Trade show wholesale buyer research agent for small DTC brands selling to retailers on HubSpot

What The Researcher does

A 30-person DTC brand sells mostly online but grows wholesale by exhibiting at retail and gift trade shows. A small sales team scans badges and jots notes on the floor, then returns to a peak-season inbox and a support queue full of order status and returns questions, so the show list sits in a spreadsheet for weeks and buyers place their open-to-buy budgets with brands that followed up first. The Researcher works for the head of wholesale and two or three reps. It owns the gap between the scan and the first touch: it ingests leads nightly during the show, separates real wholesale prospects from consumers, existing stockists and support issues, researches each retailer's storefront, assortment and location, builds a short brief and a battlecard against the brands they already carry, and drafts a first touch tied to the booth conversation. Reps review, send and book. The agent is built and maintained for the team, including updates to battlecards, scoring rules and the show calendar.

Built on HubSpot

The team already runs HubSpot, so records, tasks, booth notes and meeting links stay where reps work, and Breeze company research covers firmographic basics well. A small store is not a typical firmographic target, though, so a custom AI build orchestrated in n8n handles the parts Breeze does not: reading retailer storefronts to see what brands they carry, checking Shopify and Help Scout to separate prospects from customers and support cases, and applying wholesale-specific fit scoring. Because the team chose a build-and-maintain arrangement, battlecards and rules get updated between shows without pulling reps off selling.

What starts it

• A lead capture app or badge scan export is uploaded at the end of each show day
• A rep logs a booth conversation note or voice memo against a contact in HubSpot
• A researched lead reaches day five after the show with no logged touch
• A prospect replies or books, prompting a refreshed brief before the meeting
• The seasonal show calendar marks a new event two weeks out, prompting re-research of past contacts attending it

What it reads

• HubSpot contacts, companies, deals and booth notes
• Shopify store and wholesale channel data (existing stockists, past wholesale orders, consumer order history)
• Help Scout tickets, to catch open order, shipping or return issues tied to a contact
• Public retailer storefronts, store locators and social profiles
• FullEnrich and Apollo for verified buyer emails, titles and store counts
• A maintained battlecard library of competing brands, pricing tiers, minimums and margin positioning

When a person takes over

• Multi-door chains, department stores and distributors go straight to the head of wholesale, because terms, exclusivity and volume pricing are founder-level decisions the agent should not frame.
• Any lead with an open order, shipping or return ticket goes to support first; sales outreach waits until the issue is resolved so a buyer is never pitched while their package is lost.
• Territory conflicts, where a prospect sits near an existing stockist, go to the account owner to decide before any outreach is drafted.
• Requests for custom pricing, net terms, dropship or private label captured in booth notes are routed to a rep with the note attached rather than answered in a draft.

Rules it follows

• Never send outreach automatically; every first touch is reviewed and sent by a rep.
• Never quote wholesale pricing, minimums, margins or terms that are not in the approved battlecard library, and never make claims about a competitor that are not sourced.
• Treat order status, shipping and returns as support matters: suppress sales outreach to any contact with an open ticket, and never let the agent answer those questions in a sales email.
• Respect seasonal load: during peak consumer season, cap the daily research and task volume to what reps can actually work, and push lower-fit leads to the next buying window instead of flooding the queue.
• Keep consumer contacts out of wholesale sequences and apply their existing email consent status.

How you know it works

• Median days from badge scan to first rep touch
• Share of show leads researched and ranked within 48 hours of the show closing
• Line review meetings booked per show
• New wholesale accounts and opening order pipeline attributed to each show
• Count of prospects contacted while a support ticket was open (target zero)

From pilot to live

1. Pilot on the last show's backlogRun the agent on the untouched list from the most recent show. Reps grade brief accuracy, fit scores and draft quality, and the team tunes the sorting rules, scoring and battlecards before anything touches a live event.
2. Live at the next showTurn on nightly ingest during the next event so researched, ranked leads and drafts are waiting when the team returns. Track scan-to-touch time and meetings booked against the pilot list.
3. Every show, maintained year roundExtend to all events on the seasonal calendar, add pre-show re-research of past contacts, and maintain battlecards, enrichment sources and scoring as assortments and competitors change. Review KPIs after each show and adjust caps for peak season.