Brands get into stores through five routes: direct outreach to the buyer, trade shows, wholesale marketplaces, independent sales reps, and distributors. Most brands start with the first, because it costs nothing but time, and add the others in that order as the number of doors outgrows what a founder can handle personally.
The route matters less than the mechanics, though. Every one of them ends in the same place — a buyer deciding whether to give you shelf space — and the sequence from first contact to a purchase order is identical. Both halves are below.
Route one: direct outreach
You contact the shop, usually the owner or a buyer, and sell to them yourself. No commission, no booth, no middle party. This is how almost every brand gets its first stockists.
It works in three forms. Walking in with samples and a line sheet, which converts better than anything else and terrifies most founders. Email, which scales but needs to be genuinely specific — a note that names two products they already carry and explains the gap you fill, not a template. Introductions, from a stockist, a supplier, a fellow brand or a customer who owns a shop.
The cost is your time and a sample budget. The limit is reach: you can run perhaps twenty or thirty live conversations at once before follow-ups start slipping, which caps the channel at a few dozen accounts before you need a system or a route with leverage.
Do this first regardless of your plans, because it teaches you the objections. Everything you learn about price, packaging and category fit from twenty buyer conversations makes every later route cheaper. For a brand with no stockists yet, the sequence is set out in new brand wholesale.
Route two: trade shows
A trade show puts hundreds of buyers in one hall for three days. A good one in your category is the fastest way to meet a large number of qualified buyers, and it is expensive once you total booth, build, travel, accommodation, samples and the stock you bring.
It also has a prerequisite most first-timers miss: you need to be able to fulfil what you sell. Signing thirty accounts at a show and then shipping late to all of them is worse than not going, because those buyers all talk to each other and to the same rep groups.
Go when your range is settled, your terms are written, your lead time is honest and you have stock or production booked. Before that, a stall at a good consumer design market reaches many of the same independent buyers for a fraction of the cost, because shop owners browse those markets looking for new lines.
Route three: wholesale marketplaces
Online marketplaces put your catalogue in front of retailers who are browsing for new lines, handle the ordering and payment, and take a commission on orders — usually a higher rate on the first order from a new stockist and a lower one on reorders.
The advantage is discovery without outreach. Shop owners search these platforms by category, and a brand with good photography and a clear line can be found by stores it would never have identified. Payment risk is handled for you, which matters when you do not know the buyer.
The disadvantages are real too. The commission comes out of a margin that is already halved. You compete on a screen against many similar brands rather than in a conversation. And the relationship is mediated, so a store that found you there may keep ordering there forever, with the commission attached to every reorder.
Treat marketplaces as one channel among several rather than the whole strategy: good for discovery and for accounts too small or too far to service directly, weak as the only way you meet buyers.
Route four: sales reps and rep groups
A rep carries your line alongside a portfolio of complementary brands and presents it to stores in their territory, usually for a commission on every order in that territory, including reorders they did not directly make.
What you are buying is relationships and time. A good rep group already sells to the exact shops you want, has a showroom at the trade shows in your category, and knows which buyers are actively looking. What you give up is a permanent slice of margin and a degree of control over how your brand is presented.
Two conditions make this work. First, evidence that the product sells through, because a rep with fifteen lines will focus on the ones with proven rate of sale. Second, clarity in the agreement: territory, commission rate, what happens to house accounts you already have there, notice period, and whether reorders continue to carry commission after the relationship ends.
Route five: distributors
A distributor buys stock from you at below wholesale, holds it, and sells it on to retailers. Because they take a margin and the store takes a margin, the product has to support three margins including yours, which is why this route only works from a low landed cost.
What you get is reach and logistics: access to stores that only buy through distribution, another country, or a channel with its own delivery requirements. What you give up is the direct relationship with the shops and a large part of the margin.
For most DTC brands this belongs later, once independents have proven the product and a chain or a foreign market makes the reach worth the margin. The full ladder, including brokers and what chains expect, is in startup brand retail.
The sequence, from first contact to purchase order
Whichever route brings the introduction, the process afterwards looks the same. Knowing the steps stops you rushing the wrong one.
- Research the store. What they stock, what is missing, which of your products belongs there, who the buyer is. Five minutes each, and it is the difference between a reply and silence.
- First contact. Short. Who you are, what the product is, why it fits their shelves specifically, and one clear next step — a sample, a line sheet, a visit.
- Sample and line sheet. The sample sells the product; the line sheet answers the commercial questions. Send both, and include your case pack, prices, minimum, lead time and terms.
- The buyer's questions. Margin, minimum, lead time, reliability, and whether a competitor nearby has you. Answer the same day.
- A proposed opening order. Do not wait for them to build it. Suggest a specific first order — these three products, one case each — so the decision is yes or no rather than an open task.
- The purchase order. Confirm in writing: quantities, unit prices, total, ship date, payment method and terms.
- Fulfil exactly as promised, with tracking, and an invoice that is easy to process.
- Follow up at four weeks. Ask what sold and which variant. This produces the reorder and the sell-through evidence for your next twenty pitches.
Step five is where most brands lose deals. A buyer who likes the product but has to design the order themselves will put it in the pile of things to do later.
Choosing the route for where you are
A simple way to decide: match the route to your scarcest resource.
If time is what you have and money is not, do direct outreach and local delivery. If you have a proven product and need reach, a rep or a marketplace buys it. If you have capital and a complete range, a trade show compresses a year of meetings into three days. If you need to be in a channel you cannot physically service, a distributor is the answer.
All five routes need the same input, which is a list of the right stores. Pasting a product link into WholesalePilot returns a preview of the retailers and distributors that stock comparable products, so the list reflects who actually buys your category rather than who you happen to know. What to set down in writing before the first of those conversations turns into an account is covered in independent brand wholesale.
Questions about getting a product into shops
Is it better to email or walk in? Walk in for local stores, email for everywhere else. In both cases, be specific about why your product fits that shop.
How many approaches does one account take? Expect several touches. A first message, a follow-up a week later, and a third with something new — a stockist name, a new product, a seasonal angle — is a normal pattern.
Who is the right person to contact? In an independent, the owner. In a mini-chain, a buyer or the operations manager. Ask at the counter rather than guessing; staff will usually tell you who decides and when they are in.
Do you need a website that hides wholesale prices? Eventually, yes: trade prices behind a login, retail prices public. At the very start an emailed order form works.
How long does it take to get a first order? From a walk-in with a good fit, days. From cold email, weeks. From a trade show, often a season, because buyers place orders against a budget cycle rather than on the day.