Get used to hearing this a lot. NO

You will get told no, directly, indirectly, politely and rudely and creatively many many times.

Also get used to having people just blow you off, skip the appointments you set up and generally treat your time as a play thing.

Pulling a ratio out of my ass I would expect to here 100 NO for every 1 yes.

You might want to prioritize mom-and-pop stores, as corporate-owned stores are going to have red tape that store managers will not be able to do anything about. As an extreme example, the manager of a Wal-Mart will not be able to do anything about putting your product, since corporate has contracts and obligations to all of the brands and products on their shelves.

The other commenter said you’d hear “no” a lot, and that’s true. Shelf space is extremely contested, which is why small stores with no overhead are your better bets. Good luck!

This is some sort of health/beauty product? It’s not a product I have a lot of familiarity with, but it sounds like you’re on the right path starting with smaller shops, especially if you can position it as artisanal.

With smaller shops they likely won’t have a dedicated buyer position, so you will probably want to speak with a manager or owner. Normally these are busy people so they won’t want you dropping in without an appointment. Try to schedule something in advance by phone or email. If you do walk in lead with asking for an appointment, but be ready to sell yourself and your product on the spot. Practice your “elevator pitch” to try to spark interest right away.

I’d suggest you should try calling places and setting yourself up some sales trips, making appointments to see people that are at least relatively near each other. Don’t schedule too many so that you aren’t rushed to get from one to the next. You don’t want to be late, but you also don’t want to rush a visit that’s going well and end it early to get to your next one; your customers should feel that you value them and that they’re not less important than someone else. It could mean a lot of down time between calls, but you can use that to find more customers, take care of correspondence, etc.

Definitely bring lots of samples, both for the buyers and potentially that they could offer to clients. If your product won’t deteriorate when sitting in a vehicle you could bring stock with you but I don’t think most stores would expect you to supply them immediately. It might look sketchy or less professional if you’re pulling retail product out of your car’s trunk, but maybe not if this is artisanal, or it’s just a small supply for them to trial you as a product line.

Is your suggested retail price high enough that you can sell to them at a wholesale discount and still make a sustainable profit yourself? My background is electronics, and the rule of thumb I’ve typically seen for consumer electronics is the product needs to cost 3 or 4 times the bill of materials (BOM). The BOM should include your labor costs to actually make the product, but the markup lets you cover the rest of your costs like R&D, marketing, shipping, administration, etc. When I was at a consumer electronics company we would typically sell to our retail channel at a 20-30% discount off our MSRP, depending on volume. Rarely we’d sell at 40% to large customers, but below that we’d start to risk profitability except on high volume products. When you’re meeting with retailers, they’re going to want to know what profit they can make, and they’ll have an idea of what they think they can sell your product for, which might not be your MSRP.

Good luck!

Sounds like you’ve thought much of it through already. I’m not familiar with that type of product but am thinking if you already did the testing/whatnot to comply with whatever local and national regulations exist then you’re okay to start off. I think(?) you’ll want a resale certificate or similar for the state you’re in if you’re going to be dealing with b2b sales but could be mistaken (the buyers definitely want that).

I’m not a buyer but work at a small business that buys other types of product so I’ve seen this stuff play out. Quick notes

What should I roughly expect when I go to physical stores to sell my product to them? Do I simply walk in and ask for a manager?

You probably want to ask who’s in charge of evaluating and buying product. There might be someone there who’s job is actually to be the buyer for the store, otherwise it usually comes down to a manager or the owner(s).

Am I missing something in my preparation (physical or mental)? Are products generally on consignment to stores or are they bought outright?

Can’t speak for other stores but where I work if the buyer/owner likes the product they’ll commit to buying a few cases and see how it sells… after that you have to hope they’ll want to re-order at a future date. That’s when you check in with them and see how things are going, if they need more product, etc. More rarely if the buyer is really into the product they might actually buy a case or two during your initial sales meeting.

Should I bring enough stock to the first meeting or is it normal to drop off products on a separate/later date?

Most sales people seem to bring samples with them so they can leave them in the case the buyer isn’t around. Then they call/visit to follow up, maybe leave more samples, etc… I don’t know if that’s the best approach but it’s one way. The sale would work better if you actually get to meet the buyer but you can’t rely on knowing their schedule, setting up a meeting they might blow off, etc… The place I work at doesn’t have a buyer physically there 7 days a week so people popping in to sell tend to miss them and end up talking to a manager or whoever happens to be at the store that day.

And like the other comment said, be prepared to be told “No” a lot. You’re not the first or last person that’s been at the store selling creams/lotions, always keep that in mind.

Make sure you dress nicely and have a catchy jingle

Any reason you’re not targeting online first? You can start selling on Amazon and others pretty fast.