Sell ​​to Walmart and Target

Many inventors and new product entrepreneurs want to sell to Target or Wal-Mart. And some do. It won’t be easy for you to make the sale and there are many hurdles, but the fact is that both Wal-Mart and Target are open to new vendors, they both have an open introduction policy, and you may be able to succeed if you set up a plan that will show the retailers that your product will be sold. Wal-Mart goes a bit further than Target in being accessible to new retailers by having a buy local program where inventors can have their test product on the market at their local store and, if successful, could be collected throughout the country. The path to success for both Wal-Mart and Target is to build some momentum in the market to show that the product will sell, and then just go through the retailer pitching process until you can be in front of a buyer.

Many of you are probably skeptical about your chances of getting your product to Wal-Mart or Target. So I’m going to start with a couple of success stories.

Success stories

Kim Babjack launched her business on QVC, selling her first 2,000 Zip-A-Ruffles, which is a ruffled bed skirt that zips open and closed for easy cleaning. Zip-A-Ruffles ran successfully at QVC for several years and created a story for Babjack when he came up with a new product idea in 2005, Animalid, a 3-D animal graphic toilet seat cover designed for help young children feel more comfortable. comfortable during the potty training process.

Babjack was sure her product would sell at Wal-Mart and approached the local Wal-Mart store manager about carrying the Animalid. After working for a year to get an appointment, Babjack introduced her, the store manager loved her, and after just a small mountain of paperwork and the district manager’s approval, Babjack’s product was on the shelf. shelf. Animalids had a name update to Animal Lidz, and never dominated the market, but it still had its place at Wal-Mart and a shot at permanent glory.

Husband and wife combination Vanessa Troyer and Chris Farentinos came up with a simple idea, a lockable mailbox. The postman could put the mail in, but you could only get the mail out with a key. Sales of its two products, the Oasis and Oasis Jr., have Troyer and Farentinos’ Architectural Mailboxes company running in the marketplace and directly into the Target catalog and website. To date, they have sold more than 150,000 of their block card installments, which retail for between $97 and $258.

Troyer and Farentinos built their credentials by successfully selling through Amazon. Through persistent effort, he located the home address of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and sent him a presentation on how much money Amazon was losing due to the loss of his packages. The day after the presentation it arrived called Amazon and today they carry more than 50 Architectural Mailboxes products. The Oasis Lockable Mailbox is not only sold by Target, it’s also sold by Home Depot, Costco, and Lowes.

The shipping process

Both Wal-Mart and Target have an introduction process before you have a chance to meet a buyer. Your chances of finding a buyer will increase as you succeed in the market.

walmart

National Program

1. Go to the Wal-Mart website and look for the vendors section.
2. On the left side of the page and for Product Shipping. There will be a link on the site for Wal-Mart’s online submission packet.
3. You can upload only 512KB of data. Therefore, you may need to lower the image quality of your brochure to stay below that limit.
4. The online submission form does not ask for your bestseller, but if you keep the brochure size small, you can include a jpeg page with your current bestseller.
5. Once you do this, you should wait for the buyer to contact you to request a sample or hopefully a quote.

You can only be so active in the National Program, and you really can’t control how buyers will respond, so it can be daunting as you’re not in control of the situation. Fortunately, Wal-Mart also has a Buy Local program option that offers you the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting.

local purchase program

If you want to sell your product only in a limited market, Wal-Mart requires you to use its local buying program, where you must convince a Wal-Mart manager to like your product, then complete a local vendor questionnaire and make that the District Manager approve the questionnaire. You can do this even if you hope to eventually sell to all Wal-Marts, but you only need to start with the local store manager.

It sounds pretty easy. The problem is getting that appointment with the store manager. This is where you need to provide a lot of information about the success of your product, pointing out exactly in the store where your product should go, and explaining how your product has outsold the other products Wal-Mart has on the shelf elsewhere. The store manager is busy and won’t see you until he’s convinced your product will sell. You should expect to try to make an appointment for at least 90 days and you should continue to provide information to get the store manager interested. You may also want to try going in to see various store managers. The store manager’s point of view will be that only one product in 100 will be worth looking at. His job will be to provide short bursts of information that prove his product is the right one.

