How to sell to Founders at E-commerce companies
Founders of e-commerce companies are primarily measured on revenue growth and customer retention. They respond to outreach that clearly demonstrates an understanding of their unique market challenges, such as high cart abandonment rates or the need for efficient fulfillment processes. When you can show insights specific to their business model, they are more likely to engage with you.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 578 e-commerce company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- high cart abandonment
- inefficient fulfillment
- customer service complaints
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding rounds
Use platforms like Crunchbase to filter for e-commerce companies that have recently secured funding. These founders are often looking to invest in solutions that will help them scale quickly and efficiently, making them more receptive to outreach.
- 02
Analyze customer feedback trends
Review product reviews and social media mentions for e-commerce brands to identify common pain points, such as slow shipping or poor customer service. Tailor your messaging to address these specific issues, as founders are keen on improving their customer experience.
- 03
Monitor industry events and launches
Keep track of e-commerce trade shows and product launches. Reaching out shortly after a major event can capitalize on the founder's heightened interest in innovation and improvements. Mentioning specific insights from the event can increase your email's relevance.
- 04
Prepare for objections on budget
Founders may hesitate due to budget constraints. Be ready to discuss flexible pricing models or ROI examples from similar businesses. This preparation can help you address their concerns directly and position your offering as a necessary investment.
- 05
Follow up after initial outreach
If you haven't received a response within a week, send a follow-up email referencing any recent company news or product updates. This shows you are engaged and aware of their business, increasing the likelihood of a response.
Can e-commerce companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 578 e-commerce companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 19.6% of 1–10-person companies against 67.5% of the largest — 48 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improving your cart conversion
- Solving fulfillment challenges
- Insights on customer retention
Questions
- Why do e-commerce founders ignore cold outreach?
- E-commerce founders often receive a high volume of cold outreach, leading to fatigue. They may ignore messages that don’t immediately address their specific challenges or show a clear understanding of their market. Personalization and relevance are key to capturing their attention.
- What messaging resonates with e-commerce founders?
- Messaging that highlights solutions to common industry challenges, such as improving customer experience or optimizing operations, tends to resonate with e-commerce founders. They appreciate insights that are directly applicable to their business model and growth objectives.
- How can I demonstrate value to e-commerce founders?
- To demonstrate value, focus on case studies or examples that showcase measurable results in similar e-commerce businesses. Founders are often driven by data and results, so presenting clear outcomes can significantly enhance your outreach effectiveness.
- What timing is best for reaching out to e-commerce founders?
- The best time to reach out is typically just after a major sales event, like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, when founders are reflecting on performance. Additionally, contacting them during industry events can also yield higher engagement rates.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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