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Join for freePosted: Wed 24th Jun 2026
Watch this session and learn how to approach local and national retailers, pitch your product and understand margins, pricing and wholesale terms.
You'll receive plenty of practical insight and hear a real-world case study from a business that has successfully secured retail partnerships.
How to know which stage you're at in the journey to getting stocked
Why it's important to know your numbers before a retailer asks you
Why big retail isn't always the right retail for small businesses
Alison Metcalfe is a UK-based retail stock and inventory management consultant with over 20 years of experience across major retailers including John Lewis, H Samuel, Woolworths and BHS.
Now working independently with founders and small retail businesses, she specialises in turning historical data into confident stock decisions, helping founders to stop guessing and start growing.
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Lightly edited for clarity.
Ryan: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's Powering Local Businesses Lunch and Learn. My name is Ryan, and I will be your host today.
Powering Local Businesses is brought to you by EDF Small Business and Enterprise Nation, and it is also supported by Square.
It is designed to help small businesses grow more sustainably, however you sell and wherever you're based. Through the hub, you can access energy-saving guidance, workshops and a range of free business support resources. We'll be dropping some links into the chat, so keep an eye out for those.
Today, we're focusing on one of the most important steps for a product-based business: getting stocked in retail.
Whether you've been thinking about approaching local independents, pitching to national chains or simply trying to understand margins and wholesale terms, this session is for you.
I'm really pleased to introduce Alison Metcalfe. Alison is a UK-based retail stock and inventory management consultant with over 25 years' experience across major retailers, including John Lewis, H. Samuel, Woolworths and BHS.
Alison now works independently with founders and small retail businesses, specialising in turning historical data into confident stock decisions and helping founders stop guessing and start growing.
In this session, Alison is going to cover how to know which stage you're at in the journey to getting stocked, why it's important to know your numbers before a retailer asks you, and why big retail isn't always the right direction for small businesses.
As always, the session is recorded. If you have any questions, pop them in the chat and we will do our best to answer them at the end.
On that note, over to you, Alison.
Alison: Thanks, Ryan. I'm Alison Metcalfe, and I've worked in merchandising for 25 years now. I was saying 20-plus, but I worked it out this morning and it's now 25. I don't know where the last five years have gone.
As Ryan said, I've worked in John Lewis, BHS, Woolworths and H Samuel.
Merchandising is a head office role. It's spreadsheets, not visual merchandising, which some people can get confused about. I look at the commercial side of retail: stock, margin, demand and risk. I work closely with the buyer.
We often talk about the marriage between the merchandiser and the buyer. We both want to sell product to the customer, but we come at it from different angles.
The buyer is focused on sourcing product and getting new product in, whereas the merchandiser is much more focused on the money side of the business and how it's going to work. That's why it's a marriage. You both want the same thing, but you're coming at it from different angles.
As you can imagine, I've been involved in the decision-making process around whether a brand becomes part of the portfolio or not.
If you're a retailer, you'll know that retail is hard. But it helps when you know what to look out for, and that's what I'm trying to help you with today.
I want to help you understand what's behind the process, particularly from a big retailer point of view, having worked in John Lewis. I know that's what a lot of people are interested in: how to get into those big retailers.
By the end of this session, I'm hoping you'll be able to understand where you are on the journey, know what numbers you need before you're asked, and think about your options. Big retail, as Ryan mentioned, isn't always the right retail.
I created this table to help you understand the different supply models.
Often, people just say wholesale, but wholesale is only one part of the way you supply products to other retailers. There are other routes into the business. These include sale or return, which is SOR, and you may also have heard of drop ship or D2C, which means direct to customer.
I'm going to take you through each of these so you understand what's happening. The point is to understand the different models so you understand where the risk sits and how the cash flow works, because that's what everyone is interested in: how the money works.
Wholesale is the traditional model. The retailer holds your stock and delivers to the customer. They own the stock and deal with all the returns.
When you get paid depends on setting up your purchase order, or PO, sending that stock to the wholesaler and then getting paid based on what you've agreed in the contract. It might be 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. Within that time frame, you get paid for the product you've sent in.
SOR is slightly different. You send the stock to the retailer. For example, in John Lewis, if you're sale or return, you may send stock to the website warehouse. For branches, you would send the SOR product to each branch. You have to set the locations and deliver to those locations.
Who owns the stock? Not them. You do. So you need to think about insurance and what happens to the stock while it's on their premises.
