official distributors for different regions (for example, Conceria Walpier, Badalassi Carlo, Tempesti, Horween, or other smaller Italian tanneries), but there are also plenty of smaller leather retailers selling hides from these same tanneries even though they don't appear to be official distributors. They seem to have one-of pieces of various sizes that they sell and then its out of stock until they can get their hands on more like OA Leather in Canada.

How does that work? Are they purchasing surplus, overstock, or second-quality hides from the tannery?

[bruce johnson]

Yes, for the most part these from tanneries or large distributors and are overstocks, over runs, cancelled/reduced orders. Chrome tans are more common because of the shifting whims of fashion and upholstery trends in colors and textures. Once in a while veg tans show up too. They can be directly from the tannery or from primary distributors. Most of the time they are sold to the secondary marketers as "odd-lots" in quantity - anywhere from a pallet stack to a load with no sorting or minimal sorting. 

[lehmanjack945]

On 7/21/2026 at 9:16 AM, bruce johnson said:

Yes, for the most part these from tanneries or large distributors and are overstocks, over runs, cancelled/reduced orders. Chrome tans are more common because of the shifting whims of fashion and upholstery trends in colors and textures. Once in a while veg tans show up too. They can be directly from the tannery or from primary distributors. Most of the time they are sold to the secondary marketers as "odd-lots" in quantity - anywhere from a pallet stack to a load with no sorting or minimal sorting. 

Oh okay I see. Thanks for the reply - just was interested in the supply chain behind all these hides we get!

[fredk]

I came across a leather whole-seller who only sold to the car refurbishing or specialist car builders. (I couldn't buy from them) The leathers they sold were second quality rejects from the big highly expensive car makers such as Rolls Royce, Bentley, McLaren, Jaguar.  Leathers with minor imperfections that the smaller car company could work around but not good enuf for the bigger makers