For many ecommerce brands, there’s an opportunity to start putting products on the shelves of retail stores—both large and small.

But when is it the right time to make this move? And how can you do it successfully? 

We spoke with Curie founder and CEO Sarah Moret, Blume founder and CEO Taran Ghatrora and Sio Beauty CEO Audrey Leibovich.

The discussion was based around how these CEOs and founders have approached retail, including how they decided retail was right for their brands, which stores felt like the correct fit and what advice they’d give to fellow founders thinking about their own foray into the world of retail.

But before we share those tips, I’d like to do a brief overview of each brand to get a sense of who they are:

• Curie

Founded by Sarah in 2018, Curie is a personal care brand making clean, performance-based products for humans in motion. Sarah started Curie as a DTC side hustle when she couldn’t find any effective natural deodorants on the market, and it has since become her full-time gig. 

Over the course of the last eight months, she’s launched Curie into retail, and it’s now available at all Nordstrom, Anthropologie and Bloomingdale stores, as well as a couple of online retailers. 

• Sio Beauty

While Audrey is the CEO, Sio Beauty was founded by Gigi Howard in 2014 as a solution to the wrinkles and fine lines she started noticing on her chest. Now Sio Beauty has two product lines, one being their original product, which uses medical-grade silicone to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines, and the other is a facial toning device intended to reduce muscle tension and rid the skin of toxins through lymphatic drainage. 

You can find their products in boutique skincare stores in the U.S. including Shen Beauty, Blue Mercury, Violet Grey and several other small wholesale accounts.

• Blume

Taran is the co-founder of self-care brand Blume, a company creating everything from organic period products to skincare for Gen-Z and beyond. They launched in 2018 as a DTC brand and have started expanding into retail, currently residing in a handful of Nordstroms and Urban Outfitters. In addition to planning a July launch with Sephora Canada, they’ll be launching in stores across the country with another yet-to-be-named major retailer.

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P.S., Want access to an hour-long video discussion we had about entering retail with Curie, Blume and SiO Beauty? We’ve included it in an ecom strategy bundle with 6 videos and 8 guides. Get yours for free!

Entering retail: what to consider

Being in the self-care industry, all three guests of ours know that personal care products are still often bought in person, despite the digital nature of so much of today’s shopping experience. Because of this, establishing a personal care brand in retail can be an excellent way to introduce it to new customers, just by way of being on a shelf.

While retail is an exciting endeavor, it also comes with a lot of risks, expectations and extra costs. Thinking through what you want to get out of the retail experience, whether it be more exposure, increased sales, or both, is vital before jumping in.

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The biggest consideration for Sarah was in making sure she had a solid DTC business going before doing anything with retail. 

“If your brand isn’t growing on DTC and you haven’t figured out a way to acquire customers or found that product-market fit yet, it’s not going to magically explode in retail,"

- Sarah Moret

Sarah explained that you, as the brand owner, will need to do the lion’s share of the marketing, because the retailer is working with too many brands to do it for you. 

So if you don’t already have a loyal customer base before you go to retail, it’ll be really hard to get those products off the shelves. And if you can’t get them off the shelves within a time period that lines up with the retailer’s expectations, you’ll not only lose a lot of money, but the retailer also might not pick your brand up again.

As for SiO Beauty, one of the main reasons they went for inclusion in smaller boutiques instead of larger stores was the educational aspect of their products. Putting their products into curated skincare boutiques has allowed customers to learn about SiO Beauty directly from knowledgeable estheticians and spa-workers who know how to sell the products well.

Source: Instagram

Related read: Four Tips on Building a Brand from Sarah Moret of Curie

Which retail store is right for me? 

Understanding your customers and where they like to shop is key in figuring out what stores to pitch your brand to.

Both Sarah and Taran said the retail stores they were most interested in pursuing were the ones they already knew their customers were shopping at. Sarah, for instance, gets on at least fifteen calls a quarter with her customers. One of the questions she asks is what stores would you expect to see Curie in?

Sarah also strategically thought about which stores to send pitches to based on how selective those retailers are. As higher-end stores, Nordstrom and Anthropologie both like to discover new products for their customers, curating their brand selections very carefully. That’s not the case for a store like CVS, so if she wanted the chance of being picked up by Nordstrom, the better move was to focus her initial pitching efforts at Nordstrom. CVS is an extremely popular place for people to buy personal care products, but if Sarah got into a massive retailer like that, Nordstrom would probably be less interested in picking her up for their product line. 

Taran makes sure the retail stores she launches Blume in reflect Blume’s core values and messages. Getting into Sephora Canada was huge for them because period products are a big part of the brand’s lineup, and taking down taboos surrounding women’s reproductive health is part of their mission. Launching products in such a mainstream beauty retailer is a step towards doing just that. 

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Retail partnerships: a two-way street

Something you need to recognize when introducing your brand to retail is that while it might feel like just a transactional relationship, it’s not, and it would be a big mistake to treat it like one.

Sarah, Taran and Audrey all stressed that cultivating a relationship between your brand and the retail stores you’re in is one of the most important aspects of expanding into retail. All three used the word partnership when talking about the stores they work with, emphasizing that the relationship is a two-way street. If you want the buyer to go to bat for you to receive promotional emails or get you into gift boxes then you have to do your part too. 

Basically, getting into retail is only step one. Step two is doing your part to stay in retail, and that will take work on your end, whether it be investing money to promote product sitting on the shelves at Nordstrom, or sending flowers to a buyer at a retailer you work with when they hit a big milestone.

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Overall, it's crucial that you focus on the right retail partnerships

All in all, there’s a lot to consider when expanding into retail. 

Customer shopping habits, brand awareness, brand mission and added expenses are a few things our guests encouraged brands to think through thoroughly first before jumping into retail head-on. 

And maybe most importantly, all three guests emphasized how crucial it is to understand the relationship between retail store and brand as a partnership, one that can be mutually beneficial only if equal amounts of effort are put in on both sides. 

Essentially, the partnership is a two-way street, not a one-way street. The only way it will flourish is if you treat it like any other valued relationship in your life. 

There’s a lot we didn’t get to include in this recap, so if you want to learn more about what these three brilliant guests have to say about getting into retail, like how they suggest pitching a brand to a retail store, you can check out the guide and accompanying video in our DTC strategy bundle.