Getting a store to say yes is step one. Getting a good spot on their shelf is step two, and it's a whole different fight.
The shelf is already full
When you walk into a store, the cleaning shelf is usually already packed. Most of the space is taken up by a few dominant brands, many of them owned by big conglomerates with budgets we can't compete with.
And we're a small brand with two products: a Glass & Mirror Cleaner and an All-Purpose Surface Cleaner. With only two bottles on a shelf full of options, you really have to stand out.
Just ask
The most helpful thing we've found is simple: ask. When we set up with a new store, we'll ask our retail partner, “Hey, can we go in this area? Can we be positioned here?”
Sometimes they're very accommodating. Sometimes they're not.
We've ended up at the bottom of the shelf. We've ended up next to the hand sanitizer, because whoever stocked us that day didn't read what the bottle was. When you're small, that's part of the deal, and you go back and ask again.
The blue strip
The other thing that's made a big difference is our shelf strip. It's the blue strip you see in the photo above, running along the shelf edge under our bottles. It tells shoppers a little about the product and what SOHJI is: non-toxic, plant-derived, made in New York.
On a crowded shelf, a strip of blue under two cobalt glass bottles is hard to miss. It catches people's eye, and it answers the first question before they've even picked up a bottle.
Thankful for our partners
Shelf space is always going to be tough. Thankfully, most of the retailers we work with are very accommodating. They give a small brand a real shot, and that helps us more than they probably know.
So next time you're in the cleaning aisle, look past the eye-level brands for the blue strip. Here's where to look, or skip the hunt and shop online.
— Max
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