Why Your $100 DTC Orders Can’t Compete with $10K Wholesale Relationships

Overall, Shopify did quite well. Their earnings results looked strong. But when you start looking granularly at individual brands, you see a different story. A lot of brands were down. Some of the stats I saw before recording showed revenue declines of around 14% for many larger brands. There’s a real sense of urgency right now for direct-to-consumer brands to figure out how to grow revenue. Yes, you can lean into paid acquisition and there are definitely opportunities there. But I believe there’s another angle worth serious consideration—one Shopify has also been focused on—and that’s understanding the size and potential of the B2B market.

Retail is still the largest part of consumer spending. There’s also a growing online component, and B2B sits right in the middle of that. You still have to supply retailers, including online retailers. Sometimes they’re one and the same. That’s why I have my guest on today. Meghann is from a company called RepSpark. They’re at repspark.com, and she’s been in this industry for quite a while.

She has a great story, coming up through the fashion industry and building an incredible platform along the way. I wanted to have her on to talk about this platform and the power and potential of growth in B2B. So, hi Meghann, welcome to the show.

Meghann Butcher:
Hi, thanks for having me, Steve.

Steve Hutt:

So let’s talk a little bit about the background story before we dig into wholesale strategies. I think that’s important. You started RepSpark, but before that, can you give us a bit of your origin story—your family, the early days—and the problem you were trying to solve, and have now solved, with RepSpark?

Meghann Butcher:
Yeah. So my dad owned a company that had six or seven brands underneath it. He would come in when very creative people, who usually start a brand because they’re passionate about something—surfing, skiing, volleyball, golf—needed operational support. He would provide that operational backbone. At one point, I think he had six or seven brands, and I just loved being over there. It was so fun.

I was in the warehouse picking orders and helping wherever I could. I think I started going to trade shows when I was about five years old. So I’ve always been around it and watched how different brands manage their business. It’s still true today: a lot of brands use independent sales reps to service their wholesale retailers—their brick-and-mortar stores.

What would happen is, these reps would go out with a catalog or a line to show. The process between showing a pre-book line and actually getting that order back to the brand, then fulfilling it, shipping it to the retailer, and tracking the package—where it is, when it arrived—was very convoluted.

And apparel, footwear, accessories, hard goods—they’re all complex in and of themselves. You have size scales, colors, carryover product, carryover products that might change price from season to season, and so on. It’s a lot. So imagine the number of errors a sales rep could introduce when they fax in an order.

We created an online platform. At that time, it was a green-screen system, nothing like what it is today. But reps could log in, see the correct inventory, the style name and color, fill in quantities, and place an order. They could also run some basic reporting.

That’s how it started. The reps using it came back and said, “This is amazing—can I use it for the five other brands I rep?” My dad said, “Meghann, I think we’ve got something here. I love the manufacturing and operational side of what I’m doing. You really understand this business. Do you want to run with the tech side?”

Being kind of young and naive at the time, I said, “Yes, I’d love to run with the tech side. That sounds great.” And here we are 18 years later with RepSpark. It’s grown and evolved, but we’ve always stayed true to our mission: to be the most impactful partner we can be to brands and retailers looking to grow and scale in wholesale. That’s what we’ve been doing, and we’re still doing that today.

Steve Hutt:
That’s amazing. Thanks for sharing that story. In my research, I came across some numbers that really highlight the opportunity. The physical retail market is around $5.9 trillion, compared to about $1.3 trillion online. The market size is significantly bigger on the physical side.

When you think about DTC brands that are listening right now, many have built successful direct-to-consumer businesses. But how should they be thinking about wholesale today? What’s changing? Why is this such a big opportunity that so many haven’t fully figured out yet? They know the narrative that there’s a larger opportunity out there, but they still tend to stick to direct-to-consumer. What do you say to those brands?

Meghann Butcher:
It’s funny, because when we started RepSpark 18 years ago, there really wasn’t ecommerce. Direct-to-consumer didn’t exist in the way we think about it today. You had to get in a car or on a bike, go down to a store, and see if they had the product. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. You couldn’t price-check across multiple places. Retail was the first and primary way people shopped.