The returns go back to the retailer because the customer bought it from there, and then the retailer returns it to you. They generally don't process the returns. It's up to you to process the returns and send sellable stock back to them if needed.
At the end of the season, or the agreed period of time, any stock that hasn't sold is returned to you. Then you may give them new product if you're continuing the relationship.
With SOR, it's more commission-based. You get paid after the sale of your product, and generally this happens once a month. Again, that will be part of the contract you agree upfront: how much the commission is and how often you're paid.
With drop ship or D2C, you hold the stock, deliver to the customer and own the stock. The returns may go back to the retailer because that's their customer journey.
Sometimes, for large electricals or large beds, for example, the returns may go back to you because the retailer doesn't want to receive them into the warehouse. That's all part of the contract. Returns may go back to you, or they may go back to the retailer. If they go back to the retailer, as with SOR, they eventually come back to you.
Again, you get paid in the same way as SOR. You sell the product, get the commission and get paid according to what you've agreed in the contract.
I was saying to Ryan earlier that this may sound a bit doom and gloom. But because I deal with risk, I've seen where things go wrong. Hopefully, you won't take this as me saying retail is not the best thing to do. I just want you to be aware of the pros and cons, because there are some cons.
The pros are what everyone gets excited about. The aim is to get wider customer reach and access to a new audience. You want a stronger brand presence, and the aim is to get credibility from being stocked by recognised retailers.
The aim is obviously to grow your revenue. The potential comes from large order volumes.
I'm not sure if you're aware of the term MOQ. It means minimum order quantity. Factories will give you a minimum order quantity, and sometimes your own sales are not hitting that level.
When you come in with another retailer, that's when you're looking to hit those MOQs with suppliers. With that, you get improved profitability at scale. When you hit higher volumes, the aim is to reduce the cost price per unit. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets.
That's the scale model, and that's what most people are going for when they want big retailers, because that's where you get into big quantities.
In terms of the cons, you have commercial commitments to think about. There are contracts, and you should always read the contracts and terms and conditions. Once you understand the contract, you can look at the margin structure and model it properly.
For example, if you use the traditional wholesale model, the retailer may write into the contract that if they have to discount your product, you have to contribute towards that. They might want 50/50, for example, so you have to pay some of that markdown.
They may also look at returns, and there may be a charge on returns.
It's really important that you understand what the contract says and that you can model it properly.
You can also have reduced control of your brand. Retailers influence pricing. They influence how you're presented within their estate and how replenishment works.
Something people haven't always thought about is that a retailer might cancel the order. You may have negotiations with the retailer, but then the retailer changes their mind.
Get everything in writing, get a PO raised or get the contract signed before you start ordering things. I know retailers who have ordered based on a promise, then the buyer changed their mind, and they were stuck with that stock. It's just something to be aware of.
Operational accuracy is key for me. People haven't necessarily thought about what happens once the product is in stores.
Can you give a stock update? Do you know the lead times on your orders? Can you fulfil in a timely manner?
If the retailer wanted more, when could you get that to them? If they're not sure about having more, what happens to the stock? What if it's not selling?
It's good to have those conversations at the beginning of the negotiation period, so they can be written into the contract.
Returns and wastage are also important. Especially in SOR or D2C drop ship, returns may come back to the retailer, but then they come back to you. What are you going to do with those returns? Do you have a way of dealing with them, or are they just written off as wastage?
Returns do come in. If any of you use Amazon, you'll probably know that happens quite a lot. Some of it tends to be written off, depending on the product. I know retailers who have to write it off as wastage. It's part of the margin you need to think about.
Then there are penalties and fines. If you are sending stock to a big retailer, you may be fined for late deliveries, incorrect labelling, non-compliance and so on. Again, it's something to think about.
Now let's look at what retailers look for when choosing a brand.
The previous slide was about what you need to think about when being stocked in another retailer. This is about what retailers think about when choosing the brands they stock.
They're looking for a clear offer. What do you bring that adds value to their range? That's something people forget.
Think Dragons' Den. Why would they stock you? Why do they want to invest in you?
Every time they bring on a brand, that's money to them. They have to pay to negotiate. They have to pay to set you up as a brand. They have to pay to set you up in a fulfilment location if they're stocking your product. Even bringing you onto the website means their team has to do that.
They want to know what you're going to offer and what the mutual benefit is. How will working together improve both businesses? There's no point bringing you in if they're not going to benefit from you. Obviously, you'll benefit from them, but you need to think about what you are going to bring them.
