Find stores that fit your product

What store search does

Store search is the first step of finding stores. Each campaign searches one area, a city or a region, for up to five store types. The result is a list of real, mapped businesses that could sell what you make.

Once a store is on the list, we find the person who buys for it (see buyer contacts) and learn what the business is about (see store research).

The stores we can find

Any physical business that sells to the public and could put your product on a shelf, a menu or a counter. The common ones:

• Cafés and coffee shops, for drinks, snacks and grab-and-go.
• Restaurants, bars and hotels, for drinks, sauces and anything on a menu.
• Liquor stores and bottle shops, for beer, wine, spirits and alcohol-free. Not offered in Australia, because of local rules.
• Grocers, delis and health food shops, for packaged food and drink.
• Gyms, boutiques and gift shops, for the products that sell well beside a counter.
• Something else. Type the store type in your own words, such as pet stores or farm shops, and we search for it.

How fit is judged

A store being in the right category is a start, not the answer. Before anyone is contacted, we check each store against your product. Does it sell things like yours? Does its style match your price point? Would a product like yours make sense to its customers?

A café that only sells its own baking is a poor fit for a packaged snack. A natural wine bar is a poor fit for a mass-market lager. Stores like these are removed from the list, so your emails go to the ones where a yes is possible.

We keep how we search to ourselves. What matters to you is that every store on your list is a real business in the place you chose, and you can see it on a map.

One city, one store type

Start small and specific. A first campaign to delis in one city gives you a clear answer about delis. Mixing every store type across a whole country gives you a muddle of replies you cannot learn from, and more sample requests than you can post.

Fragmented areas full of independent shops usually do better than areas dominated by a few chains. Independents decide quickly. Chains come later, once you have stores and sales to point to. Our guide to getting your product into stores in New Zealand shows how this plays out in one market.

You see every store first

Before you press Start, you can scroll through the whole list, see each store on the map, and remove any you do not want. Existing customers can be kept out for good with your do-not-contact list.

Want a look before you sign up? See who would stock you shows ten real stores near you that fit your product, from your website alone.

How big should a first campaign be?

Big enough to learn from, small enough to handle. A few dozen stores will bring a handful of replies: enough to spot a pattern, too few to judge an idea on. A hundred or more of one store type gives you a much clearer answer about whether that kind of store wants your product.

Think about what happens after the yes, too. Every interested store wants a sample and a follow-up. Send to as many as you can look after properly in the following fortnight.