New York-based distributor Hey You faced a unique challenge. The company represents approximately two dozen emerging brands spanning the food and beverage as well as health and beauty care categories, and provides them with an array of services to ensure they are ready to do business with U.S. retailers. At the same time, it can offer retail buyers creative solutions that include multiple brands and leverage its distribution and merchandising capabilities.
The challenge was this: How could Hey You shine the spotlight on each of its brands within the retail buyer community, but also engage buyers in deeper level discussions during which it could highlight the various ways in which it could serve their needs?
The solution: A RangeMe Pro subscription paired with ECRM’s in-person Sessions. RangeMe Pro enables Hey You to highlight each of its brands with their own unique profile page, providing them with 24/7/365 exposure, while ECRM Sessions offer private, prescheduled in-person appointments with buyers, giving the distributor the opportunity to have more in-depth discussions and build long-term relationships.
During my interview and subsequent visit to its headquarters, Hey You owner Susan Darretta dove into the company’s background and the comprehensive services it provides to both brands and retail buyers, and shared why the combination of RangeMe Pro and ECRM was ideal for them.
Born out of a family business
Darretta started in the business a dozen years ago when she took over her father’s Pepsi distribution operation, which at the time consisted of just one truck and a small local route in the Bronx. Over the years, she grew the business to 30 trucks covering pretty much all of the tri-state area. During that time, she developed deep relationships with retailers (after all, who doesn’t sell Pepsi products?) and learned all about the various capabilities that brands need to succeed in retail.
As someone who loves entrepreneurship and helping brands succeed, she decided to launch Hey You as a means of providing turnkey solutions for emerging brands looking to grow. “We’re a one-stop shop for brands,” she says. “We try to take out the middlemen these brands encounter on their way to getting into retail and combine them all into one company. This includes everything from warehousing space, distribution, merchandising solutions, marketing, importing, and even product photography.”
Indeed, the shared space Hey You uses in Mt. Vernon, in addition to having one of its three warehouses, is also home to many of the companies that provide these services to the brands it works with. It even has a product photography studio.
Darretta’s goal is to bring in emerging brands that are looking to get onto mass retail shelves, and provide the services and support needed to get there. In many cases, it’s simply buying the product and then selling it under their own vendor ID with the retailer. “That’s typically what’s easiest for the brand,” says Darretta. “It also kind of helps with them not having to track individual payments and invoices.”
In some cases Darretta is more hands-on, providing whatever services the brand may need, depending on what stage of retail readiness they are in. For example, she has a team getting each of the brands set up on RangeMe, optimizing their brand profile pages and getting them verified.
Why Hey You upgraded to RangeMe Pro
Daretta first learned about RangeMe when several retailers directed her to the platform to submit her products, as RangeMe serves as the product submission management tool for most of the top retailers in the U.S.. She originally signed on as a Premium subscriber so she could directly submit to retail buyers and participate in Immediate Opportunities, as well as take advantage of the profile insights and NIQ data.
But over time, she noticed some issues.
“Originally I only had two brands on my profile, as that was what I originally needed to submit to a retailer,” says Darretta. “But then I started loading up all of my products, submitting to everything that I could across categories. I was getting a lot of engagement on the profile, but wasn’t seeing it correlate in terms of engagement and communication. I knew I was doing something wrong because I know a lot of other brands have success on RangeMe, and I have a ton of confidence in the brands I represent.”
Daretta’s Customer Success Manager (CSM) pointed out the issue. Since Hey You has multiple brands across several categories, all of its brands were together on one brand profile page. So, for example, if a buyer was searching for snacks and Hey You’s page was displayed as a result of a keyword search or an Immediate Opportunity submission, that buyer would be confused when they saw Hey You’s beauty products on the page, and may not stay long.
With the guidance of the CSM, she upgraded to RangeMe Pro, which enables the account holder to have multiple brand profile pages, and put a team in place to create brand profiles for each brand she represents. So far more than 15 are completed, with 10 more in process.
Already Darretta is seeing the difference. “It significantly boosted buyer engagement for each of our brands,” she says. “Each brand profile page is now 100 percent aligned with buyer searches. Using the RangeMe Insights, we know who is looking, whether they found us by keyword or if they searched for us directly. That gives us great information about what everyone is looking for and what’s important to them. Now, only the relevant brand profile pages show up in buyer searches, and the buyer spends more time on each. It’s no longer a confusing mix of categories.”
One side benefit to RangeMe’s Immediate Opportunities
In addition to the data on buyer behavior and NIQ category data in the platform, Darretta also gets insights from another unexpected source: RangeMe’s Immediate Opportunities submissions. Since most of the Immediate Opportunity submissions require brands to answer several questions, and Hey You submits products to so many retailers across categories, she has gleaned some insights by noticing patterns in the questions being asked.
One learning in particular, is the importance for brands in having a strong social media presence. “Our team is consistently applying to Immediate Opportunities and category reviews,” says Darretta. “One thing that came up repeatedly across these submissions was the buyers’ interest in the brands’ social media presence, and how engaged they are with customers digitally. So that is a big 2025 initiative for us, ensuring that all of our brands are relevant online.”
ECRM & building relationships via in-person meetings
In addition to Hey You’s RangeMe Pro subscription, Darretta plans to leverage ECRM’s category-specific Sessions to build deeper relationships with buyers. She has registered for seven Sessions already across food & beverage and health & beauty care categories, and has already participated in one RangeMe Live at the February Snack Session (RangeMe Pro subscribers get three in-person buyer meetings at an ECRM Session). Those three meetings alone showed her the added opportunity these in-person meetings offer.
“I can’t show you who I am through an email,” says Darretta. “When a buyer meets with me in person, they can get a sense of what this means to me and how passionate I am about it. I want the buyer to see how much I care about my brands succeeding. So in-person meetings have always been important to me. I can’t imagine how many emails a buyer at a major retailer gets every day. It’s easier to create a rapport with someone in-person.”
In addition, because Hey You represents so many brands, and provides so many merchandising and supply chain solutions, there are other ways in which they can work with brands that cannot easily be demonstrated online. “One of the things I discuss with buyers is the various pain points I can solve for them,” says Darretta. “Plus, many of the buyers can work across several of my brands.”
Darretta is set to meet with buyers at seven ECRM Sessions this year, including the Asian, Hispanic & Global Cuisines and Snack Sessions in July, the Candy Planning: Everyday & Summer Seasonal Session in August, The Latin America Health & Beauty Care and Latin America Food & Beverage Sessions in September, and the Diversity & Minority Owned Food & Beverage and Diversity & Minority Owned Health & Beauty Care Sessions in October.
RangeMe & ECRM go hand-in-hand
Darretta sees both RangeMe and ECRM working hand in hand, one reinforcing the other and creating multiple opportunities to stay front of mind with retail buyers. The buyers may first see them on RangeMe, then put a face to the brand’s name at an ECRM Session, where they can learn a bit more about the company behind the brands and explore efficiencies of working across brands and even categories. Between the in-person meetings, RangeMe keeps working for her, day in and day out, all year-round, keeping her brands in front of those buyers actively seeking new products.
“You want to stand out in the buyer’s mind,” says Darretta. “The more they see you and your brands, the more they engage with you personally, the more likely you are to leave a lasting impression. Having a presence on RangeMe and participating in ECRM Sessions will certainly help us to do just that.”
Watch the full video interview here!