This comes into market positioning. Who are your competitors? Does that retailer already stock your competitors? If they don't, why not? Think about where you sit with them.
They also want to know, because they're going to spend money on you, what proof there is that it works.
It's all very well saying your aunt bought it, or you've got 10 customers. But they want to see that your product sells, converts customers and retains customers. They want to know they're not investing in something unproven.
Market size is something to be aware of as well. They will know the market size of their products and areas, but they want to know whether there is enough demand to justify the space and investment in you.
The last thing, which I think a lot of people don't really think about, is long-term reliability. Can you supply consistently and grow with them?
I would recommend thinking about your five-year plan. I've seen retailers come in, deliver product, but then not change. Two years later, they're not relevant anymore because they haven't moved with the times.
They show the buyer the same product again and again. If you're not changing your product with the customer, there is no long-term reliability. Who is to say they won't stop stocking you?
Think about your exit plan as well. What happens if they don't stock you for another season? Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Long-term reliability is something to think about. Have a view on your long-term plan, where you're growing, where you're going and how you will change with the retail environment.
I call this slide David versus Goliath. This comes back to big versus small.
Both sides have strengths, and both come with pressure. The key is choosing the right one for where your business is today, not jumping straight into the biggest names just because they look impressive.
Don't discount small retailers. They're easier to approach. It might be a gift shop down the road, and if you have gifts you want to sell, that could work really well for both businesses.
Small retailers are a lot easier to approach. You can often get direct contact. Decisions are faster. They're simpler to operate with because they have fewer systems, fewer penalties and fewer big warehouses that you have to deliver into.
They're a lot lower risk. They have smaller orders. If you're not quite there operationally, you're less likely to get fined for that, which may happen in a big retailer.
They're also great for learning. You can do a lot of test and learn. You can refine the product, pricing, cost price and operations. Don't discount those smaller retailers.
I haven't talked about medium retailers, but there are medium retailers too. You don't have to go straight to the big ones. Work out where you are in the journey, what you can do as a business and where you're at.
Obviously, if you get into a huge retailer, you've got huge reach, national exposure, new audiences and brand credibility from being stocked by a known name. That can build trust.
You've got volume potential, as we discussed with MOQs. You can get bigger orders, bigger revenue and bigger profit.
But it's more complex. The systems are complicated. Accuracy is complicated. There may be penalties, and there's a higher expectation that you'll be able to provide your brand into these bigger retailers.
So think about where you are in your journey. Are you better placed to try smaller retailers, medium retailers or big retailers? A lot of people go straight for the big retailers, but it's not always the right decision.
Now, pricing. I didn't think this would be the best presentation if I didn't talk to you about price fixing. Hopefully you've heard of it, but I want to make sure you're clear.
Price fixing is illegal. You cannot tell a retailer what price to sell at. Retailers set the selling price.
This means that if a retailer decides to sell the product below cost price, they can. You cannot tell a retailer not to do that.
That's something to think about. If you've provided your product to a retailer, and they decide to go below cost price while you're selling at full price, this will obviously affect your stock and sales.
You can talk to the retailer about not stocking the product in certain stores and about you taking the stock off them if it's not selling. But you cannot tell that retailer what selling price they can use.
What you can do is provide an RRP, so a recommended retail price. These are UK laws, and they don't apply to all countries. Within the UK, you provide an RRP, not the selling price.
The price you control is the cost. This is what you talk to the retailer about. The cost is the cost to them, and that's part of the contract. That's where you need to think about what cost price you go to the retailer with, based on the things I've talked about.
They are not hidden costs as such, but the costs that come through the contract need to be covered by what you're selling in at. But obviously, you need to be at a competitive cost so they consider you.
Because price fixing is illegal, you need to be precise in all communications. Don't just talk about price. Talk about cost price.
I've seen a team investigated because their communications were vague. Luckily, the investigation found them not guilty of price fixing, because the penalty can be high. Investigators go through emails and everything.
If you're vague and don't mention which price you're talking about, they may presume it's the selling price. They are more likely to look at it as something illegal rather than assume you weren't talking about that.
My advice is that if you're not sure, talk to your legal team. If a retailer approaches you and talks about a selling price, and you don't reply to that email, that can be seen as you complicitly agreeing.
If somebody talks to you about setting a retail price, you need to go back and say that you will only talk about cost price and that you recommend an RRP.
If you're not sure, I would definitely recommend going to a lawyer to make sure your communication is clear.
