Have you ever wondered how your local ice cream company made it from the creamery to the freezer aisle at a national grocery store? It did it through successful trade marketing—strategies to attract retailers and wholesalers and convince them to bet on your brand.
Learn what trade marketing is, why it’s important for business growth, and how to create a trade marketing strategy that converts.
What is trade marketing?
Trade marketing is a strategy focused on increasing demand for products at the retailer, wholesaler, or distributor level rather than directly with consumers. Tactics include running in-store promotions, attending trade shows, and creating point-of-sale displays that encourage retailers to stock and promote your products.
Elements of trade marketing
- Trade shows
- Trade promotions
- Retailer partnerships
- Strong branding
- Digital marketing
- Category expansion
These six components are central to building a successful trade marketing strategy:
Trade shows
Trade shows provide a forum for trade marketers to explore new distribution opportunities and showcase their products to interested parties, including distributors, retailers, and wholesalers.
To make the most of your trade show investment—including booth rental and labor costs—it’s best to come prepared with goals for the experience. Nancy Twine, founder of hair care brand Briogeo, shares her tips for trade shows on an episode of Shopify Masters. First, she says, it’s imperative to choose the right spot in the trade show, since different sections of a trade show may serve different purposes.
“It makes all the difference as it relates to the type of people who will come to your booth,” she says.
Next, Nancy suggests creating a strong visual impact to promote your business.
“You’ll want to figure out, ‘How can I best represent my brand and what we do visually?’ in the space that you are renting. So getting really, really creative with your booth design and layout will really help to attract people and help to storytell your brand for you,” she explains.
For the SalonCentric National Conference 2025, Briogeo worked with Katherine Frank Creative to produce a larger-than-life version of its dry shampoo puff.
Beyond that, Nancy also reminds you to collect business cards so you can follow up with new contacts in your lead generation pipeline. And finally, since it’s likely to be a long day with lots of talking, she suggests staying well hydrated, energetic, and enthusiastic.
“There’s a lot of talking, a lot of interacting, but you have to bring the energy to everyone that you meet,” she says.
Trade promotions
No one can deny the appeal of a great deal. Brainstorm promotions that would entice potential distributors and retailers to carry your product. Consider strategies like volume discounts, promotional pricing, and bundled offers that incentivize retailers with bigger profit margins on your products.
For Original Duckhead founder Morgan Cros, making it easy for retailers to say yes was key to getting in the door. Original Duckhead kept minimum order requirements for its unique, recycled-plastic umbrellas low, while offering significant margins and allowing stores to sell on consignment.
“If it didn’t sell, I would do returns for them, so it made it really risk-free,” Morgan told Shopify Masters.
Morgan also understood the importance of retail displays.
“A lot of [retailers] didn’t know how to display the product in store. So I made sure that very early on we had point-of-sale displays,” she said.
Original Duckhead’s wooden umbrella holders show off the product while maximizing space:
Retailer partnerships
Building strong, collaborative relationships with retailers and supply chain partners is a core component of business marketing. It can make the difference between them choosing you or a competitor.
A strong retail partnership is a shared commitment, whether you’re collaborating on merchandising strategies or exclusive packaging, sharing data, or simply maintaining regular communication.
Skin care brand Three Ships is in retail stores of all sizes, but co-founder Laura Thompson recommends working with smaller retailers when you’re starting out.
“Get started with the mom-and-pops,” she says on an episode of Shopify Masters. “Learn the language of the industry, understand what a line sheet is, understand how they like to sample product. Start with these smaller local accounts that you can go and meet in person, and understand what works well on the shelf and what doesn’t.”
When you do make it to national retailers, Laura suggests starting with a limited rollout.
“Do not do a nationwide launch,” she says. “Even if they’re saying, ‘Let’s do this nationwide,’ you should push back and ask for a smaller set of doors so that you can learn the ropes. Your operational team can understand what’s needed to support those accounts. And you can also not throw out millions of dollars worth of inventory without knowing if you’re actually gonna be able to move it off the shelf.”
Strong branding
Brand equity—the value customers place on your brand—is an important factor in whether partners choose—and stick with—you over competitors.
