About
A six-year-old brokerage above a bakery in Canisteo.
Wholesale Industrial Commerce Exchange is a working B2B desk, not a directory. We operate out of a renovated 1920s commercial building on 10th Street in Canisteo, NY — the address has been a hardware store, a hat shop and a stamp dealer before us. We like that.
- Founded · 2019
- Owner · Amy Burdick
- Where · Canisteo, NY
The story
Why a brokerage in Canisteo, of all places.
Before WICE, Amy ran the buying desk for a small chain of three garden and gift stores in the Southern Tier. She loved the job — but she spent half of every week chasing leads that never panned out. A directory site would promise twelve "verified" suppliers; six would never reply, four would have minimums no independent could absorb, and the two left would ship a sample two months late.
One February, after the third bad freight bill in a row from a New Jersey wholesaler she'd found through one of those directories, she did the math. The brokerage she wished existed didn't, so she opened it. The first year, the customer list was eight stores she already knew. The seventh year is finishing now.
What stayed the same
We've kept the desk small. We don't run a marketplace, an SaaS platform, or a recommendation engine. Every supplier we suggest is one we've personally worked with. Every buyer we onboard gets a phone call before they get an email. That part isn't going to scale, and we like it that way.
The brokerage I wanted didn't exist. So I built the one I'd have wanted to call.
Where we work
Most of our buyers are in the Southern Tier of New York and northern Pennsylvania, with a growing handful in the Finger Lakes and the Mohawk Valley. Our suppliers range from a soap-maker in Penn Yan to a cast-iron workshop outside Reading, PA. We say "the Northeast" because it's true, but the heart of the work is between Corning and Scranton.
Timeline
Six years, one desk.
- 2019
Founded above a bakery
Amy Burdick starts WICE out of a one-room office above Sweetland Bakery on Main Street, Canisteo.
- 2020
First 40 buyers
Mostly garden centers and gift shops in Steuben, Allegany and Livingston counties.
- 2021
Maker network passes 100
Adds craft makers from Ithaca, Corning and the Finger Lakes wineries region.
- 2023
Trade-show representation
Begins repping small makers at NY NOW and the Buyers Cash & Carry market in Rochester.
- 2024
Logistics desk added
Hires a part-time freight coordinator after one too many LTL shipments arrived re-classed.
- 2026
Today
300+ vetted suppliers, 112 active buyer accounts, still answering the phone ourselves.
What we believe
Four house rules pinned over the desk.
Phone first, email second
Most problems take ten minutes on the phone and three days in email. We default to the call.
Vouch or stay silent
We don't pass along a supplier we haven't worked with. If we don't have a match yet, we say so.
Buyer success > placement fees
We'd rather break even on a hard match that lasts than book commission on a placement that returns.
Small on purpose
We've turned down growth that would dilute the vetting. The desk stays the size of the work.
The desk
Four people. One brokerage.
Amy Burdick
Founder & Managing Broker
Twenty years in independent retail before opening the brokerage. Sits on the board of the Canisteo–Greenwood Chamber.
Margaret R. Doyle
Supplier Relations
Joined in 2021 from Wegmans private-label sourcing. Speaks fluent line sheet.
Theo Vanderhoek
Freight Coordinator
Twelve years dispatching LTL out of the Southern Tier. He knows every dock from Buffalo to Scranton by name.
Janelle Quinn
Buyer Services
Former store manager of a gift boutique in Hornell. Handles onboarding and the awkward sample-return conversations.
Region
The Northeast, in plain terms.
We work primarily across upstate New York, Pennsylvania, southern Vermont and western Massachusetts. We'll take a call from anywhere, but the relationships that run smoothest are the ones we can drive to in an afternoon.
Get in touch