Then the pendulum swung toward direct-to-consumer. Then Covid hit and everyone said, “Brick-and-mortar is dead, retail is gone, no one will ever have a store again.” Now you’re seeing that pendulum swing back to wholesale.

Retail establishments are very important. Consumers really want to come in and shop. They want to see and touch the product and have an experience. It’s also important for a direct-to-consumer brand moving into wholesale because it legitimizes the business.

It shows that you’re more than just T-shirts—you have a brand story, a following, and a presence in retail locations. I think it’s a mistake to try to go into too many retail locations right away. Instead, find the ones that really resonate with your brand DNA, where their shoppers are likely to connect with your story, even if they came into the store for something else.

Steve Hutt:
Right. So what about timing? That’s a question I think a lot about. Is it about a specific revenue milestone, operational maturity, or product–market fit? When you look at the most successful brands that move into wholesale after proving DTC, what does that timing look like? When is the right time for a brand to decide a B2B opportunity might be in the cards?

Meghann Butcher:
We deal with that question all the time, and it can be a little different for each brand. Internally, we have a whole matrix we use to determine if a brand is ready for RepSpark. A brand might not be ready for RepSpark, but still be ready for wholesale.

We look at things like: has the owner or founder done this before? A lot of DTC brands are started by people who previously worked in wholesale brands, so they know what they’re doing and what they’re looking for.

I don’t think it’s strictly about revenue size. It’s more about readiness—your processes, systems, and understanding of wholesale. We talk to many DTC-only brands and when we tell them they need both a wholesale price and a retail price, or that many buyers won’t pay with a credit card but will pay on terms, that’s all new to them. So it’s more of an education challenge and understanding what wholesale requires than hitting a specific revenue number.

Obviously, with larger revenue, you can invest in a salesforce, a sales manager, and boots on the ground. Even with a platform like RepSpark that facilitates B2B buying, you still need a solid understanding of wholesale, because it’s very different.

Steve Hutt:
I completely agree. A lot of brands are used to shipping one product at a time to a single consumer. But wholesale is different—you’re dealing with pallets, case packs, minimum order quantities, and terms like net 30 or net 60. Can you walk us through that infrastructure gap? What systems or processes does a brand need to think about? Some of it is managed by RepSpark, for sure, but talk about the mindset and operational differences between being successful at DTC and then adding wholesale on top.

Meghann Butcher:
One of the most important things is inventory and understanding inventory allocation. Like you said, you’re not selling one-to-one anymore where, if you’re out of stock, that’s it. In wholesale, you might be selling a $10,000 order that has 50 styles, 50 colorways, and 100 sizes. The matrix gets complicated quickly.

You also have orders coming in from different places. You might have DTC orders, wholesale orders, and maybe a big-box retailer sending orders via EDI. Some of your retailers have their own online component as well. You need one coherent inventory view and a system to handle allocation. When an order comes in, who gets the inventory that’s arriving that day? It’s not one-to-one anymore.

Another big difference is that wholesale is often bought three, four, even five months in advance. Wholesalers usually pre-book. They look at your line at trade shows—like the ones we just attended in January—and they’re buying for summer or fall ’26 right now. You won’t see that inventory at the consumer level until August or September.

So you really have to understand the cadence of inventory. Having an ERP system is important at a certain stage. You can get away with housing the data in Shopify for a while. We work with a lot of DTC brands moving into wholesale who use Shopify almost like a back end. We sit on top of Shopify and power the B2B experience.

Eventually you may need a warehouse management system because you’re no longer just picking one item per order. ERP helps with allocation. You may also need a wholesale ecommerce platform that gives retailers a sense of trust and transparency—they know you’ll ship what you say you will, when you say you will. Then you might add PLM (product lifecycle management) for product development. There’s a whole stack of technology that goes into scaling wholesale.

Steve Hutt:
That’s amazing. Let’s talk about the RepSpark platform itself. I’ve gone through a lot of it before recording and it’s pretty in-depth. There’s a lot of back-office technology making this work.

Walk us through it. Let’s say a brand has product–market fit, wants to get into wholesale, and feels they have the operational capacity. Maybe they’re with a 3PL like ShipBob or ShipHero. Their product is already in a warehouse, and the 3PL is ready for pallets and larger quantities. Maybe they’re exploring Shopify’s B2B features or third-party solutions for price lists, quantity discounts, and terms. Where does RepSpark fit into that? What does your platform do if a brand chooses to work with you?