Building a strong brand image and brand reputation takes more than a clever logo and slogan. Consider your target audience, brand positioning, messaging, and customer feedback. Is your packaging appealing? Does your product communicate value? Is your brand recognizable? Does it elicit an emotional connection that enhances customer loyalty? These are all factors retailers consider when deciding what to stock.
Digital marketing
Digital marketing helps you reach and engage end consumers, retailers, distributors, and wholesalers, keeping you top of mind for potential partnerships. Some digital B2B (business-to-business) marketing strategies include:
Dedicated website pages
Use your ecommerce website to inspire and educate current and potential wholesale partners. For example, the coffee brand Verve Coffee has a dedicated wholesale page on its website where it details its wholesale offerings. In addition to coffee services, Verve offers training and consultation to its partners, creating a complete ecosystem that other businesses can adopt.
Email marketing
Consistently one of the best marketing channels out there, email marketing isn’t just for direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales. Consider creating a separate newsletter for retail partners with content—such as upcoming trade shows and bulk shipping deadlines—tailored to their needs and interests. Shopify Messaging makes it easy to start and manage a newsletter.
Partner marketing
Use partner marketing to drive consumers to your partner stores. Whether in a co-branded ad or organic social media post, take the time to celebrate stores that sell your products.
Skin care company Dieux uses social media to promote its retail partner, Sephora. In the video below, Dieux cofounder Charlotte Palermino walks through a Sephora store, highlighting the best products for people over 30.
Category expansion
Category expansion gives you an opportunity to showcase a range of products within a particular category. For example, period care and sexual wellness brand LOLA offers a range of plastic applicator tampons, cardboard applicator tampons, and non-applicator tampons in its tampon product category. This lets it market all three products when pitching tampons to distributors, which offers an advantage over a competitor that might pitch only one product.
How to create a successful trade marketing strategy
- Learn about your end customers
- Research potential trade partners
- Set clear objectives
- Develop a unique value proposition
- Establish pricing and promotion details
- Prepare a pitch
- Guide buyers to retail partners
The following steps can help your trade marketing team develop a successful strategy to find, build, and maintain relationships:
1. Learn about your end customers
Research your end customers and identify their pain points, retail preferences, and behaviors. You want to understand your target market inside and out, including trends and opportunities.
How do your target consumers spend their time? Where do they like to shop? What problems will your product solve for them? How will your product integrate into their lives?
Next, identify your main rivals and analyze their strengths, weaknesses, and trade marketing tools and strategies. Here are some questions to ask:
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Who is their target audience?
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How is their brand positioned?
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Is their online presence working?
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What are their trade marketing strategies?
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What do customer reviews reveal?
2. Research potential trade partners
Keeping your target audience’s shopping preferences in mind, identify key players in your desired distribution channels. Analyze their goals, challenges, and preferences, their demographic, how they select brands, their top-performing categories, and how they prefer to collaborate on marketing.
For Michelle Razavi, cofounder of the healthy snack company Elavi, in-person store visits are a must.
“You have to walk the aisles of as many stores as you can. Talk to the staff and ask them what the top-selling products are,” Michelle says on an episode of Shopify Masters.
“Look at the pricing architecture: What’s the most expensive item and what’s the least expensive, and can your product fit somewhere in between? If you have your product with you, put it on the shelf yourself. Take a step back and see how it looks. Does it stand out? Does it blend in with your competitors?”
“These little things add up,” Michelle says. “When you’re in the aisles, you arm yourself with so much qualitative and quantitative data that when you’re speaking to a buyer, you know exactly what you’re talking about. You’re not making assumptions—you’ve done the fieldwork.”
3. Set clear objectives
The next step is to clearly define your trade marketing strategy objectives. Align these with broader business goals. These objectives could include increasing market share, improving product visibility, or strengthening relationships with key partners. Consider the SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) framework when setting goals. Then, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that directly align with your objectives.
For example, if your objective is to increase market share by 15% in the next six months, the KPIs could be:
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Current market share
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Number of retail partners
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Revenue per distributor order
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Sales volume
4. Develop a unique value proposition
Develop a unique value proposition (UVP) for consumers and partners and clearly articulate what sets your brand and products apart from competitors.
