Marketing to retailers · 20 articles
Marketing to Retailers
Retailers are an audience, and most DTC brands market to them by accident. A wholesale page that answers their questions, a catalog they can order from, a sample policy, a newsletter that tells them what is new: each one turns a first order into a reorder.
The guides here are the retailer-facing marketing kit, plus the trade-show basics and the software that keeps a growing stockist list organised.
Guides
Wholesale Customer Service: How to Keep Stockists Ordering
Serving shops is not serving shoppers. Here is how a DTC brand handles damages, backorders, credits and reorders so accounts keep buying for years.
7 min readWholesale Management Software: What a Small Brand Needs
Four jobs software does in wholesale: ordering, accounts, inventory and outreach. Here is what a DTC brand should buy, in what order, and what to keep manual.
7 min readWholesale Application Form: Approving Stores Without Losing Them
The application form is where you decide who gets your wholesale price. Here is how to vet a store, attach your terms and approve accounts in a day, not a week.
7 min readWholesale Marketing Strategy for a DTC Brand
Marketing to shops is push, pull and sell-through support. Here is how a Shopify brand builds a wholesale marketing plan it can run in four hours a week.
6 min readWholesale Samples: Who Pays, What to Send, and When
Samples close wholesale accounts and quietly drain a small brand. Here is a sample policy that converts buyers without turning your range into a giveaway.
7 min readTrade Show Checklist for a First-Time Wholesale Brand
Everything a small brand needs to do in the eight weeks before a wholesale trade show, on the floor, and in the two weeks after it ends.
6 min readWhere AI Actually Helps a Wholesale Brand
The wholesale tasks AI does well for a small brand, the ones it quietly ruins, and how to use it on lists, research and follow-ups without sounding generic.
6 min readWholesale Inquiry Form: What to Ask a Shop and What to Skip
A wholesale inquiry form should collect enough to invoice and ship, and nothing else. Here are the fields that earn their place and the ones that lose you accounts.
7 min readWholesale Lookbook: How to Make One Buyers Actually Open
A lookbook sells the feeling, a line sheet sells the order. Here is what belongs in a wholesale lookbook for a DTC brand, and how to build one without a studio.
7 min readRetailer Support: The Welcome Kit and What Comes After
How to onboard a new stockist, what belongs in a wholesale welcome kit, and the small habits that turn a one-time order into an account that reorders.
6 min readWholesale CRM: Keeping Track of Every Stockist
The fields, stages and follow-up habits that keep a growing stockist list organised, and the point at which a spreadsheet genuinely stops working.
6 min readWholesale Marketing: Promotions That Get Buyers Ordering
The trade promotions, seasonal calendar and lookbook work that make retailers order now, built for a brand with no trade marketing budget.
6 min readA Sample Policy That Wins Buyers Without Bleeding Stock
How to decide who gets samples, what to charge, and how to credit them against a first order so your wholesale samples convert instead of vanishing.
7 min readThe Wholesale Application Form That Screens Buyers
Which fields to ask a retailer for, how to verify a shop is real, and how to approve or decline a wholesale application without losing good accounts.
6 min readTrade Show ROI: Did the Booth Pay for Itself?
The full cost of exhibiting, the break-even order count, and why a wholesale trade show is judged on reorders twelve months later, not on show-floor sales.
6 min readWholesale Software: What a Small Brand Adds, and When
The order entry, catalogue, inventory and invoicing pieces a growing wholesale channel needs, in the order a small brand should actually add them.
6 min readBuilding a Wholesale Website Buyers Take Seriously
What belongs on the wholesale section of your own site, what to show publicly, what to gate, and why the page matters more than the portal behind it.
6 min readSell Through Rate: The Number Stockists Judge You By
How to calculate sell through rate for a wholesale account, what a healthy reorder cycle looks like, and how to ask a shop for the data politely.
7 min readThe Retailer Newsletter That Actually Gets Reorders
A wholesale newsletter is not your consumer email with the prices swapped. Here is what to send stockists, how often, and what makes a buyer reply.
6 min readYour First Trade Show Booth as a Small Brand
What a ten-by-ten wholesale trade show booth actually needs, what to leave at home, and how to lay it out so buyers stop instead of walking past.
7 min read