Start small and local. Walk your product into a handful of independent shops with a sample and a printed price list, and ask for brutal feedback. Once a few stores are selling it, find a sales rep group to pitch you to buyers you’d never reach alone. Save the big chains for when your packaging, pricing and supply can survive them.
The founder of one goat milk skincare brand did it the cinematic way. She drove a goat to a Cracker Barrel and asked if they’d stock her soap. The store said lovely, but you need to see the buyers at corporate. So she drove to the corporate office in Nashville. No appointment. Goat still with her. As the brand’s president tells it, everybody came outside.
Charming. Also not a plan.
Why it’s harder than it sounds
Online shopping gets the headlines, but the Census Bureau puts e-commerce at 17.1% of US retail sales in the second quarter of 2026. The rest still goes through a register somewhere. Shelves matter.
The catch is that the person you meet in the store usually isn’t the person who decides. Buyers decide. They’re guarding shelf space that already earns its keep, and they judge your packaging and your price before they ever open the jar.
And the polite advice (“just reach out to buyers!”) skips the part where you have no idea who the buyer is, what they need to see, or why they’d risk a shelf on a brand they’ve never heard of.
What actually works
Start with the small shops
One founder with a kids’ brand got this advice from a mentor at the start of COVID: “go into small boutiques, put your products you know in a bag, offer them a sample to try and print out a little price list.”
That’s the whole kit. A bag, a sample, a price sheet. No trade show stand, no lookbook, no goat.
Ask them to be rude about it
The first Boston retailers were honest: “we love it. But like your your packaging looks a little crazy.” She’d made every label herself and stretched the text box in Photoshop, which stretched the letters too. (We’ve all done it. Some of us still do.)
So she kept asking: “Why is a retailer going to sell my product or not sell it?” Price, packaging, what to stock and what to drop. Every answer was free product development.
Look bigger than you are
Once she was in retail, she needed a catalog, labels and a website fast. Her brief to the designer: “I need all this to look like we’re a team of 50.” Deadline: seven days. (The designer was Serena. They got close.)
Buyers buy the product, and they also buy the confidence that you’ll still be there to fill the reorder.
Get a rep group to carry you
Driving to every gift and toy store in person doesn’t scale. One trusted retailer put her straight: “You need to use sales reps.” Rep groups cover territories and pitch your line to their retailer accounts. If they take you on, you suddenly have “ten, 20, 30 reps in New England, in the southeast, in the Midwest.” Ask about terms before you sign. Every group runs its own way.
Her store count went “0 to 2, 2 to 15, 15 to 50,” and then to 850 across the US and Canada.
Don’t chase Target first
Everyone wants the big-box deal on day one. Her view: “I’d rather know when I’m only in two stores or four stores. Not when I’m in 800.” The labeling mistake, the missing shrink wrap, the price that doesn’t work. Find those while they’re cheap. And a warning for the ambitious: “If you think stress is a real thing, wait until you get that big corporate deal.”
Hear it from someone who’s done it
Sara Ferrer, now our co-host, built her kids’ brand Zoey Koko from homemade labels to 850 stores, then sold the company. In the very first episode she walks through the boutiques, the brutal feedback and the day she learned what a rep group was. Jump to 12:05 for the retail story from the start.
FAQ
How do I pitch my product to retailers?
Put the product in their hands, with a one-page price list and a clear reason their customers will buy it. At a chain, find the buyer, because the store manager usually can’t say yes. Follow up, politely, more than once.
How do I sell to retailers as a small brand?
Start with independent shops near you, where the owner is often the buyer. A few stores that reorder are your proof. Bigger accounts and rep groups take you more seriously once you have it.
What is a sales rep group?
A team of independent reps who carry several brands in a territory and pitch them to the stores they already sell to. They take you on, or they don’t. If they do, you get a sales team without hiring one.
Should I start with big chains or small stores?
Small stores. You learn what breaks on packaging, pricing and supply while the stakes are low, and you arrive at the big buyer with sales history instead of hope.
Next step
Listen to the full episode. It’s the one where the podcast started, and the retail lessons are worth the whole hour.