Wholesale-Retail Partnerships: 3 Ways to Drive Sell-Through

In 2025’s noisy, hyper-competitive retail environment, wholesale brands are up against a hard truth: your product’s success depends on salespeople you don’t employ—and you're also competing against online giants or vertically integrated retailers who control the entire customer journey. That’s why your wholesale-retail partnerships are so important.

Whether it’s performance footwear, technical gear, or specialty instruments—your product only moves when a retail associate believes in it, understands it, and can confidently sell it.

But too often, that connection just isn’t there. Your campaigns never reach the shop floor. Your product features get diluted—or worse, forgotten. Associates are left to guess what sets your product apart or what your brand story is. Sometimes, they don’t even know your brand is an option.

Harvard Business Review notes:‍

For wholesale brands, this truth hits even harder - because those salespeople don’t even work for you.

Undertraining retail associates has never been a smart move, but in today’s market, it’s a missed opportunity that directly impacts your bottom line. Why? Because it undermines the one advantage brick-and-mortar stores still hold over e-commerce: a real, knowledgeable human who can connect with customers in the moment of decision. 

Improving Wholesale-Retail Partnerships

The problem? Most brands have little visibility—and even less control—over how well their products are being represented by retail associates. Especially across a fragmented network of retail partners, training often goes unseen, unsupported, or inconsistently delivered.

But here’s the good news: Harvard Business Review reports that systematically delivering product training to store staff—at scale—can lift in-store revenues by up to 20%. When training costs are shared or delivered through modern, partner-friendly platforms, that growth comes with minimal overhead. Nearly every dollar gained drops straight to the bottom line.

Without modern, scalable brand training, your story gets lost. Your visibility shrinks. And your sell-through suffers.

This disconnect isn’t just frustrating—it’s risky. Especially when:

• Retail partners prioritize competing brands
  
  
• Training content goes unused or ignored
  
  
• Turnover is hovering around 60% in U.S. retail
  
  
• You can’t prove ROI on your enablement efforts
  
  
• And you're being asked to do more with less
  

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. And you’re not powerless.

One of the most effective ways to gain visibility across retail partners—large or small—is to connect directly with the associates already selling your products.

Let’s explore three proven tactics wholesale brands are using right now to strengthen retailer collaboration, reclaim visibility on the shop floor, and turn third-party associates into frontline brand advocates.

1. Make Training a Win for Retailers, Not Just for You

Retail associates who receive consistent training sell up to 87% more than their untrained peers, according to a study by Retail TouchPoints.

Yet most wholesale brands still rely on outdated training methods—PDFs, intranet portals, or one-off in-person briefings—that don’t scale, don’t stick, and often don’t even reach the sales floor. These formats are easy to overlook, hard to update, and impossible to track—leaving the people selling your products disconnected from your brand story.

That disconnect doesn’t just hurt sales—it puts strain on your retail partners. Without structured, engaging training from the brand, store managers are left to fill the gap. And when that happens, consistency, accuracy, and enthusiasm suffer.

Delivering scalable, effective training shows retailers that you’re invested in their success. It reduces the lift for store managers, empowers their teams, and positions your brand as a true partner—not just a supplier.

The Tactic

Shift to a mobile-first, microlearning strategy that delivers high-impact training in short, timely bursts. Tailor delivery by store type, location, or product line to meet your partners where they are—and make training feel like support, and be enjoyable, not an obligation.

2. Build Turnover-Proof Training That Supports Your Retail Partners—Not Just Your Brand

Frontline turnover is hovering around 60% annually  many retail partners struggle to keep associates consistently trained—especially across large, multi-store networks. For wholesale brands, this creates a ripple effect: even when you provide training materials, there's no guarantee new staff will ever see them.

This isn’t just a training issue. It’s a collaboration issue.

Retailers are juggling high staff churn, competing priorities, and limited resources. The more your brand can support them in training and onboarding—even for associates they haven’t hired yet—the more valuable and trusted you become as a partner.

Effective training and onboarding programs can lead to a 23% increase in sales, according to a study discussed by RetailWire.

The Tactic

Develop modular, mobile-accessible training content that’s built to scale and survive turnover. Ensure new associates can access core product knowledge and brand story anytime without needing to wait for in-store support. The easier you make training for new hires, the more valuable your brand becomes to your retail partners.

3. Measure the Impact—and Ask Retailers to Prioritize Your Brand

Track and quantify the impact of your training efforts—associate engagement, in-store conversion lift, customer feedback, or regional sell-through improvements. Then, bring that data into your retailer conversations with a clear strategic recommendation:

“We’ve seen X% improvement in sell-through where this training has been adopted. We’d like to explore expanding this rollout across additional doors.”

Retailers don’t prioritize based on promises—they prioritize based on performance. When you demonstrate that your enablement strategy directly contributes to their revenue goals, you elevate your brand from vendor to value-driving partner—and secure a stronger, more visible presence at the point of sale.

The Tactic

Build a system for consistently measuring the impact of your training across completion rates, feedback, and sales performance. Share those results with your retail partners, then use the data to make a confident ask: broader rollout, higher priority, or dedicated shelf space. When you show that your training drives real-world results, you earn the right to ask for more visibility in return.‍

The Bottom Line: Visibility Starts with Enablement—at Scale

Your product’s success doesn’t just depend on brand awareness—it depends on retail execution, and that depends on great wholesale-retail partnerships.

When associates understand your products, believe in your brand, and are supported with timely, easy-to-access training, they sell with confidence. And when your partners see measurable results, they’re far more likely to prioritize your brand in-store.

Myagi makes this possible—not just by delivering great training but by giving you direct access to the people who matter most: the retail associates already selling your products.

With a built-in network spanning thousands of independent stores and retail leaders like REI and JD Sports, Myagi helps wholesale brands get training in front of the right people fast—without starting from zero.