Wholesale email marketing for CPG brands: emailing retailers, not shoppers

Why keep wholesale contacts separate from your consumer list?

Because the two groups buy for different reasons. A shopper buys to eat it. A store buyer buys to resell it, on margin, with shelf space they have to justify.

Mixing them causes a few problems:

• Wrong offers. Your consumer promos can undercut the retailers you sell to, or make your retail price look soft to a buyer.
• Wrong flows. A store that ordered 12 cases shouldn't get "how did you like your first bag?" or a winback offer a few weeks later.
• Muddy numbers. Wholesale orders mixed into your consumer data make your repeat rate, revenue per recipient and flow results harder to read.

There's a list-quality reason too. Sending to the people who actually want your consumer emails can beat sending to everyone. A sports training tech brand's engaged send to 7,145 people earned $0.19 per person, while a 49,475-person blast earned $0.04. Fewer people, more revenue. Retailers sitting in your consumer sends are part of the "everyone" you don't need.

How do I tag wholesale customers in Shopify?

It depends on how retailers order from you.

If you use Shopify B2B. Shopify B2B is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, but not Starter or Retail. Shopify says B2B customers have to be set up as companies in your admin, and each company has one or more locations with their own contacts, pricing and terms. Shopify's customer segments include a companies filter that "includes customers from companies that have been configured as B2B customers," so you can see who's who.

If you use a wholesale app or tag-based setup. You probably already tag wholesale customers. Check that the tag is consistent. Shopify tags aren't case sensitive, but "wholesale," "Wholesale-Approved" and "B2B" are three different tags.

If retailers order through Faire. Those orders live on Faire, so those retailers may not be in Klaviyo at all. That's fine. You can email them from Faire (more below).

Whatever your setup, I'd pick one tag, something plain like wholesale, and make sure every retail account has it. Shopify Flow has an "Add customer tags" action that can tag customers when an order is created, which is one way to keep it automatic.

How do I get that tag into Klaviyo?

Klaviyo's Shopify integration syncs customer tags into a single profile property called Shopify Tags, stored as a list. You can then build segments on it:

• "Shopify Tags contains wholesale" to find retailers.
• "Shopify Tags doesn't contain wholesale" to find everyone else.

Klaviyo also warns that edits made to Shopify Tags inside Klaviyo can be overwritten on the next sync. So manage the tag in Shopify, not in Klaviyo.

Why not sync a Shopify segment built on the companies filter instead? Klaviyo says synced Shopify segments become lists that "do not update as segment membership changes in Shopify." A retailer added next month won't be on it. A tag-based segment stays current.

How do I keep retailers out of consumer campaigns and flows?

Two places to check: campaigns and flows.

Campaigns. In Klaviyo's campaign audience step, use "Don't send to" and add your wholesale segment. Klaviyo removes anyone in an excluded segment, even if they're also in a list you're sending to. I'd make this a default on every consumer campaign, not something you remember on sale days.

Flows. Add a profile filter to your consumer flows: Shopify Tags doesn't contain wholesale. Klaviyo's Shopify Tags page says the property works in flow profile filters. Start with the flows a store buyer is most likely to trip:

• Welcome series. A buyer who signs up on your site to see the range.
• Abandoned checkout and cart. Note that Shopify turns its own abandoned checkout emails off by default for B2B. Your Klaviyo flows are separate, so check them yourself.
• Post-purchase, replenishment and winback. If wholesale orders show up in Klaviyo as orders, these flows will treat a case order like a shopper's first bag.

Don't assume consent status will protect you. Klaviyo's consent guide says profiles that have "neither subscribed nor opted out" (Never Subscribed) can still get flow emails because they aren't suppressed. A retailer who never ticked a box can still land in a flow. If you're not sure how flow filters work, I break them down in Klaviyo flow filters vs trigger filters.

Does CAN-SPAM apply to B2B email?

Yes. The FTC's compliance guide says it plainly: "The law makes no exception for business-to-business email." If the primary purpose of an email is to promote your product, it's commercial, whether it goes to a shopper or a store buyer.

Per the FTC, a commercial email has to:

• Use accurate "From" and routing information.
• Have a subject line that matches the content.
• Clearly say it's an ad.
• Include your valid physical postal address.
• Explain how to opt out, and honor opt-outs within 10 business days.

You also can't hand the responsibility off. The FTC says "you can't contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law," so it applies if a broker or agency sends on your behalf. Each violating email can cost up to $53,088.

Some emails are "transactional or relationship" messages instead, like one that "facilitates, completes, or confirms a commercial transaction that the recipient already has agreed to." The FTC says it views these categories "narrowly." An order confirmation for a case order is transactional. A new-flavor sell sheet is marketing.

Klaviyo adds its own rule: it won't send marketing to anyone who has unsubscribed. More in Klaviyo transactional emails.

This is general information, not legal advice. If you email retailers in Canada, the EU or elsewhere, different rules apply, so check with a lawyer.

What should you email retailers?

Things that help them sell your product and reorder it. Faire's CRM checklist for brands is a useful starting point. It suggests:

• One segmented email a week, reaching every retailer at least once a month.
• A 50/50 mix of sales emails and story emails.
• A reorder nudge for stores that haven't ordered in 60+ days.
• New arrival and reorder campaigns for retailers who engage.

For a CPG brand, here's what I'd put in that stream:

1. New products, before shoppers hear about it. Retailers need time to order and stock it. Send them the launch details, case pack and ship date first, then run your consumer launch. My product launch email guide covers the consumer side.
2. Restock and availability notes. If a product sold out, retailers want to know when they can reorder. For food brands, this is the wholesale side of the restock moments in email marketing for food brands.
3. Sell-through help. Shelf talkers, photos, social posts they can share, and any demo or promo you're running.
4. Reorder reminders. Short, plain and easy to act on: one link to reorder.

Keep the consumer emails about the store separate. When you land in new stores, your shoppers near those doors get the "now in stores near you" email, which I cover in email marketing for a retail launch. The buyer at that store gets the sell-in material, not the shopper email.

Should you email retailers from Klaviyo or Faire?

If most of your retailers order on Faire, Faire's own tools are the natural place to start. Faire Campaigns lets you email retailers with merge tags for store name, first name and Faire Direct discount, and sort recipients by relationship, last contact date or cart contents. Faire also has built-in segments like Abandoned Cart and Last Ordered 60+ Days.

Faire also says brands pay 0% commission on orders from retailers who come in through their Faire Direct link, if the relationship qualifies under Faire's policy. Faire suggests emailing those leads at least once every three months so they keep qualifying, and no more than a few times a month.

If retailers order through your own Shopify B2B store, Klaviyo works, using the wholesale segment from above as the audience. Keep the design simpler than your consumer emails. Buyers want the facts. If you use both, keep each retailer in one main stream so nobody gets the same pitch twice.

How do you measure wholesale email?

Not the way you measure consumer campaigns. A retailer email might lead to a reorder two weeks later, through a rep, by phone or on Faire, so email-attributed revenue will miss a lot of it.

• Content tests: judge on clicks. That's how I judge content and CTA tests in general, and Faire's checklist also says to track click rate, not just opens.
• Reorders: track how many stores reorder within 60 to 90 days, by segment.
• Consumer side: if you add the wholesale exclusion, judge the change on revenue per recipient, since that's how I judge segment tests. I explain why in revenue per recipient.

For more on building segments that stay clean, see email segmentation for ecommerce.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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