Net 30, Net 60, Net 90: Understanding B2B Payment Terms in the Supplements Industry

What payment terms mean (and why they matter more than you think)

If you're a wellness or supplements brand moving into wholesale for the first time, you'll quickly encounter a phrase that shapes your entire financial reality: "net 30," "net 60," or "net 90."

These terms are straightforward in principle. Net 30 means the buyer has 30 days from the invoice date to pay. Net 60 means 60 days. Net 90 means 90 days. The number after "net" is simply the payment window in days.

What's less straightforward is the impact these terms have on your business — particularly when you're a growing brand navigating the gap between paying your suppliers and collecting from your customers. Understanding payment terms isn't just bookkeeping. It's the difference between growing sustainably and running out of cash at the worst possible moment.

How payment terms work in practice

In consumer sales — whether through your own website or a marketplace — payment is essentially instant. The customer pays, the payment processor settles within a few days, and you have cash in hand.

Wholesale is different. When you sell to a retailer, distributor, or another business, payment terms are negotiated as part of the trading relationship. The buyer receives your goods, and you issue an invoice with agreed terms. The clock starts ticking from the invoice date (or sometimes the delivery date, depending on the agreement), and the buyer pays when the term expires.

Here's how the most common terms break down in the supplements industry:

• Net 30

  The most common starting point for smaller or newer trading relationships. Thirty days is considered relatively prompt in B2B terms. Some suppliers offer a small discount for early payment — you might see this written as "2/10 net 30," meaning a 2% discount if the buyer pays within 10 days, otherwise the full amount is due in 30.

• Net 60

  Standard for many mid-sized retailers and distributors in the wellness space. It gives the buyer two months to sell through stock before payment is due. For the supplier, it means two months of waiting.

• Net 90

  Common with larger national retailers. Some of the biggest names in retail operate on 90-day terms as standard, and emerging brands have limited leverage to negotiate this down. In practice, some large retailers pay even slower — net 90 can quietly become net 100 or net 120 when payment processing delays are factored in.

• Pro forma / Cash on Delivery (COD)

  The opposite end of the spectrum — the buyer pays before or upon delivery. Common when a supplier doesn't know the buyer or when there's no established credit relationship. Many contract manufacturers require partial or full payment upfront before they'll begin production.

Why retailers demand extended terms

From the retailer's perspective, extended payment terms are a working capital strategy. They want to receive goods, sell them to consumers, and collect revenue before they have to pay their supplier. In an ideal scenario, a retailer on net 60 terms sells most of the stock within 60 days and pays the supplier with the revenue generated from selling the supplier's own products.

This means the retailer is effectively using the supplier's capital to fund their inventory. It's a well-established practice in retail — not unique to wellness — and it's one of the reasons large retailers can operate with relatively lean balance sheets.

For the supplier, of course, this dynamic is less comfortable. You've manufactured the product, delivered it, and now you're waiting two or three months for payment while your own costs — raw materials, production, staff, rent — keep accruing.

The larger and more powerful the retailer, the longer the terms they can command. A brand that's just won shelf space at a national chain typically has very little negotiating power on payment terms. The retailer knows that hundreds of brands would take the placement, so the terms are largely take-it-or-leave-it.

The cash flow gap this creates

This is where payment terms stop being an abstract accounting concept and start becoming an operational challenge.

Consider a typical scenario for a supplements brand selling into a national retailer:

Now multiply this by two or three retail accounts, each with their own production runs and payment cycles. The working capital requirement grows rapidly — and it grows in direct proportion to your success. The more retailers you win, the more cash you need to fund the gap.

This is the fundamental tension of B2B payment terms for growing wellness brands: the terms that make retail viable for the buyer make cash flow management extremely challenging for the supplier.

What terms can you actually negotiate?

While payment terms are often presented as fixed, there's usually more flexibility than you might expect — particularly if you approach the conversation strategically.

With retailers and distributors (your buyers): Early in the relationship, you have limited leverage. The retailer is taking a chance on your brand, and they'll want standard terms. However, as you prove yourself — strong sell-through, reliable supply, good margins — you can revisit the conversation.

