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Guide · 5 min read

Your first ten stockists: how to get a product into stores in India

, founder of Mira · 3 September 2026

In brief

I would work one neighbourhood, thirty stores inside two kilometres, all of them already carrying a small label at your price. Message each by name from your own number, then walk in with samples and one sheet of numbers. Say the margin in rupees. Keep the first order to one carton, with no credit on it, and go back on the same weekday to count what is left yourself.

Pick one neighbourhood

Not a city. One neighbourhood you can get back to on Thursday when they run out.

My rule is thirty stores inside two kilometres, four of them already carrying a small label at your price. The cafe two doors from your first yes is the easiest second yes you get.

Spread the same thirty across four suburbs and you have no beat, the fixed route you walk on a fixed day, and nobody reorders because nobody goes back.

I would not start where the famous stores are.

The list of thirty

Thirty, because you want ten.

They already stock something like you
Three small labels on a counter means the owner decided this category sells here. An empty counter means you are teaching the category. Budget four visits, not one.
The owner is reachable
One or two outlets, a name on the door, a number a person picks up. A chain that wants a listing fee first is a real customer, not a first-ten one.
Your price band fits
If your MRP sits above the dearest thing on that counter, the regulars will not pay it there. Work the PTR, what the store pays, backwards in the margin calculator first.

The sample kit and the one sheet

  • The pack it will actually sell in, label finished, two units a store. I name the day I come back to count them.
  • One sheet: MRP, PTR, margin on MRP in rupees, case size, shelf life, MOQ, delivery day, your number. MRP ₹250 and PTR ₹175 means ₹75 a unit for them. Percentages get argued with, rupees get counted.
  • Food and drink: FSSAI logo and licence number together on the label, which the labelling regulations require.

The first message, then the walk-in

I send one message per store before I go, from my own number: one thing true about that store, the margin in rupees, one small ask. Openings are in the WhatsApp guide.

I message on Monday and walk in on Wednesday at the dead hour, and the message turns a cold walk-in into a follow-up even where nobody replied.

  • The person at the counter cannot place the order and can absolutely kill it. Come back when the owner is in.
  • Two minutes, standing. Open the pack, say the price and the margin, leave the samples even on a no, and ask when to come by.

I would rather hear no at the counter than carry a maybe home. A no arrives in one sentence and names the problem: your price, the space, or the category.

Terms for a first order

I write these four down before I walk in. Decide them at a counter and the owner decides them.

MOQ
One carton, about a week of stock. A month of stock on their floor is how a store stops replying to you.
Credit
No credit on the first order, said before you deliver, then fourteen days on the invoice after two reorders. The law caps a written credit agreement with a micro or small supplier at forty-five days.
Expiry return
Take back what has not sold, once, and say so before anybody asks. Lift the unsold stock yourself and a polite no turns into a date.
Delivery day
Name a weekday and keep it. Miss it twice and somebody else takes the spot.

The reorder is the real test

Nobody's first order tells you anything. The second one, asked for without you prompting it, is the signal.

Count the units yourself on your delivery day, because owners are polite about slow stock. Two dead cycles and I would take it back myself, and say so first.

I would move the pack next to the till and change one thing a cycle before I answered a dead first order with a discount, which becomes your price for good.

What to write down after each one

  • Store, area, who decidesThe name on the door, the person, their number.
  • DatesMessage sent, walked in, answer, next date.
  • What they stock at your priceThe labels nearest yours.
  • The answer, in their wordsTheir sentence, not your summary.
  • Units left on the last countCounted by you, with the date.

One row a store, filled the same evening.

What the first ten teach you

  • One of your five lines is doing the work, rarely the one on your home page.
  • A yes usually takes a second visit. Stop after the first message and you lose stores that were going to stock you.

Ten first orders and no reorders is not ten stockists. Count it as ten and you will pay a rep to repeat it in the next suburb.

When to hand the front of it over

Hand the finding and the first message over once you know your objections cold. Give them to a field rep who walks the beat, or to an AI sales rep such as Mira, who finds the stores and drafts the message in your voice. On 5 August 2026, on the Khan Market beat, ten of her drafts were judged and nine approved with the editor never opened, which says the words were right and nothing about whether a cafe answered. Keep the walk-in, the terms and the reorder.

Sources

None of this is legal or tax advice. Confirm licensing and terms for your own category with a professional who knows it.