For consumers, the UVP could focus on unique product features, pricing, or quality. For partners, highlight the benefits they will gain by collaborating with you. These might include higher profit margins, increased total cart sizes, or access to exclusive products.
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5. Establish pricing and promotion details
Setting prices high enough to maximize profit and low enough to attract buyers is fundamental to your pricing strategy. Your prices must also stack up favorably against the competition. To calculate, factor in the costs of wholesale or bulk deals, discounts, and promotional incentives such as buy one, get one free and free samples. Consider your brand positioning, your target audience’s buying behavior and budget, and your trade partners’ margins when creating a pricing model.
Then, put together a sell sheet and price list. Your sell sheet should be one or two visually appealing pages providing key information about your products. Include:
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Essential information like features, benefits, pricing, and contact information
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High-quality photos and graphics
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Compelling copy
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A clear call to action (CTA)
Your price list should make it easy for a decision-maker to choose which products to carry by including the following:
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Product names and descriptions
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Pricing details and bulk discounts
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Shipping and handling charges
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Promotions
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Payment terms and minimum order quantities (MOQs)
6. Prepare a pitch
Once you’ve compiled demographic, industry, and product information, it’s time to reach out to potential trade partners. Capitalize on the relationships you built at trade fairs, try cold calling, or craft an impactful email that highlights your offerings.
“The compelling piece is about psychology,” says Michelle of Elavi. “Don’t make your pitch asking the person to help you out; make it about what value you can provide them.”
“When I pitched Whole Foods Market, I emphasized that we’re women creating protein products specifically for women, who make 80% of household purchasing decisions. I made it clear why our authority as fitness trainers for more than a decade mattered. That legitimacy stands out because most snack brands in our category don’t have that,” she says.
Finally, Michelle says, share the next steps. “The clear call to action tells them exactly what’s next: ‘Can I send you samples? Let me know the best address.’ Don’t leave them wondering: Give them something concrete to respond to,” she explains.
If the relationship moves forward, you need to have a pitch deck ready. A well-crafted pitch deck should capture attention, build trust, and encourage a mutually beneficial trade marketing partnership.
Your trade marketing pitch deck should include:
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An introduction to your company and your story
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A snapshot of the industry, growth opportunities, and needs that your product addresses
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Your product range and unique features that set it apart
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Your target market, buyer personas, consumer insights, and marketing plan
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Current distribution channels and where your potential trade partner will fit in
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Quantifiable benefits of collaborating with you, and details on how your partnership aligns with your trade partner’s goals
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Collaborative marketing opportunities and merchandising support
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Pricing structure and sales projections
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Positive customer reviews or case studies from other successful collaborations
7. Guide buyers to retail partners
Have a strategy outlining what you’ll do once the trade partnership is in place. Retailers want to know the product will sell—inspire their confidence by including a marketing plan in your pitch.
“Getting in the door is certainly hard to do, but it’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is making sure that the product flies off the shelf,” says Kat Kavner Woolf, founder of canned goods brand Heyday Canning Co., on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast.
Kat recommends getting your finances sorted before launching a new partnership. “Making sure that you have adequate funds to support the product once you get it into one of those big retailers is really important because you definitely will need money to support with marketing and other initiatives that are designed to make sure that people are going into store and actually buying the product,” she says.
Heyday Canning Co. takes a multipronged approach, including digital brand awareness campaigns, in-store sampling, and promotions such as couponing programs.
Trade marketing FAQ
What is the difference between trade marketing and conventional marketing?
Trade marketing targets retailers, wholesalers, and product distributors to buy products in bulk, while conventional brand marketing tends to target end consumers.
Who uses trade marketing?
Any manufacturer or brand that creates consumer packaged goods can use trade marketing to drive sales with retailers, wholesalers, and distributors.
Is trade marketing the same as B2B?
Yes, trade marketing is a form of B2B (business to business) marketing because it involves your business marketing and selling products to other businesses.
How do I start trade marketing?
To start trade marketing, conduct thorough market research to understand your target audience and competitors. Then identify potential trade partners and the strategies you want to pursue, develop a unique value proposition (UVP), create a comprehensive pitch deck, and approach your target partners.
