Find shops to stock your product
Search shops by what you sell and where, see each shop's fit score and what it already stocks, look up contacts, and keep track of every shop you approach.
All guides · 6 steps · about 6 min
Open Find shops
With the Retail Pack on your account, open Find shops from the dashboard menu. It has three tabs: Find, Your shops and Follow-ups.
Before your first search, PitchWhip asks you to confirm that you are responsible for the marketing, privacy and anti-spam laws of every country you contact. Press I understand. You are asked once.
What you should see: The Find tab, with the search form open.
Say where, and what you sell
Under Where, pick the country, then how to search: Around a place (a postcode, address or town and a distance), a whole town, city or county, Draw on the map, or Along my route. Add another area searches several areas at once. Some accounts can also search a Whole country.
Choose the kinds of shop that sell products like yours under Shop types (or What you sell: shop types).
Optional, and worth it: type Your product in a few words (for example: mushroom coffee) and describe Your customers as groups of people (age, interests, what they care about), never a named person. Then press Find shops.
What you should see: Your search folds into one line at the top, with Edit search beside it, and the shops come back below it, 25 a page.
Read the fit score and what each shop stocks
Every shop has a fit score out of 100. Open a shop's Details to see Why it might fit: each line that adds up to the score, with its evidence and its source. Anything that could not be checked is said, never guessed.
Shops that already sell brands like yours rank higher, because their customers already buy that kind of product. Use Show only to narrow the list: Has Instagram, Has website, Strong fits only, Stocks brands like yours, the kind of shop or a tag.
Switch Show as between List and Map to see where the shops are.
What you should see: Each row shows the shop, its fit and the reason it appears. A shop on your do-not-contact list says so.
Look up a shop's contacts
Press Find the buyer's email and phone on a shop, or use the button above the list that finds emails and phones for the top shops in one go. A look-up finds the email and phone, the website and Instagram, and who runs the shop where the register names them. Each one uses a shop look-up from your monthly allowance; a shop looked up recently is free. The button says how many look-ups you have left before you press it.
Once shops are looked up, press Check what they stock to read what each one sells and whether your product fits. It uses no extra look-ups.
If you typed your product, a shop's details offer Write a first message: a short Instagram message and an email drafted from your product. PitchWhip sends nothing: you copy it and press send yourself.
What you should see: The shop's email, phone, website and Instagram on its row, each with where it was found.
Save shops to a list
Tick the shops you want in your results, press Save to list, then choose a list or pick New list… and name it. A new search never changes a saved list.
Your lists live under Your shops, in Saved lists. Open one to Download CSV or Create report: a stockist progress report you can print or save as a PDF.
What you should see: A line saying how many shops were added, and the list under Your shops.
Keep the conversation moving
Set a shop's Status on its row or in its details (for example Emailed, Sample sent or Stocked). In its details, under Next action, write What to do, pick When and press Save next action. Use Log activity to record a Message sent, a Reply received or a Note. Logging saves a record; nothing is sent.
The Follow-ups tab gathers it all: Due now, Replies to handle, Waiting for reply and Upcoming.
To stop all contact with a shop, tick Do not contact this shop. It applies across every list and channel in PitchWhip.
What you should see: The Follow-ups tab shows how many actions are due, and each shop's status shows on its row.
Common problems
It says Find shops isn't available on my account.
Find shops comes with the Retail Pack, which needs a paid licence. Your billing owner adds it in Billing.
No shops came back.
There were no shops of those types there. Try a wider area or more shop types.
Check what they stock does nothing useful.
It reads shops whose contacts you have already looked up. Find their emails and phones first, then press it again.
It says look-ups are used up.
The Retail Pack includes 250 shop look-ups a month. Searching shops is not limited the same way, and a shop looked up recently is free to open again.
An Instagram handle says it was found by search.
Check it is the right shop before you write to it, then press Mark as checked so your team knows.
Still stuck? The full guide covers every setting, or write to hello@pitchwhip.com and a person replies within a working day.
Ready for your next conversation?
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