For most brands, making the product was never the hard part. Finding the retailers to sell it is. Whether you're launching your first wholesale collection or trying to grow past a handful of loyal stockists, the same question comes up: where do the right retailers actually come from, and how do you get them to say yes?

There's no single channel that works for everyone. The brands that build a healthy stockist base usually combine a few discovery methods, then make it effortless for those retailers to keep reordering. This guide walks through eight proven ways to find retailers, and how to turn that first order into a lasting wholesale relationship.

First, define your ideal retailer

Before you go looking, get specific about who you're looking for. "Any shop that'll take us" is how you end up with stockists who order once and never again.

Think about the store type (concept store, boutique, department store, webshop, hospitality), their price positioning, their location and customer, and the assortment they already carry. A brand that sits alongside yours — not competing, but complementary — is a far better bet than a bigger name that's a poor fit. A clear picture of your ideal stockist makes every channel below more efficient, because you'll recognise a good lead when you see one and stop wasting time on the rest.

1. Get discovered on a B2B marketplace

The fastest way to get in front of retailers who are actively looking to buy is a B2B marketplace. Instead of chasing individual shops, you list your catalog once and thousands of vetted retailers can find you by category, trend, or search.

This is discovery at scale: the marketplace already has the buyers, the traffic, and the trust. It's especially powerful for reaching independent retailers across other countries you'd never cost-effectively reach through outreach alone. Many brands treat a marketplace as their top-of-funnel — new retailers discover them there, place a first order, and then get moved onto the brand's own channel for repeat business (more on that below).

2. Exhibit at trade shows and fairs

Trade shows remain one of the strongest ways to meet serious buyers face to face. Retailers come specifically to discover new brands and write orders, so intent is high and you get to build the personal relationship that wholesale still runs on.

The catch is cost and follow-through — a stand is expensive, and orders scribbled on paper often stall after the show. Capture them digitally on the spot with a trade show ordering app so interest becomes a confirmed order before the buyer leaves your booth, and you start fulfilling while the momentum is still there.

3. Reach out directly to target stores

Cold (and warm) outreach still works when it's targeted. Build a shortlist of shops that fit your ideal-retailer profile, find the buyer or owner, and reach out with a short, specific pitch — why your brand fits their store, your terms, and an easy next step.

Keep it concrete: lead with the products most relevant to them, attach a clean line sheet, and make ordering frictionless. The brands that win at outreach do their homework on each store rather than blasting the same email to hundreds of inboxes.

4. Turn your social media into a discovery channel

Retail buyers scout Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest for new products constantly. A strong, consistent presence — showing your products in real retail settings, tagging stockists, and making it obvious you sell wholesale — turns social into an inbound stockist channel.

Add a clear "Stock our brand" or "Wholesale enquiries" link in your bio that points straight to your ordering environment or marketplace listing, so an interested buyer can act immediately instead of sending a DM that gets lost.

5. Work with sales reps, agents, and distributors

If you're expanding into new regions or categories, sales agents and distributors bring existing retailer relationships you'd take years to build yourself. A good agent already knows the buyers in their territory and can open doors quickly.

Give them the tools to sell efficiently — a mobile order taking app with your live catalog and customer-specific pricing means reps can write accurate orders on the road, and everything flows into the same system as your other channels.

6. Mine your existing network and referrals

Your current stockists, your customers, and your peers are an underused source of leads. Happy retailers can refer peers who aren't competitors; other non-competing brands can share which stores buy well; and your D2C customers can tell you which local shops they'd love to see you in.

Make referrals easy and worth it — even a simple "know a shop that'd love us? introduce us" ask to your best stockists surfaces warm, high-fit leads.

7. Scout in person, locally

Sometimes the best stockists are down the road. Walk the shopping streets and neighbourhoods where your ideal retailer lives, note the shops whose assortment complements yours, and approach them with a sample in hand. In-person still converts, especially for smaller independent stores where the owner is the buyer.

8. Use retailer directories and prospecting tools

For structured outbound, retailer directories, store locators of complementary brands, and prospecting tools let you build targeted lists filtered by store type, location, and category. Pair the list with the outreach approach from #3, and you've got a repeatable pipeline rather than one-off luck.

Make it easy for retailers to say yes

Finding retailers is only half the job — you also have to remove friction from that first order. Have a clean, current line sheet, sensible minimum order quantities that lower the barrier for first-time buyers, clear wholesale pricing and terms, and fast answers to stock and delivery questions. A lower or flexible first-order MOQ, in particular, makes it far easier for a cautious new stockist to test you.

Turn a first order into a repeat customer

The real value of a retailer isn't the first order — it's the tenth. Once a store has bought from you, give them a branded, self-service place to reorder instead of waiting for emails or your next visit. A B2B webshop / ordering portal lets retailers log in, see their pricing, and reorder in minutes, which directly increases reorder frequency.

This is where the two motions come together in a multi-channel B2B sales strategy: a marketplace brings new retailers in, and your own portal keeps them ordering. Behind the scenes, capturing every order digitally — including ones that still arrive by email or PDF via AI Order Convert — means growth doesn't bury your team in admin as your stockist list grows.

Common mistakes when finding retailers

Chasing volume over fit is the big one — a hundred poorly matched stores churn faster than ten well-matched ones. Others: an outdated or messy line sheet, MOQs set so high that first-time buyers walk away, slow follow-up after a trade show or enquiry, and making retailers work to place a reorder. Fix those and every discovery channel above performs better.

The bottom line

There's no shortcut to a strong stockist base, but there is a repeatable system: define your ideal retailer, combine a few discovery channels (marketplace for reach, trade shows and outreach for depth, social and referrals for inbound), make the first order easy, and give retailers a frictionless way to keep reordering. Do that consistently and finding retailers stops being a scramble and becomes a pipeline.

Want to get discovered by new retailers and give them an easy way to reorder? Explore Orderchamp or book a demo.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find retailers to stock my brand?

What's the fastest way to reach a lot of retailers?

How do I get a retailer to place a first order?

How do I get retailers to reorder?