Writing to stores
A wholesale email store buyers answer
Store owners get pitches every day. Most are long, generic and full of claims, and they go unread. The ones that get answers are short, specific and easy to reply to. Here is the difference, with an example.
Before: the pitch nobody answers
Dear Sir/Madam, we are the leading sustainable brand in the industry, loved by thousands of customers worldwide. Our products will boost your sales by 40%. Check our full catalogue, our Instagram, our TikTok and our website, and order now to get our exclusive limited-time discount!
Everything in it works against a reply: a subject that looks like spam, a greeting to nobody, claims the buyer cannot check, a promise of sales nobody can make, four links and a push to order before any conversation.
After: short, specific, one question
Hi Maya, I saw that your shop carries pottery from local makers, and the speckled glazes on your shelf are close to what we make at our studio: stoneware mugs and bowls, made by hand in small batches.
Would you like to see our wholesale catalogue and prices?
Ana, Clay & Fern
It is about her shop, not about us. It says why the products fit there. It asks one question that is easy to answer with “yes”. And it does not try to sell in the first message.
Why your agent starts with a short letter
That is exactly how StockistScout writes. The first email from your agent is a short letter: it introduces your business, says why it fits that store and asks one question, with no prices and no list of links. When the store answers, your agent sends your full email right away in the same conversation, with your photos, your best sellers and your offer, and forwards the reply to you. If the store says no, it never hears from you again.
- A short letter that a busy owner reads in ten seconds.
- The store answers, and the reply comes to you as well.
- Your full email, with photos, products and your offer, arrives in the same thread.
- You take it from there: the conversation and the order are yours.
Short letters also reach the inbox more often than heavy designed emails from a sender the store does not know yet, which matters as much as the words.
What the review checks before anything is sent
No template sends until it passes review. An AI reads every new or edited template and approves it, sends it back with the changes needed, or passes it to a person on our team when in doubt. It checks that:
- it is honest: no false claims, no promises you cannot keep, nothing your offer does not say;
- it uses no other companies’ brands or names;
- it carries a real sender, a postal address and a way to unsubscribe;
- nothing in it reads like spam.
Test two versions and keep the winner
You can run a version B with another angle, a different subject or a different first line, against your first email. The Reports page shows which one gets more replies, and you keep that one. A follow-up goes a week later to stores that did not answer, and that is the last email they get.
Katya can write all of it for you from your facts: the first email, a version B and the follow-up. You read them first and use them only if you like them. See every feature.
Keep reading
Selling to stores in another country: a factory in China finding US shops
Your business can be anywhere and your agent writes to stores in another country, in their language. A worked example: a ceramics factory in China looking for its first US stockists, with the numbers of each month.
How an agent finds stores for your brand, step by step
One example from start to finish: a ceramics studio describes what it sells and who it wants, its agent finds gift shops that fit, writes to each one and the replies land in the studio's inbox.
What to put in your wholesale offer: minimum order, terms, samples and a first-order offer
The five answers a store buyer looks for in a first email from a new brand, with examples of each, and the mistakes that cost replies.