Meghann Butcher:
Let’s start outside of RepSpark for a second. There’s a big community aspect. We provide what’s essentially a one-sided marketplace where new brands can put tiles, marketing content, and catalogs in front of buyers. Those buyers can request access to the brand, and that request comes in as a new lead. So it acts as a lead-gen tool, even though that’s a small part of what RepSpark does.

For newer brands, it’s powerful because they can get in front of a large number of buyers who are actively looking for new brands. A retailer requests access, and then the brand goes through its own process of approving that buyer. That itself is a whole process. How do you approve a buyer? Do you have a process to collect their forms and information? When they request access, do you follow up with a catalog, digital catalog, or line sheet?

Once they’re in RepSpark, you’ll have visibility into inventory, pricing, and product. You can place multi-date orders from a single screen and ship to multiple locations—one parent account with five, six, or seven stores beneath it. Buyers can also log in and place their own orders. The interface feels very similar to DTC on the front end, but under the hood it handles all the wholesale complexity: style, size, color, multi-date orders, multiple ship-tos, promotions, and so on.

Wholesale promotions are different from DTC. It’s not just “10% off” or “free shipping.” Offers might differ by retailer or location. A brand might ship different assortments to stores that are literally down the street from each other. Their price lists, product lists, and assortments might be different. RepSpark is built to support that.

Steve Hutt:
Got it. I’m also thinking about cannibalization concerns. Some brands worry that selling wholesale might hurt their higher-margin DTC business. If they sell wholesale through RepSpark or even directly, are they undercutting their direct sales, or is this just part of a multichannel strategy that most brands should embrace?

Meghann Butcher:
You nailed it—it’s all about the omnichannel experience. You want your product to be available when and where the buyer is ready to purchase. That might be online, at a department store, or at a small mom-and-pop retailer. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for someone to buy your product.

In all my years, I’ve never seen a brand truly cannibalize its profit margins by moving into wholesale. You’re expanding reach, not simply shifting sales from one channel to another.

Steve Hutt:
Okay, let’s talk about the actual connection. Most listeners are Shopify-powered businesses. Some also have retail stores using Shopify POS and are already using a stack of apps and marketing tools.

If a brand chooses to use RepSpark, what happens next? Do you import their products from Shopify as part of onboarding? Can they manage quantities, pricing, and other wholesale settings from within RepSpark? Walk us through that workflow. I’m doing well online right now—how do I plug into RepSpark?

Meghann Butcher:
It’s as easy as the push of a button. We’re fully integrated with Shopify. You connect, press a button, and your products and customers can be imported. If it’s in Shopify, we can bring it into RepSpark.

A lot of brands don’t have their wholesale customers in Shopify because they haven’t used it for that yet. In that case, there are other ways to populate the system with your wholesale customer list, shipping details, terms, and the other data that typically goes with a wholesale account. But if you do have it in Shopify, it pulls over.

From there, you get an interface designed for wholesale buyers and sales reps. Orders placed through RepSpark can be pushed back into Shopify. If you have an ERP, and Shopify is integrated into that ERP, then we’ll usually connect to the ERP instead of Shopify. It really depends on the brand’s maturity. If they have an ERP, Shopify sits on one side, RepSpark on the other, and orders flow through the ERP.

Steve Hutt:
Makes sense. Let’s talk metrics because it always comes back to revenue and profitability. There’s obviously an entire strategy behind being successful in wholesale—that might be a separate episode—but from your perspective, which metrics matter most?

There are finance folks listening who are thinking, “We want more revenue, but the margin is lower.” Do we look at total net profit? Is there a halo effect from omnichannel presence? What KPIs should brands track for wholesale, and how does RepSpark help them think about that?

Meghann Butcher:
There are some metrics that are very specific to wholesale. First, you want to know if wholesale is actually working: are you generating revenue and is it growing?

Core metrics include revenue by account or by retailer, and revenue by channel. Compare your DTC, wholesale, marketplace, and EDI channels. Look at order frequency per account—how often are they reordering?

