Thirteen years in business. Nearly 700 wholesale accounts. And the biggest shift Rachel O'Neill of Loftipop made this year was admitting her wholesale business was being run like a D2C channel.

If you started in direct-to-consumer and layered wholesale on top, this episode will feel familiar. Rachel came into Paper Camp with a thriving business at Loftipop and left with major enhancements: separate pricing logic, a leaner product line, and a strategy built around the retailers she already has.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why wholesale is not an extension of your D2C business — it's a separate model with its own pricing, margins, and rules
• How Loftipop added 60 accounts in the 6 months after Paper Camp, growing from 690 to about 750
• Why Rachel discontinued SKUs that were still selling — and why she felt "so much lighter" afterward
• How to run channel-by-channel margin math before keeping a product in your wholesale catalog
• What it looks like to nurture current retailers — email outreach, direct mail, and consistent touchpoints — instead of only chasing new accounts
• How staying open to change, 13 years in, became the shift that moved her whole business forward

From the episode:

"The biggest takeaway is that your wholesale business is not D2C. We came into wholesale thinking it was just an extension of our D2C... it's actually a whole separate business model and strategy." — Rachel O'Neill

"If you're serious about wholesale, it's 100% worth the investment. In terms of numbers, we've already made our money back and more." — Rachel O'Neill

Paper Camp is currently open for enrollment, which only happens twice a year!

SIGN UP FOR PAPER CAMP NOW

You can view full show notes and more at http://prooftoproduct.com/456

Quick Links:

Free Wholesale Audio Series

Free Resources Library

Free Email Marketing for Product Makers

PTP LABS

Paper Camp

Mentioned in this episode:

Paper Camp is now open for enrollment!

Enroll now in our next round of Paper Camp: http://prooftoproduct.com/papercamp