How To Get On The Shelf and Stay There

More and more “DTC” brands have gotten to realize that DTC is a channel and not an entire business model.

Over the last few years, many brands (including ours) that started as DTC native brands have chosen to go down the retail route.

But how do you even get into retail in the first place?

… and more importantly, how do you stay on the retail shelves?

That's what we'll cover in today's newsletter.

We hope you're as excited as we are. Buckle up, and let's dive in.

Getting on the shelves: The "Easy" part

Retail is unlike any other sales channel, where everyone with a product can show it to potential customers.

No.

Getting into retail is a game of A) knowing the right people and B) getting in front of the right people. Here, we're talking about the retail buying managers who get your product on the shelves.

The way to go about this is to A) Reach out to buying managers through LinkedIn, Twitter, Email, etc and get a meeting with them and B) partner with a retail agency/hire a person who's experienced in retail. They already have the connections and can help you set up a meeting with the right people faster. Preferably, you should be doing both.

When we wanted to get into Walmart, we partnered with a really good brokerage team who were located in the same city as Walmart's headquarters. They were worth their weight in gold and not only helped us secure a meeting but also played a vital role in preparing our pitch.

Are you worth their square inches?

Alright, so far, so good. Now you've got a meeting with a retail buyer. So what?

Now is the time for the pitching.

When pitching to retail buyers, you have to keep two things in mind.

A) They WANT to have a diverse range of brands on their shelves - because it increases their customers' experience and helps them sell more.

B) Because of the above point, they don't want or need products that are too similar.

Therefore, you have to make your pitch very centred around how you're different from your competitors and why people should buy from you and not your competitors. That's about 90% of what they care about.

To give you an example, when we pitched Walmart - the retail buyer took a bottle of Vital Proteins and a bottle of Obvi - and said: "Why should I buy this."

We then answered.

He then dove deeper and asked "Why" again.

It kept going like this for a little while - until he had drilled down every single detail about how we are different and why consumers want what we're offering.

The reason why we provide you with this example is to illustrate the depth of product and customer knowledge you need to have when pitching to retail. Only being able to answer 1 or 2 "Why" questions won't cut it.

Getting the sales reps on your side through product demos

One of the big learnings we've gotten from launching at +700 Vitamin Shoppe stores is that product demos are a GREAT way to educate both the customer, but also more importantly - the sales reps.

What we came to realize a bit late is that it's ultimately going to be the sales reps who sell our products whenever the customers are in doubt. They are like our in-store customer support.

… and if they can't vouch for our products and answer crucial questions about our products - then we have a problem.

So - we have to find a way to get the sales reps to LOVE our product so that they can recommend it to customers who come through the door.

One of the best ways to do that is to do product demos for the sales reps and customers at the same time.

Now, the good thing about doing this is that it works great. We've seen that first-hand.

The bad thing is that it's very hard operationally to consistently do product demos in hundreds of stores, let alone spend all the money required to do that.

Our attempt to make your life a little bit easier

Finding the right retail partners and agencies can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

We’ve tried some very good ones, and unfortunately also some very bad ones.

If you want a list of our top recommendations for retail partners/agencies who can actually deliver results - then reply to this email and we’ll send it to you right away.

Thanks for reading along!

Thanks for reading along. If you’ve made it this far, just know that we appreciate you and can’t wait to show you what we have in store for sundays newsletter