What you can do is use channel restrictions. You are allowed to say whether something is sold in a certain place, such as a website or branch. You can say: "Can you not sell my product in this branch because I've got another branch selling it very nearby?"
That is allowed, although generally, if you're a smaller business selling into a bigger business, you probably wouldn't be in that situation.
Hopefully, that's all clear. It's just something I wanted to make sure you're aware of before you get into negotiations about price.
So, session key takeaways. I know there's been a lot of information. What I'm hoping you take from this is to understand where you are on the journey.
Do you understand the market? Do you understand the competition? Are you operationally ready?
Do you know your numbers before you're asked or before you sign that contract? Have you thought through the profit? Have you thought through what charges you might face, so you can bear that in mind when agreeing a cost price?
Have a clear offer. Understand the mutual benefit. Work out your market positioning and market size. Have proof it works. Ideally, I would have a five-year strategy to show your long-term reliability.
Think about your options. Big retail isn't always the right retail.
I've gone through quite a lot. Hopefully not too much, and hopefully not too doomsday, but I hope you have things to think about.
It's question time now. If we don't get to everyone's question, although I did try to allow 10 minutes at the end of this, do contact me through Enterprise Nation, LinkedIn or my website.
Ryan: Amazing. Thanks, Alison. That was great and really interesting. It was really useful.
We've had a couple of questions. We'll go first to Dave, who has asked: would you be able to talk a little bit more about margin expectations for wholesalers, small independents and larger retailers?
Alison: I've heard a number banded around, which is to put 1.5 on the uplift. So that's basically 50% on top of your cost price to sell out to other retailers.
It very much depends on the contract. With a smaller retailer, you're unlikely to get charged for not delivering compliantly.
You might just send them a box, and they're in a shop and can unpack it. Or they might have a warehouse at the back of the shop where they sell online orders, and they might want you online.
It's very much about understanding the different points of the process.
For me, first, you've got your sales. You sell at your cost price plus an uplift.
Then it's about what charges are going to come in, because that needs to be applied into your uplift. If you're having to pay for returns, process returns and send stock back to the supplier, or if they're charging to send stock back to you, that all needs to be thought about and put into the cost price you quote to them.
I wouldn't advise giving them the cost price you pay the factory. You've got the cost price you pay the factory, plus VAT, plus everything you have to do to get it ready to sell to the retailer, plus profit.
Something I've heard quoted before is that if you're not making any profit, you've essentially got a hobby. It could be a loss-making hobby.
You want to be making profit. If you're not, there's a problem. So it's very much about thinking about what is going to come out of the cost price you've charged that retailer, and how much above the supplier cost price you need to be.
Ryan: That's really helpful, and it ties into the next question.
What would you say are the most common pricing mistakes people make, or that you've seen across your years?
Alison: I think it's hidden costs. Sometimes they're not really hidden. It's just that you haven't read the contract properly. So the costs are there, but what you don't know is the volume. The hidden bit is how much is going to come back to you.
For example, we had a retailer when I worked in schoolwear, and we had a Northern Irish supplier. They made the product in the factory and delivered it to us. They were getting fined and were going to go under because of those fines.
My team and I worked through how we could get their product into a compliant state because it was a beautiful product. It was what we wanted. The parents needed to buy it for the school, and the school liked the product. But they were going to go out of business, which we didn't want.
I found a processor that would work with them and get it into a compliant state so that they wouldn't get fined. It cost them a lot less to go through that process because it wasn't in their skill set. They didn't have the machines, the labels in the right way or the right process.
Because of the automated sortation process, their bags had to be sealed in a certain way when they delivered the product, so they didn't fall down to the floor.
There is probably a lot more going on in these businesses than you're aware of.
Processors might be the way forward, so you need to build those into the costs and look at what a retailer might fine you for.
With smaller retailers as well, are you reliable? If you're not sending the stock in when they need it, why would they stock you? They're a small business too. They need to make money.
Ryan: That's a really good point about hidden costs.
That ties in with the next question. Someone is asking: if you're thinking about going to bigger retailers, not independent stores, but you haven't sold lots of units yet, is it wise to wait until you've built up that momentum before reaching out to the bigger ones?
Alison: I would say yes. If you want to go straight in, the problem is that if you're not ready, or you don't really know you've got a customer, you've already done the pitch and they've seen you. If they see you again a couple of years later, they may think: "Oh yes, I've seen you."
