How to find stockists for your product

Direct answer

How do I find stockists for my product?

Start from shops that already sell your kind of product to your kind of customer. The quickest source is the stockist or where-to-buy page published by brands comparable to yours, because every shop listed there has already agreed to buy direct from a small supplier. Then search that same shop type in the places you can actually supply, keep only the ones that buy independently and sit at your price level, and approach the owner or buyer with your wholesale price, minimum order and lead time ready.

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Search a shop type where you can supply

Name the kind of shop you want on your list and the town or district. You get real businesses with addresses and a fit score, without signing in. The first field is left blank on purpose: this page cannot know which shop type sells your product.

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Stockist, wholesale buyer, distributor: three different conversations

A stockist is a shop that buys your product and sells it to the public under its own roof. A wholesale buyer is the person inside that shop, or inside a group of shops, who makes the decision. A distributor buys in order to resell to shops rather than to the public, and an agent sells on your behalf for commission without ever owning the stock.

The distinction changes who you look for and what you offer. Approaching a distributor with a single-shop pitch wastes both people's time, and approaching an independent shop on distributor terms usually prices you out of your own deal.

The fastest source is a comparable brand's own stockist list

Brands that sell into retail publish where to buy them. Look for the Stockists, Where to buy, or Find us in store page on the sites of three or four brands selling something adjacent to your product at a similar price. Every shop on those pages has already done the thing that is hardest to verify from outside: agreed to buy direct from a small supplier.

Read the lists for the pattern rather than working through them as a list. If the same kind of shop appears on all four, that is the shop type to search for in your own area. If one brand's list is all museum shops and another's is all garden centres, you have learned that your category sells through more than one channel, and each one needs its own approach.

Then search that shop type one area at a time

Once you know the shop type, place is the cheapest filter you have. A shop in the right district already serves roughly the right customer, and you can visit it, ship to it cheaply, or claim a real connection to the area in your first line.

Search somewhere you could genuinely supply this season rather than the whole country. Widening the search before the approach is producing replies only sends a message that is not working to more people.

Four checks that decide whether a shop can say yes

Does it buy direct? Independents usually do. A branch of a chain or a franchise almost never does, so the person in front of you has no authority to agree however much they like the product.

Does the price position match? Compare what the shop already charges for things like yours against the retail price your wholesale price implies. If your product would be the most expensive thing on that shelf by a distance, the fit fails on arithmetic before taste is involved.

Does it already carry the category? A shop with a shelf for your category has a buyer who understands it. A shop with nothing like it is an argument you have to win before terms can even be discussed.

Is there room and buying rhythm? Small shops buy in seasons and have finite shelves. A shop that has just taken on two new suppliers in your category is a later conversation, not a refusal.

Have four numbers ready before you contact anyone

A buyer's first practical questions are the same nearly everywhere: what does it cost me, how many must I take, how soon can you deliver, and what happens if it does not sell. Not having those answers turns a promising first message into a second exchange, and some buyers will not bother with the second.

Work out your own floor first. Decide the wholesale price you can actually supply at once packaging, delivery and your own time are counted, and check the retail price it implies against what that kind of shop already charges. If those two numbers leave the shop too little to be interested, the problem is the pricing rather than the list.

Write to a person, and make one sentence unrepeatable

For an independent, the buyer is usually the owner, and the owner's name is usually somewhere public: the about page, the shop's own social account, a local press piece. A message addressed to a person is read more often than one addressed to the shop.

One sentence has to be about their shop and could not have been sent to anyone else. Everything after it is standard and reusable: what the product is, the wholesale price, the minimum order, and the lead time. That is the whole first message.

Related resources

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a stockist and a distributor?

A stockist buys your product and sells it to the public in its own shop. A distributor buys in order to resell to shops, takes a larger margin, and usually expects you to support the shops it sells into. Small brands generally start with stockists because the terms are simpler and each relationship is small enough to end without damage.

Where can I find a list of shops that stock products like mine?

Start with the stockist or where-to-buy pages on the websites of brands comparable to yours. Those shops have already agreed to buy direct from a small supplier, which is the hardest quality to check from outside. Read several lists for the pattern of shop type rather than treating any one of them as a list to work through.

How many stockists should I approach at once?

Enough that you can still write a specific first sentence for each, which for most people is ten to twenty. The work that earns replies is done per shop and does not get faster with a longer list.

Should I offer sale or return to win a first stockist?

It removes the buyer's risk by moving it to you, so it can open a first door, but you are then funding stock that may come back. Decide in advance how much stock you can afford to have sitting in shops, and treat it as a deliberate cost of entry rather than a standing term.

Can I approach shops before I have wholesale pricing?

Not usefully. Price, minimum order and lead time are the first three things a buyer asks about, and a message that cannot answer them asks the buyer to do the work of a second exchange for a supplier they have no reason to prefer yet.

Does CarryLeads work without a Shopify store?

Yes. It runs as a free web app that needs only a Google sign-in and returns five free leads with drafted outreach. The Shopify app is a separate route, for merchants who want the same job done against their own catalog and order data inside Shopify Admin.

Does the tool contact the shops for me?

No. It finds and scores shops and prepares an editable draft, then stops. You send it yourself, because you are accountable for the claim, the recipient, and the outreach rules that apply where you are.