Guide · 6 min read

How to follow up with a café: four touches over three weeks

Shaun, founder of Mira · 3 September 2026

In brief

I write four times over three weeks and then I stop. Day 0 is the pitch. Day 3 is one line asking whether that number reaches whoever decides the counter. Day 10 carries a fact the pitch did not have, and goes to Instagram if WhatsApp has stayed quiet. Day 21 asks for a month instead of an order. Stop on a clear no, or on silence after samples. One message a week, never more.

The four touches

I stopped reading silence as a no. The owner is on the floor, the phone lives on the counter, and by evening my message has slid off the top of the screen.

So I work four touches over three weeks and then leave the counter alone. Each of the four earns its day. A fifth would just be me feeling busy, and I would rather be the brand that stopped than the number an owner mutes.

Day 0, the pitch: One thing that is true of their counter, and the margin on MRP (the owner's cut against the printed price) in rupees. My openers are in the WhatsApp guide.
Day 3, the routing check: Three days, because my Tuesday message is buried by Friday and I would rather ask a question than repeat myself.
Day 10, the real follow-up: A week later, because an owner needs a slow week before a gap on the counter interests them. It carries a fact the pitch did not, and it goes to Instagram if WhatsApp has stayed quiet.
Day 21, the close: Three weeks is my limit. I ask which month to come back in, because a month they name is a date for the diary. Ten more messages get me blocked.

What each one says

Brackets are yours. I keep these under seventy words, in one thread, with no attachment and no link.

Day 3, the routing check

Three days after the pitch, WhatsApp, mid-afternoon

Hi [café name], [your name] here, about my message on [day]. Quick one: is this the right number for whoever decides the counter, or should I be writing to someone else? Happy either way.

I will not spend day 3 pitching again. The counter phone gets answered by whoever stands nearest, and this costs that person four seconds.

Day 10, the real follow-up

A week after that, WhatsApp, three to five

Hi [café name], Since I wrote, a counter in [nearby area] has taken [your product] and reorders every [number] weeks. Your PTR would be [price per unit] against an MRP of [MRP]. That is [margin in rupees] a unit for you. Two samples this week, or is [month] a better time to ask?

PTR is what the store pays. Beside the MRP, the owner does the subtraction without asking me. I end on a question because an owner will answer one and skip a paragraph.

Day 10, on Instagram instead

When WhatsApp has been silent since day 0

Hi [café name], [your name] here. I wrote on WhatsApp last week and did not want to keep pinging that number. I make [your product] in [your city]. [One thing from their feed] is why I thought of your counter. Worth two samples, or should I leave it?

A small café runs its own account, and whoever posts there sits closer to the owner than the counter phone. Say you already wrote on WhatsApp. When one answers, I stop the other.

Day 21, the close

Three weeks after the pitch, wherever you last wrote

Hi [café name], last one from me. I will leave the counter alone. If [month] is a better time to look at something new, say the month and I will come back then. Either way, thank you for reading.

I say I am stopping because that is the sentence people answer.

The hour to send it

I write to cafés between three and five, Tuesday to Thursday. At nine there is a queue and at seven in the evening there is a queue, and a message read at the till gets answered later, which means never.

Nothing before nine or after nine. A pitch at eleven at night reads as a machine.
No weekends. Saturday is the week's takings.

After a sample drop

Once I have left samples, the four touches stop applying. There is a jar behind their counter and somebody has to decide about it. I leave two units, name the day I will come back, and then give it a week.

One week after the samples

Once, and only once

Hi [café name], hope the [your product] survived the counter. Did anyone behind the bar have an opinion on it? A bad one is more use to me than none. If it is a no, say so and I will stop. If it is a yes, my MOQ is one carton and I deliver on [day].

I ask for an opinion rather than an order, because an owner can give me one across the counter in ten seconds. Keep the MOQ (the smallest order you will take) at one carton. A month of stock on a slow counter kills the second order.

The two signals that mean stop

I do not stop for silence alone.

A clear no: An actual no, said out loud. I answer the same day, thank them, and ask which month is better. The words are in the guide on a café saying no.
A second silence after a sample: They took the samples and stayed quiet through the one follow-up. That is my answer. I do not restart the four touches on it, and I will not send a sixth message asking whether the jar was any good.

Anything else I treat as a not-now with a month on it, and I write that month in the diary the same evening.

One a week is the ceiling

I hold myself to one message a week to the same store, on any channel, and four touches in three weeks already sits at the top of that. Daily pings read as a bot, and an owner who thinks you are a bot blocks the number.

WhatsApp's own policy says you may write to someone only where you have their number and their permission to keep writing, and that you must honour a request to stop. Meta says an account can be limited or removed on excessive negative feedback. Your number is the one a café calls back on.

These four take ten minutes to write. I have never found it easy to remember which counters are due on a Thursday. On 5 August 2026, on the Khan Market beat, ten drafts were judged and nine approved with the editor never opened, and an approval is not a café answering. Days 3, 10 and 21 are what turn one of those into a stockist. Mira keeps the same diary and comes back on the day she was given.

Sources: opt-in and the duty to honour a request to stop, from the WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy. Accounts limited or offboarded on excessive negative feedback, from Meta's WhatsApp policy enforcement documentation. Both read on 3 September 2026. Rules on a first message differ by the tool you use, and are yours to check.