403 | Best Wholesale Pitching Practices with Two Shopkeepers, Victoria Venturi & Katie Wilson

Jul 24, 2025

In this discussion, shopkeepers Victoria Venturi of Paper Epiphanies and Katie Wilson of Crush & Touch share their retail insights on wholesale pitching. They emphasize the importance of clear pricing and concise emails, along with engaging visuals. Targeted samples can effectively close deals, while buyers often open emails at unexpected times, making persistence essential. They also suggest limiting follow-ups to about three attempts and leveraging creative alternatives like postcards to engage busy buyers. Tune in for invaluable pitching tips!

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ADVICE

Make Pitches Visually Simple

Use email with one inline image and clear bullet points to make it effortless for buyers to evaluate your product.
Include pricing, MOQ, and a simple attachment or link so retailers can make a quick decision.

ADVICE

Send Targeted Samples Strategically

Send targeted physical samples when affordable for your category to push a buyer from curious to yes.
Follow up by email referencing the sample so the buyer can connect the product to your pitch.

ADVICE

Don’t Expect Immediate Replies

Expect that buyers open many emails but only respond when they are ready to buy; don't take silence personally.
Put key info up front and accept that most pitches won't get an immediate reply but still build awareness over time.

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One of the highlights of our Paper Camp program is the weekly coaching calls that we host by me and our guest experts. You not only get to ask questions about that week's curriculum and content from Paper Camp, but you also get to hear firsthand from industry experts.

These are wholesale experts: large-scale wholesale manufacturers, retail shop owners, sales experts, trade show exhibitors, all of the people that are deeply embedded in the wholesale world.

This week on the podcast, I wanted to share a snippet of one of our calls from Marketing Week. This is the week in Paper Camp that we traditionally talk with shopkeepers to find out how they like to be pitched, how much follow-up is too much, do they want to see samples before they buy, and so much more. This is your chance to ask all of your burning questions of our guest experts and to hear direct feedback.

This excerpt is a conversation with Victoria Venturi of Paper Epiphanies and Katie Wilson of Crush & Touch. These are two shopkeepers who are getting pitched all of the time from brands and vendors that are just like you.

Victoria and Katie are providing feedback on how they like to be pitched, including the best way for vendors to capture their attention, methods that they use most when placing orders, and red flags that they see in wholesale pitches.

They talk about whether they want to receive samples and about follow-up and how much follow-up is too much.

This is just a small portion of the incredible value that our Paper Camp students receive during their time in our program.

I am incredibly grateful for people like Victoria and Katie and our other speakers that come back to share their knowledge and preferences with us.

These calls are my favorite part of Paper Camp. Speaking of Paper Camp, we will be opening enrollment for the next round very soon. This is a program that we only run live twice a year. It is not a course you do on your own. We are there to hold your hand and help you through it, answering questions for your specific brand and circumstances.

I wanted to let you know that we have some new, exciting surprises to share with you during this launch round, including a free event that you won't want to miss.

I'm not quite ready to spill all the tea yet, but everyone who is on our Paper Camp waitlist will be the first to hear about this live event and the new incentives that we're offering.

You can view full show notes and more at http://prooftoproduct.com/403

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