Getting Into Retail

Getting into retail is less about a single great pitch than about arriving prepared for a process that runs on the buyer's calendar, not yours. Most chains review a category once or twice a year. Miss the window and the answer is not "no" so much as "not for eleven months." The brands that get in are the ones who know when the review happens, who owns it, and what the buyer needs to see before they will put their own credibility behind a new item.

That preparation is unglamorous. It means a price structure that survives the retailer's margin requirement without gutting yours, a supply chain that can absorb a purchase order four times bigger than anything you have shipped, and a story about velocity that is grounded in something — a comparable account, a regional test, a category gap the buyer already knows about. Buyers are not evaluating your product in isolation. They are deciding which existing item yours would replace.

The posts here cover the mechanics end to end: identifying which retailers are a genuine fit before you spend a season chasing the wrong ones, finding and reaching the right buyer, building a pitch that answers the questions buyers actually ask, and handling the operational lift once the first purchase order lands.