Remember, wholesale is about finite physical spaces. A retail store is like a box with a limited amount of floor space. Even if you get in, the question is: are they reordering and replacing your product? What’s the sell-through? What’s the average order value? Are you growing within that finite space?

When you enter wholesale, you might start with a smaller footprint in a store. Over time, you want to see that space grow. Are they increasing their orders? Ordering more often? Is your section in the store expanding? That’s the “is wholesale working?” side.

Then you look at margin and profitability. Are you making money, or just shipping units to a different channel? Track gross margin by channel. People often say the margins in wholesale aren’t as good, but you’re shipping $5,000, $10,000, or $20,000 orders. The net profit picture looks different.

Also track net margin by account and your cost to serve. Brands obsess over marketing spend in DTC, but I always ask: what marketing are you doing for wholesale? They’ll say, “We go to a trade show,” but how much does that actually cost compared to the orders you’re getting?

If a trade show delivers a $2,000 or $5,000 order, that might be the equivalent of many DTC orders. What’s your average cost to serve those wholesale accounts? Many newer wholesale brands aren’t looking at that. Then there are chargebacks, discounts you give retailers, and other factors. Not every big account is a good account, so you need to watch those numbers.

Finally, there’s account health and retention. Once you’ve worked hard to get into a retail location, are they keeping you in? Are they ordering season over season? What’s the reorder rate? What’s the time between orders? That tells you if it’s a strong store—customers are coming in, buying your product, and forcing replenishment. Those metrics are critical in wholesale and very different from what most DTC-only brands are used to.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, the granularity is fascinating—profitability by order, net margin by account. Even if the gross margin is lower because the retailer needs their margin, if the net profit is there, that’s what matters.

Let’s talk about trade shows. You mentioned you’d just come back from the January shows. A lot of brands are experimenting with pop-ups as part of their experiential strategy, using Shopify POS. With pop-ups, you’re doing your own marketing and Shopify provides the hardware and tech to take in-person transactions, but you still have to run everything.

How does RepSpark think about trade shows and pop-ups? Do you offer landing pages, portals, or other tools that support those efforts?

Meghann Butcher:
For us, trade shows are great. RepSpark can definitely support them. We provide tools to build digital catalogs and digital line sheets that can be used in campaigns for new retailers or new brick-and-mortar stores.

At many trade shows, buyers are actually placing orders on-site, depending on the show. The January circuit really is a circus—they’re all happening at once. You’ve got SHOT Show, PGA Show (golf, racquet, resort wear), separate racquet shows for tennis and pickleball, a SoCal show focused on resort and wellness, Surf Expo in Orlando for action sports, Outdoor Retailer later on, and then fashion shows like MAGIC and PROJECT in Vegas in March and April.

Those are huge opportunities to show your line, get in front of buyers, and have your reps and sales team out meeting people. For a while, people thought trade shows were going away for wholesale buying, but they’re back. They’re all back.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, they’re back for sure. For those listening right now, is there a “sweet spot” customer that’s ready for wholesale and a good candidate for RepSpark? I’m sure there are brands that came on too early and weren’t successful, and others that have done really well. What patterns have you seen that can help listeners decide if RepSpark is right for them?

Meghann Butcher:
There is definitely a size component. If you’re doing less than roughly $3 million in DTC, you might not have the infrastructure to hire the right people yet. We usually look for brands that have at least one sales leader, like a sales manager. If you have one to three sales reps and have identified territories for them, that’s a good sign. It shows you understand that DTC is about storytelling, while wholesale is about relationship-building.

It takes time. Even if you have an amazing product and there are 500 retail locations that would be a great fit, their stores might simply be full right now. They may come back later.

You need a sales team—internal or outsourced—that has relationships and is ready to walk into stores, present your line, and convince buyers to give you a shot. That’s different from DTC marketing. You also need a go-to-market strategy for wholesale: which locations, how many are you targeting—100 to start, 500? And do you have enough sales coverage to support that? I’m not saying you need hundreds of reps, but you need at least one person whose primary job is cultivating these relationships, sending line sheets and catalogs, and following up after trade shows. Buyers see dozens of brands at a show. They might be excited in the moment, but you need someone to follow through.

