What first-time founders get wrong about retail

Getting fourfive into Holland & Barrett took a full year. Four deliveries of samples, a buyer we reached through a friend of a friend of a friend, and six months of back-and-forth before we got the green light.

Alongside Holland & Barrett, fourfive is now stocked in Boots, Sainsbury’s, Ocado, David Lloyd, and Well Pharmacy, with inbound interest from European retailers. Here are five things I wish someone had told me before we started.

1. A good product isn't enough

Buyers receive hundreds of parcels and samples a week. Getting enough cut-through for them to even try your product takes careful consideration and thinking outside the box.

We eventually made contact with a Holland & Barrett buyer through a friend of a friend of a friend — and sent them a pitch deck and yet more samples, because she didn't receive the first four deliveries.

Once we got the meeting, we knew we had one opportunity to nail it. The key was doubling down on our USPs as hard as possible.

But the bigger lesson: you have to know the full category going in.

Buyers won't take another brand off the shelf to replace it with something similar. They want incremental growth from every product that goes on shelf, and a clear plan for how you'll drive sales and get new customers into stores.

2. Getting stocked is the easy part

An investor told me early on: "Getting stocked is easy — selling is the hard part." He was right.

Holland & Barrett puts a big emphasis on training staff to have a really good knowledge of all products in store. We spent a lot of time visiting stores, giving samples to staff, and educating them on fourfive as a brand and our individual products.

That foundation, although time-consuming, serves us well today. It's still something we put emphasis on.

3. Rate of sale is what matters

Rate of sale is our key metric.

We run periodic discounts which are margin-maintained, so Holland & Barrett makes the same per unit regardless of the RRP. We have a good idea now of how to plan our annual sales by flexing promotions and how that pushes rate of sale.

You need strong margins to be able to do this. But with increases in volume, you can work with manufacturing partners to reduce COGS — which gives you more room to flex.

4. Operations will break faster than you think

Forecasting stock can still catch us out. Unforeseen sales spikes happen, and the knock-on effect of just one week out of stock can be tens of thousands in lost revenue depending on the SKU.

As we scaled, we brought someone into ops and hired a head of retail to run day-to-day communications with buyers.

Building those relationships is key. When a stock-out happens, you need to action it as quickly as possible.

In the early days, we used Wayflyer to support with invoice-backed loans to manage the gap between invoicing and payment. We're in a position now where we can manage that ourselves.

5. DTC should come first

Our split is around 70/30 retail to DTC at the moment, but the gap is closing quickly.

With the foundations we're building on the DTC side, we forecast that moving closer to 50/50 within 12–18 months. It only takes one more good retail listing to throw that off again — but it's a good problem to have.

We definitely did things backwards by focusing on retail over DTC to begin with, but we've managed our way through it.

6. Get in the room yourself

We've started to see inbound interest from retailers in Europe, which has been exciting to work through.

My advice to any European DTC founder thinking about retail: get in the room yourself.

Too many founders leave it to agencies who have the contacts. That can work, but buyers get genuinely excited when they hear the enthusiasm from the founder directly.

It's a passion that a third party can't replicate, and it's one of the biggest assets you have.

Dust off the passport and get in the room.

Dom Day is co-founder of fourfive, a UK wellness brand stocked in Holland & Barrett, Boots, Sainsbury’s, Ocado, David Lloyd, and Well Pharmacy.