Why there are no attachments in the first email

The question we hear in almost every onboarding

"Can I attach our PDF?" It is a fair question. You have a lovely deck and a price list, and it feels like the store should see them. But in the first outreach emails, an attachment does more harm than good.

Reason one: it goes to spam

Email providers treat a message from someone the recipient has never written to, carrying a file, with suspicion. Attachments, images and lots of links are what spam looks like. Add them to a cold email and more of your emails land in junk, where nobody replies.

A short plain text email, sent at a steady pace from a separate domain we set up for you, looks like what it is: one person writing to another.

Reason two: it asks too much, too soon

A store owner who has never heard of you will not open a twelve-page PDF between customers. A price list asks them to make a buying decision before they are even interested.

The first email has one job: get a reply. Give them one reason it suits their store and one easy ask. See email length and structure for the shape we use.

What the first emails do include

That is enough for an owner to know who you are, check you are real, and reply.

• A few short paragraphs of plain text, written for that store. See personalised emails.
• Few links, or none, usually just your website.
• Your name, brand and contact details in a plain signature.
• An unsubscribe link, which every cold email carries.

When to send the price list and line sheet

The moment a store replies with interest. Now the attachment is welcome, it is expected, and it lands in a conversation instead of a cold inbox. Send your price list, your line sheet and the sample details in your reply.

With Flow you can share a line sheet that stores order from directly. See Flow. To work out wholesale prices that leave a store a fair margin, try our wholesale price calculator.

What about photos of the product?

The same rule applies. An image in a first email from an unknown sender hurts delivery, and an owner who is interested will look at your website. Keep the visuals for your reply and for the sample itself, which does the job better than any photo.

Isn't a plain email too bare?

It can feel that way when you have spent months on your packaging and deck. But the owner is not judging your brand from the first email. They are deciding whether to reply. A clear reason to care and an easy ask does that better than any attachment.

Your brand gets its moment when the sample arrives. That is when packaging, taste and presentation do the selling, in the store, in the owner's hands. The first email only has to get you there.

What if a store asks for more?

Some owners reply asking for more information before they agree to a sample. That is a good sign. Answer with your line sheet, a few lines on how the product sells, and the offer of a sample. You are now in a conversation, and an attachment is exactly what they asked for.

If the store replies through one of your sending mailboxes, the reply lands in your inbox, matched to the store, and you answer it from there.