You also need your pricing strategy in place. Most wholesalers will want terms, especially if you’re a new brand in their store. They might want net 30. You need the financial infrastructure to handle that and enough inventory to support wholesale demand.

Those are the four big pieces we look at when evaluating brands. Sometimes we’ll see brands come through that are just too early. They’ll drop out and come back a year and a half later saying, “We’re ready now.” We try to help by saying, “You might be ready for wholesale, but not for RepSpark yet. You’re just a bit too small. Once you hit these thresholds, you’ll be ready, and we’ll be here to support you.”

Steve Hutt:
You make a great point: the brand needs real traction first. You mentioned $3 million as a rough starting point. I’d add a couple of things to that checklist: marketplaces and influencers.

Are you in the key marketplaces? Is Amazon or another marketplace part of your strategy? If not, you probably want at least a small selection of SKUs there just for the touch point and added visibility. Are you on TikTok Shop? You might say, “My audience isn’t Gen Z,” but sometimes those shoppers are buying for parents or others. It can still make sense.

Then there’s the influencer side: social proof and word-of-mouth in the wild. When your sales team is trying to get into wholesale, they can leverage that DTC work—celebrity endorsements, influencer content, and social proof—to show retailers the brand has traction. Clearly people want to buy in-store; they just may not have that option yet. So marketplaces and influencers both help with traction.

Meghann Butcher:
It’s really important. We work a lot with brands built around passions or lifestyles—action sports, golf, yoga, resort, fishing, skiing. These founders are actively doing the thing their products serve. They’re wearing the apparel, using the racket, swinging the clubs. We can support more fashion-oriented brands too, but those passion-led segments are where we do really well.

Most of these brands have some kind of influencer or athlete program. That helps in wholesale because those brick-and-mortar buyers are taking a risk the first time they stock your product. Coming in with a platform like RepSpark—something they know and trust—plus the transparency around inventory and shipping, helps. They can go online, see that you have inventory, place orders, and track shipments. That builds trust and makes retailers more comfortable stocking you.

Steve Hutt:
I love that. So what are the next steps for brands that are in that sweet spot? They believe they’re ready, maybe they’ve dabbled in wholesale, and now they want to get their catalog into RepSpark, have retailers in their vertical discover them, and expand their product mix. What do you tell those brands? What are the next steps with RepSpark?

Meghann Butcher:
If you’re at that stage, you’re ready to roll. You reach out, and we do an onboarding call. If you have an ERP, we’ll integrate with it. If you’re just on Shopify, it’s a quick integration and you’re off to the races.

You can create digital catalogs and line sheets. We also promote new brands. We’ll put your brand in front of 80,000 retailers. Those are usually your ICP—your ideal customer profile. They’re the retailers buying products in your category and segments. Retailers want to buy from brands on RepSpark. We hear that all the time.

For brands, it makes adoption faster. You’re immediately in front of relevant retailers. You can create tiles and catalogs, and we typically see new brands get 30–40 leads in the first couple of months. These aren’t DTC leads; these are retailers who might place $5,000, $6,000, or $10,000 orders.

It breaks our hearts when brands don’t have a process to follow up on those leads. So we do a lot of handholding with newer brands. We’ll say, “These retailers requested access—make sure you follow up with a line sheet.” It’s not just, “If you build it, they will come.” They will come, but you still need to nurture them.

Steve Hutt:
I see the same thing with sponsorships in my media company. I use a separate tool, and if I don’t reply within 12 hours, it nudges me—“Hey Steve, someone wants to sponsor your podcast. You’d better respond.” That follow-up is so critical.

Meghann Butcher:
Exactly. Having those types of processes in place is crucial, and we can help with that. Our onboarding team is very well-versed in wholesale. We work with hundreds of brands moving from DTC into wholesale. Some are still too small, and we try to identify that early: “Come back in a year when you have these five things. Here’s a checklist.” We have templates for what a new retailer account should look like and other basics.

Helping brands get ready benefits everyone. It grows the wholesale ecosystem. As consumers, it means we walk into stores and see newness on the floor, which is exciting.

Steve Hutt:
I love it. I see a lot of great case studies on your site as well—I’ll include those in the show notes.

What about the retailers listening who want to become one of those 80,000 stores looking to expand their product mix? How do they get involved?

