Which shops stock what
Independent shops across the United Kingdom, and the brands each one carries. Made for people who want their products in shops and would rather approach the twenty that already buy their kind of thing than the two hundred that do not.
Read a page of it
A sample of entries. Filter by what a shop stocks, or search for a town or a brand. Contact details come with your edition.
| Shop | Where | Brands it is known to stock | Stocks | Contact |
|---|
Every entry states how to approach the shop, and which shops may be emailed.
What one entry holds
The third column is key. It comes from the brands themselves detailing the stockists that sell their products, as well as from the shops' own websites and online catalogues. So before you telephone you already know the shop buys your kind of product, and which comparable brand to mention when you do.
An edition is a spreadsheet, sorted by town, with a second sheet listing only the shops that stock a brand like yours but not yet yours.
- Shop
- Trading name, type, town, county, postcode and street address.
- Reach it
- Website, telephone, enquiry form.
- Given where the shop is a limited company, so you can write to it lawfully.
- Stocks
- The brands in your category it carries.
- Also
- The other categories it carries, which tells you how it buys.
- Yours?
- Whether it already stocks you, so you do not pitch a customer.
- Source
- The page the entry came from: the brand's own stockist list, or the shop's brand page.
The part nobody enjoys
Getting into shops is the aim; finding the shops is the grind. An afternoon lost to a search engine, a list of names with no way of knowing whether any of them buys what you make, then a run of emails that go unanswered because they landed on a shop that was never going to stock you.
The alternatives cost more than time. A stand at a trade fair runs to several thousand pounds before a single order. A marketplace takes a quarter of the first one. Both are bets on strangers.
This directory answers the half of it that can be answered in advance: which shops already buy your kind of product, and how to reach them. The pitch is still yours to make, but you make it to the right shop.
"How do I get my products into stores?"
The question makers ask each other, over and over.
Editions
- Every shop in the region seen stocking your category, sorted by town
- A second sheet: the shops stocking a comparable brand but not yours
- Telephone, enquiry form, website, and email where the law allows it
- The page each entry came from, so you can see it for yourself
- Sent as a spreadsheet within one working day
In return we ask one question: what is a version that stays current, and alerts you when a shop begins stocking a brand like yours, worth to you each month?
Why it is different
Carefully curated
Every entry is drawn from what brands and shops publish themselves, then resolved shop by shop so the same independent appears once, with the brands it carries attached.
Built on what shops stock
Other lists tell you a shop exists. This one tells you what it already buys, so you can approach the twenty shops that carry your kind of product rather than the two hundred that do not.
Ready to use
Each entry carries a way in: telephone, enquiry form, website, and an email address where the shop is a company you may lawfully write to.
Questions
Who is this for
Makers who already sell wholesale, or are about to: candles and home fragrance, natural skincare and soap, artisan food and drink, cards and stationery, ceramics and homeware, pet. If you sell only online it will not help you yet.
Why not just search the internet
You can, and for a handful of shops you should. The work here is the third column: knowing which shops already carry a brand comparable to yours, gathered from hundreds of brands at once and resolved into one entry per shop.
Is this a mailing list
No. It is a research list for your own approach, and it states plainly which shops may be emailed. Please do not resell or republish it.
How current is it
Editions are cut from the live directory on the day you order, so yours is current when it is sent. Tell us of anything that has changed and we will put it right.
What comes after the spreadsheet
A subscription: the same directory, searchable, with alerts when a shop starts stocking a brand like yours.