Some steps you can take to help the manager see that your product is correct:

1. Be successful in sales, preferably in larger stores. Be sure to display images of your product on the shelves of those stores.
2. Attend trade shows, show your booth display.
3. Get testimonials from satisfied users.
4. Showcase the PR you’ve generated in industry or consumer magazines.
5. Create effective packaging.
6. Be prepared to show that you can deliver large amounts, either with a D&B report or a detailed explanation of how you can finance the deliveries.

Aim

Target wants new suppliers to call its Supply Information Center at 612-696-7500. When you call, people who want to sell a product to Target will be directed to email [email protected]. You will only get a response if the target people like your product. So you want to make sure you include as much information as you can about your product, its sales success, and also your ability to finance production. The email itself should show an image of the product, in its package if possible. You only get a brief chance to make your point, so you need to be direct. You can submit your item multiple times, but space submissions at least six weeks apart.

I recommend that you have it in the email itself, not as an attached file,

1. Start with the category, for example: New Electronics.
2. Name one or two items that Target currently has that your product should be next to. For example: place it next to digital cameras and camcorders.
3. State where it has been sold. On one line only, list only the largest retailers, catalogs, or Home Shopping Network.
4. Enter the suggested retail price.
5. Your contact information.
6. A photo of the product in its packaging. Don’t make the image too big, 2 x 2.5 inches is fine. You can enlarge the image if necessary.

Also include as many items as you can from the above list on how to convince the store manager to meet with you as attachments.

Other options

While Wal-mart and Target have a process that anyone can use to pitch your product, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for you to get an appointment with a buyer where you can pitch your product. You may be shut out and never get a chance to make your case convincing. If that were to happen, you still have two other options to explore: sell through distributors who might sell to the big box retailers, or have a company that already sells to Wal-mart or Target market your product for you. Always try to sell your product yourself first, often Target or Wal-Mart prefer to buy from the manufacturer first, and selling through other companies will make much less money than selling direct. But if you can’t get through the door at first, you may need to take another approach.

dealers

There are many ways to find dealers who can handle your product. Industry trade magazines often have an annual directory listing distributors. Larger libraries will have Gale’s Source of Magazines and Broadcast Media, which lists almost all trade magazines, or you can try an Internet search. Trade Associations will also have a directory of distributors. Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations in Larger Libraries can also help you, as can an Internet search.

You can also search the Internet for directory listings for dealers, for example:

-Top Ten Wholesale
-Wholesale directory
-Directory of Wholesale Distributors
-Wholesale Center

Contact the dealer and get the name of the person in charge of the products they carry. Then send that person the same package you sent to Target and Walmart about your product. Even if the distributor doesn’t sell to Target or Wal-mart, they may still be willing to carry your product and sell it to other customers. Expect the dealer to increase their price from 20 to 33%, so the suggested retail price will need to increase as well. Retailers will mark a product from 50 to 100%. Once you know what margins are standard in your industry, you can determine what your suggested retail price is.

Other manufacturers or marketers

Your other option is to go to the store and find products in the same area as yours. For example, if you have a kitchen product, you would be interested in all other manufacturers of kitchen products. Try to find a midsize company. You can then contact the marketing department, say you have a product that has been a huge seller and would fit naturally into their product line. Have a package similar to the one from Walmart ready to send to the marketing person if they are interested. Expect the manufacturer to increase its price with a minimum of 33%.

Good luck

Selling to Walmart and Target is hard, and even if they like your product, they will often try to negotiate a price so low that you may have trouble making money. But while it’s difficult, it’s not impossible, and small vendors sell to Walmart and Target all the time. Just remember that if you get turned down at first, you can go out and make additional sales and then come back and try to sell again.