There is a "shiny new toy" effect. That's the difference I was talking about before. Buyers get really excited about the shiny new toy. They love the thing that's going to make money. Then the merchandiser asks: is it going to make money?
You've very much got that to and fro with the buyers and merchandisers. Is it a risk? If there are red flags everywhere because you've got no evidence that you're going to sell it, then yes, that's a problem.
Obviously, they also don't want you to have a totally firm brand. They may want to be the first one to have you if it's going to work. They might see your product and think: "That's amazing. I can totally see the market for it," without necessarily having the proof.
But my recommendation is to go out and sell the product. There are fairs where you can sell directly to customers, not trade fairs where you're selling business to business.
For example, there is Spirit of Christmas in Kensington for Christmas gifts. If customers are buying it and interested, buyers are going to be interested too. Buyers may also walk around these fairs. They are looking for things, going into little gift shops and looking for the next big thing as well.
It's a two-way street. But remember, there are so many people approaching those buyers. You need to ask: why you? Out of the hundreds of emails they get asking to be stocked in John Lewis, Next, M&S or wherever it may be, why should they pick you?
Ryan: That's really helpful. Thinking about when you've maybe spoken to someone, how are brands chosen as a team collectively?
Alison: There is a sign-off process. You may think you're talking to the buyer, but you might not be. You might be talking to someone else in the buying team.
There are different levels within buying teams. You have people who start off, generally called BAs, and then you have ABs. BAs tend to do the admin and get everything set up.
ABs are starting their buying journey, so they are often sent out to look for brands while the buyer is looking at other things. They may be in charge of a little category and buy it. So you might be pitching to an AB, not a buyer.
Then a sign-off is pulled together, and we talk about how we're going to spend the business's money. It is a business, so your product needs to be signed off.
Within that, you need sign-off from the merchandising team, the buyer, maybe the head of buying or the buying director.
Sometimes, when it's a privately owned company, as with BHS, the person whose money it is can say no. So you might think you've had a great reaction, but it may not be from the person who is actually spending the money.
That's why I said: don't order things before you've got contracts in place.
Ryan: Very good advice. We'll do just a couple more quick ones before we go.
We've had a question in the chat: how can you sign up to trade fairs, and is there anywhere that advertises all of the trade fairs?
Alison: My best advice, because I go to trade fairs to keep an eye on what's happening, is to look at venues as well as the fairs themselves.
They're often at places like the NEC, Olympia or other venues. Once you're signed up to one, associated fairs will often advertise to you and ask if you're going to the next one.
There is also a lot of chat in communities. If you put out in any of the communities asking where the next trade fair is, people will usually tell you.
You want to go to the one that fits your product. There are fashion ones, beauty ones, hardware ones and so on. It's about finding the trade fair that fits your product.
There are lots. I think a Google search would bring most of them up.
Ryan: That's a really good point about going just to see what's happening in the industry and keep your eyes and ears open.
Alison: Yes, and that's where your competitors may well be.
Ryan: Let's finish with one final question. For someone listening today who wants to take a practical step into getting into retail, what would be your top tip?
Alison: Assess your business as it is at the moment. Where are you?
I think the operational piece is where people fall down. If you don't have the right structure set up and you want to sell into a retailer that's bigger than you, you're going to fall down.
I've talked a lot about whether you've got the right people in the right roles. There are roles in big head offices. Are you covering those in your business?
If you haven't got that, and people are letting you down, that will happen at a much bigger scale. If you go into bigger retailers who do fine you, that's where you're going to come apart.
I've seen big brands make mistakes too. Retail is hard. There's a lot of communication between different teams and people.
It's not just small brands that make mistakes. But how do you communicate that? How do you communicate if something is delayed?
So I think you need to check where you are operationally, as well as how much potential your product has.
Ryan: That's brilliant, Alison. That has been really helpful.
I would just say to anyone on the call, I know we never have enough time to answer all the questions, but please connect with Alison afterwards. I've popped your website and LinkedIn in the chat, Alison.
It was a really great session, as always, and there have been some good questions coming in. A big thank you, Alison. That was really useful.
Alison: Thanks.
Ryan: We'll wrap up there. I hope everyone can go and enjoy the sun.
Thank you everyone for joining. A recording will go out later with further resources as well, so keep an eye out for that in your email.
There is some nice feedback coming in for you, Alison.
Alison: Thank you. That's really nice to hear.
Ryan: Thank you, everyone, and a big thank you to Alison. That was a really good session.
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