How to sell to Founders at E-commerce companies in Germany
Founders of e-commerce companies in Germany primarily measure their success by revenue growth. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their market challenges, such as inventory management and customer retention. Highlighting solutions that directly impact their bottom line will capture their attention and prompt a response.
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 rates
- inventory management issues
- customer retention challenges
- scaling logistics
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding rounds
Filter your list for e-commerce companies in Germany that have secured funding in the last six months. Use sources like Crunchbase or PitchBook to find this information. Founders are often looking for ways to maximize their new capital, making them more receptive to outreach.
- 02
Highlight specific pain points
Craft your message to address common issues faced by e-commerce founders, such as high cart abandonment rates or difficulties in scaling logistics. Use insights from industry reports to pinpoint these challenges. This demonstrates that you understand their operational hurdles.
- 03
Leverage seasonal trends
Time your outreach around key retail seasons, such as Black Friday or holiday shopping. Founders are particularly focused on maximizing sales during these periods. Mentioning how your solution can help them capitalize on these trends can increase the urgency of your pitch.
- 04
Reference competitive benchmarks
Include insights about how similar e-commerce brands are improving their performance metrics, such as conversion rates or customer lifetime value. Founders are interested in staying competitive, so referencing industry benchmarks can make your outreach more compelling.
- 05
Follow up with value-driven content
After your initial outreach, send a follow-up email containing valuable resources, like a whitepaper on e-commerce trends or a case study relevant to their industry. This positions you as a knowledgeable partner rather than just a salesperson, increasing the likelihood of securing a call.
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
- Boost your e-commerce sales
- Struggling with cart abandonment?
- Scaling your online store
Questions
- Why do e-commerce founders ignore cold outreach?
- E-commerce founders often receive numerous cold emails daily, making it difficult for them to discern valuable offers from generic pitches. They prioritize outreach that speaks directly to their specific pain points and provides clear, actionable insights relevant to their business.
- What messaging resonates with e-commerce founders?
- Messaging that highlights solutions to common industry challenges, such as improving operational efficiency or enhancing customer engagement, tends to resonate well. Founders appreciate concrete examples and data that demonstrate potential ROI from adopting new solutions.
- How can I effectively follow up with e-commerce founders?
- Effective follow-ups should provide additional value, such as industry insights or tailored recommendations based on their business model. Avoid generic follow-ups; instead, reference previous interactions and offer new information that could benefit their operations.
- What are the common objections from e-commerce founders?
- Common objections include budget constraints, skepticism about ROI, and concerns over implementation time. Understanding these objections allows you to prepare tailored responses that address their specific concerns and highlight the long-term benefits of your solution.
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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