Meghann Butcher:
There are a couple of paths. When brands join RepSpark, they can send invitations to their existing retailers. Brands can keep those relationships private if they want. Eventually, though, retailers often start asking, “What other brands are on here?” and then they explore the broader community. They can filter by brand, product category, gender, and more, depending on what they’re looking for.

We also have retailers who come in through trade shows or word of mouth. They join the community even if they’ve never shopped any of the brands yet. We spend a lot of time educating retailers that this platform exists, it’s here to stay, and it’s designed to help them—not add more work.

We probably see around 10 retailers a day, if not more, joining on their own. They might have heard about RepSpark or logged in at a show. We review them to ensure they’re legitimate, then approve them into the community. As a brand, you still control whether a retailer can shop your line. Many brands show their catalog but hide pricing because wholesale and retail prices differ. Retailers can then request access, and that becomes a new lead for the brand to pursue.

Steve Hutt:
Love it. One last question: policing wholesalers. When you sell product into retail locations, is there anything in RepSpark—or an education layer—that helps brands manage pricing, discounts, and promotions?

In DTC, the brand controls sales and promotions. When you hand that control to a retailer, it can feel like opening a can of worms. What if a retailer also has its own DTC channel? Could there be cannibalization or pricing conflicts—like one store running 40% off while the brand is at full price? How do you think about that? Is there a process or guidance around it?

Meghann Butcher:
Most retailers aren’t going to discount unless they really have to. Often, they’ll come back to the brand and say, “Your product didn’t sell through, we need a discount.” They’re not out there looking to discount aggressively for no reason.

That’s why picking the right retailers and visiting their locations is so important. This is another reason physical reps matter—even if the buyer uses the platform to place orders, reps can go into the store and see how your product is merchandised.

Creating assortments and “perfect orders” is a big part of this. If you leave it completely open and a retailer orders a random yellow shirt and blue shorts, it might not merchandise well. You want them to buy into your full color story so it looks great on the floor. That helps sell-through and protects your brand. So I wouldn’t call it “policing” as much as partnering. Brick-and-mortar stores don’t want to discount either. They want the product to sell at full margin.

Steve Hutt:
That makes sense. I also think about the affiliate world where brands get very protective. They don’t want affiliates bidding on brand terms in paid ads. They want to control their own trademarks, messaging, and campaign strategy. There’s a similar concern with retailers creating their own ads that might not align with the brand’s guidelines.

Does RepSpark support that from a marketing asset perspective?

Meghann Butcher:
Yes. RepSpark has a full marketing area where retailers can access approved assets—logos, brand imagery, and other materials. Brands can upload what they want retailers to use.

Often, brands will also provide physical point-of-sale materials—hang tags, racks, displays. Think about the sunglasses rack you see by a checkout counter. That fixture is usually provided by the sunglasses manufacturer. It reinforces the brand and ensures consistency from the website all the way to the store.

In RepSpark, that asset management piece helps ensure retailers are using on-brand visuals and telling your story correctly.

Steve Hutt:
That’s amazing. This has been incredibly eye-opening for me. I always joke on this show—you can’t see it because we’ve mostly been audio-only—but when I have a lot of notes, it means it’s been a great episode. My personal mantra is “life of learning,” and every week I get the opportunity to learn from people like you.

You’re clearly doing something extremely well—helping retailers find new opportunities and helping wholesalers get onboarded and grow. I’ve learned a ton. Thanks, Meghann, for coming on the show today. I want to wish you continued success. Repspark.com—details will be in the show notes.

Meghann Butcher:
Thanks, Steve. It was great.

Steve Hutt:
All right, have a great afternoon.

Well, that’s it for today’s episode. I’d like to thank you personally for being a loyal listener of eCommerce Fastlane. It’s my hope that this podcast gives you a ton of value through growth strategies, tactics, and insider tips on the best Shopify apps and marketing platforms—all with my personal goal of helping you build, manage, grow, and scale a successful, thriving company powered by Shopify.

Thanks for investing some time today and listening to the show. I’m proud and excited that you have a growth mindset and are a constant learner. I truly appreciate you and your entrepreneurial journey. Enjoy the rest of the week, and keep thriving with Shopify.