Getting Retail-Ready? What Your Brand Needs to Know to Get That ‘Yes’

What does it take for emerging beauty, luxury, and wellness brands to secure retail partnerships? 

According to retail strategy vet Lisa Adams, retailers are thinking beyond just the product potential of your brand. Nowadays, they’re also looking heavily at business readiness, evaluating the fundamentals of a brand in order to mitigate potential risk.   

In a recent conversation with AllWork, Lisa—who is the founder and CEO of The Beauty Matchmakers—offered advice for your brand’s retail success, focusing on how to first get into retail, and then how to stay in retail. (We’ll cover just the first part of this here. Stay tuned for Part 2!) 

What emerged from the conversation was a clear framework grounded in her own firsthand experience with buyers: that retail success starts with being operationally sound, strategically positioned, and prepared to earn the confidence of financially aware buyers (in an extremely crowded space!). 

Retail buyers are thinking in terms of risk

To make your brand “retail-ready,” one of the key recommendations Lisa shared was thinking of buyers as risk managers (versus just curators), underscoring the “super crowded” and therefore intensely competitive market. 
 
“Buyers are more so now looking through the lens of an investor,” she said. 

In particular, buyers are deciding whether your brand has the infrastructure to sustain itself post-launch: Does the brand have staying power? Is it backed by a capable team? Is it operationally secure? 

Essentially, each new brand retailers decide to bring in represents a bet. After all, a new brand introduced into a store assortment may displace something else. It’s going to cost the retailer big time—time, labor, credibility, etc.—if it doesn’t work out.  
 
“Will the brand fizzle? Do they have funds? Do they have a strong leader? Do they have a solid founder voice? Do they know their numbers? Do they know the back end and the front end?” Lisa asked. 
 
With limited shelf space (and even more limited tolerance for instability), stores are increasingly evaluating financial exposure and prioritizing brands that come in with operational discipline, she explained. 

“It’s getting super tight,” Lisa warned, “so you have to be super buttoned-up to get that ‘yes.’” 

Operational readiness is a baseline

One of the clearest messages from Lisa was this: If your back-end isn’t retail-ready, you’re not ready for the shelf. Simple as that. 

Sure, having a great product or a really cool brand story is awesome. But those are just the entry points.  

“Buyers kind of do a ‘punch list,’” she said. “Do you have your warehouse? Your logistics? Do you have enough to scale?” 

They expect a brand to be able to do things like ship immediately, handle replenishment, and absorb growth. And Lisa emphasized that buyers quickly assess whether a brand can meet these operational demands of retail.  

“Do you have a 3PL? If you’re not EDI compliant, it’s time to get it. It only takes a few weeks,” she advised. “Be prepared that buyers are going to ask that question down the line.” 

According to Lisa, readiness is often overstated by founders in early conversations.  

“Even though the founders say, ‘Yeah, we’ve budgeted this amount for freelancers,’ at the end of the day, they’re not really putting that budgeted amount into the stores.”  

And that’s where deals can start to unravel, because buyers are looking for signals that a brand can execute consistently across multiple doors. 

“You have to answer a lot of these questions,” Lisa said, “and it has to be really clear so the buyer can feel that conviction in your voice and with your team.” 

The importance of the founder

For buyers, the founder’s presence is paramount, especially early on, said Lisa. 

“Buyers want the founders to go into the stores,” she explained. “It’s not as much about the teams going in—they want the founder on the floor connecting with the sales associate, connecting with the department managers, and so forth.” 

This visibility can show buyers that the brand is invested in its own performance, as well as signal accountability and readiness to adapt.  

Essentially, the brand’s founder becomes a point of trust for the retailer. And when that trust is there, buyers are more likely to support the brand later on. 

“If you’re a great founder and you’re communicative, you’re going to get some better shelf placement, sure—but they’re going to fight for you in the room,” Lisa explained. “They’re going to go to bat for you.” 

Know your competition (and your formula)

Another area where brands often fall short? Market awareness. To that end, Lisa was direct about what’s expected of your brand. 

“You have to know who your competitive set is,” she said. “Not just, ‘Oh, it’s this brand.’ You need to know down to the ounce of their product, their pricing, their differentiators, their messaging, their retailers, and so forth.”  

After all, buyers are looking for detailed, data-informed answers on how your brand fits best for them, and how it’s different from others. 

A huge part of that is knowing your own brand on a deep level, which—crucially!—includes your formulas, Lisa said. 

“You need to know every ingredient inside and out,” she said. “You need to know where your ingredients were sourced from, because their certifications matter. Say you’re going to Whole Foods—well, that’s a whole other level of red-lining. They’re going to do a big performance review on your packaging, your formula of certifications, and where your ingredients are sourced.” 

In fact, when she’s onboarding a client, that’s one of the first things she asks. 

“You are going to get asked about formulas down the line,” Lisa forewarned. “It’s going to come up.” 

Focus on one retail partner before expanding

When asked whether brands should launch broadly or prioritize one partner, Lisa didn’t hesitate. 

“From the start, I would stay tight to that one retailer,” she said. “Because they’re the retailer that got you the ‘yes,’ right?” 

This kind of focused strategy gives brands time to adjust, build relationships, and learn what works. It also strengthens the case for future expansion, as it gives buyers real-world proof of performance and support. 

“You might need to tweak some things or reposition something,” Lisa explained. “So stay true to that store, building inside their walls and being a strong brand inside that space. And then when you’re ready, you can lead to an alternate retailer.” 

The importance of your field team

One final (but extremely important) piece of this retail-readiness equation is your field team.  

Freelancers often play a central role in early-stage retail success, serving as your brand’s on-the-ground presence. For example, they’re the ones educating store staff, monitoring inventory, and helping shoppers understand your product in real life. For many brands, they’re the link between retail strategy and retail execution.  

Lisa emphasized this repeatedly: “Your most important budget in the very beginning is your freelancers. And making sure the sales associates are trained.” 

(We’ll dig deeper into this—and how to build out your in-store team effectively—in Part 2, which will cover Lisa’s tips for success for staying in retail.) 

Lay the foundation for your brand’s retail success

As Lisa outlined, getting your brand into retail is a process that demands structure, preparation, and strategic focus. And while brands are responsible for bringing the right product and the right plan to the table, execution is what ultimately gets the buyer to say ‘yes.’ 

At AllWork, we work with both larger, established brands looking to expand their retail presence and brands just getting their start in retail, so we’ve seen how the right support can help them drive sales. Our platform is designed to help you manage and scale the freelance teams who represent your brand at retail, and provide the tools you need to train, communicate, and track results.   

If your brand is preparing to enter retail, now is the time to get organized and stay connected to the people who make this execution possible! Go here to schedule a demo of the AllWork platform.