Some brands successfully negotiate shorter terms for initial orders (net 30 for the first order, moving to net 60 for reorders) to reduce the cash exposure during the riskiest period. Others negotiate milestone payments for very large orders, where a portion of the payment is released at delivery and the remainder on standard terms.

With manufacturers and raw material suppliers (your suppliers): Your supplier's willingness to offer terms depends largely on your track record and the strength of the relationship. A manufacturer you've worked with for years may be willing to offer net 30 instead of requiring full payment upfront — particularly if your growing retail presence means larger, more predictable orders for them.

Some suppliers will share the cost of financing if it means securing bigger orders. A supplier who receives guaranteed, larger orders with immediate payment through a financing arrangement may be willing to offer a modest discount to reflect the reduced risk and improved cash flow predictability on their side.

The honest reality: if you're a small or emerging brand, you'll likely be paying your suppliers on short terms (or upfront) while your retail customers pay you on long terms. The gap is structural, and no amount of negotiation will eliminate it entirely. What you can do is manage it.

How to manage the gap

There are several strategies for managing the working capital gap created by B2B payment terms. Most successful brands use a combination.

• Cash reserves

  The simplest approach — keep enough cash on hand to fund the gap. This works at small scale but becomes impractical as you grow. Tying up large amounts of capital in the payment cycle means you can't invest in marketing, product development, or new opportunities.

• Staggered ordering

  Rather than placing one large production run, break orders into smaller batches timed to match your cash inflows. This reduces peak exposure but can increase per-unit costs and create logistical complexity.

• Invoice factoring

  Selling your outstanding invoices to a factoring company in exchange for immediate (discounted) payment. This can work if you have invoices to factor — but many wellness brands pay their suppliers before they've even delivered to the retailer, which means there's no invoice to sell during the most capital-intensive period.

• Credit lines

  Traditional bank overdrafts or credit lines can bridge short-term gaps. However, banks are often cautious about lending to early-stage consumer brands, and credit limits may not be large enough to cover the full working capital requirement of a major retail expansion.

• Trade finance

  Purpose-built for this exact scenario, trade finance bridges the gap between paying your supplier and collecting from your retailer on a per-order basis. Your supplier gets paid immediately, you repay on terms that align with when your retailer pays you, and the cost is tied to the specific transaction. Unlike bank lending, trade finance is designed for the variable, order-by-order nature of wholesale cash flow.

Common mistakes to avoid

• ⚠
  Accepting terms you can't fund

  It's tempting to say yes to any retail opportunity, but if you can't finance the payment gap, you'll end up in a cash crunch. Model the full cash cycle before committing to a new account.

• ⚠
  Ignoring late payment risk

  Net 60 doesn't always mean 60 days. Retailers may pay late — sometimes significantly late — due to administrative processes, disputes, or simply because they can. Build a buffer into your cash flow projections.

• ⚠
  Treating payment terms as fixed

  Everything in a commercial relationship is negotiable over time. As your brand proves itself, revisit terms with both suppliers and retailers. Even small improvements — net 45 instead of net 60 — can meaningfully improve your cash position.

• ⚠
  Not separating growth from survival

  There's a difference between using working capital to grow (funding a new retail account) and using it to survive (stretching cash to cover basic operations). If you're doing the latter, the problem isn't payment terms — it's margins or business model.

• ⚠
  Overlooking the supplier relationship

  Your supplier is navigating their own cash flow challenges. A brand that pays reliably and communicates clearly builds goodwill that translates into better terms, priority production, and flexibility during crunch periods.

A quick reference guide

Here's a summary of the most common payment term structures you'll encounter in the wellness and supplements supply chain:

The bigger picture

Payment terms are one of those topics that sounds dry but sits at the heart of whether a growing wellness brand can actually scale. The difference between a brand that thrives in retail and one that stumbles often comes down to how well the founder understood — and planned for — the cash flow implications of the terms they agreed to.

The good news is that this is a well-understood challenge with increasingly good solutions. You don't have to choose between saying yes to a major retailer and keeping your business financially healthy. With the right planning, the right financing infrastructure, and a clear-eyed understanding of how payment terms affect your cash cycle, you can do both.