Many new product inventors and entrepreneurs want to sell to Target or Wal-Mart. And some do. It won’t be easy to make the sale and there are a lot of roadblocks, but the fact is that both Wal-Mart and Target are open to new suppliers, they both have an open presentation policy, and you may be able to be successful if you set up a plan to show customers. retailers that your product will be sold. Wal-Mart goes a bit further than Target by being accessible to new retailers by having a local buy program where inventors can have their product test market at their local store and if successful it could be picked up all over the place. 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 work through the retailers’ presentation process until you can be in front of a buyer.
Many of you are probably skeptical about your prospects introducing your product to Wal-Mart or Target. So, I’ll start with a couple of success stories.
Success stories
Kim Babjack launched her business at QVC, selling her first 2,000 Zip-A-Ruffles, which is a ruffled bed skirt that zips in and out of the bed pad 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 graphics toilet seat designed to help young children become more comfortable during the potty training process.
Babjack was confident that her product would sell at Wal-Mart and approached her local Wal-Mart store manager to bring the Animalid. After working for a year to get an appointment, Babjack made his presentation, the store manager loved it and after just a small mountain of paperwork and approval from the district manager, Babjack’s product was on the shelf. Animalids had a name update to Animal Lidz, and it never dominated the market, but it still had its place at Wal-Mart and a chance for permanent glory.
Combined husband and wife Vanessa Troyer and Chris Farentinos had a simple idea, a locked mailbox. The postman could send the mail, but you could only get the mail out with a key. Sales of its two products, Oasis and Oasis Jr., make Troyer and Farentinos’ Architectural Mailboxes business ready to go to market and directly on Target’s catalog and website. To date, they have sold more than 150,000 of their blocked cards, which retail for between $ 97 and $ 258.
Troyer and Farentinos developed their credentials by successfully selling through Amazon. Through persistent effort, he located the home address of Jeff Bezos, president of Amazon, and sent him a presentation on how much money Amazon was losing due to the loss of its packages. The day after the presentation, Amazon called and today they carry more than 50 Architectural Mailboxes products. The Oasis Lockable Mailbox is not only sold by Target, it is also sold by Home Depot, Costco and Lowes.
The submission process
Both Wal-Mart and Target have a shipping process before you have a chance to meet a buyer. Your chances of finding a buyer will increase as you succeed in the market.
Wal-Mart
National Program
1. Go to the Wal-Mart website and look for the vendor 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 presentation package.
3. You are allowed to upload only 512 KB 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 about your sales success, but if you keep your brochure small, you can include a one-page jpeg of your current sales success.
5. Once this is done, you should wait for the buyer to contact you to request a sample or hopefully an appointment.
You can only be so active in the National Program, and you can’t really control how buyers will respond, so it can be daunting as you are not in control of the situation. Fortunately, Wal-Mart also has the option of the local shopping program that offers you the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting.
Local shopping program
If you want to sell your product only in a limited market, Wal-Mart requires you to use its local buy program, where you have to convince a Wal-Mart manager that you like your product, then you have to fill out a local supplier questionnaire and do have the District Manager approve the questionnaire. You can do this even if you hope to eventually sell to every Wal-Mart, but you just need to start with the local store manager.
Sounds easy enough. 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, indicate exactly in the store where your product should go, and explain how your product has outsold the other products Wal-Mart has on shelves at other locations. The store manager is busy and will not see you until you can be convinced that 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 can also try going in to see multiple store managers. The point of view of the store manager will be that only one in 100 products is worth seeing. Your job will be to provide short bursts of information that prove your product is the right one.
Some steps you can take to help your 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 in those stores.
2. Attend trade shows, show your booth display.
3. Get testimonials from satisfied users.
4. Show the public relations you have generated in industry or consumer magazines.
5. Create effective packaging.
6. Be prepared to show that you can deliver large quantities, either with a D&B report or with a detailed explanation of how you can finance deliveries.
objective
Target wants new suppliers to call its Sourcing Information Center at 612-696-7500. When you call, they will direct people who want to sell a product to Target to send an email to [email protected]. You will only get an answer if the target people like your product. So you need to make sure to include as much information as you can about your product, the success of your sales, and also your ability to finance production. The email itself should show a picture of the product, on its packaging if possible. You only get a brief opportunity to express your point of view, so be direct. You can submit your item multiple times, but space deliveries at least six weeks apart.
I recommend that you have in the email itself, not as an attachment,
1. Start with the category, for example: New Electronic Product.
2. Mention one or two items that Target currently has along with your product. For example: place it next to digital cameras and camcorders.
3. Indicate where it was sold. In a single line, list only the major retailers, catalogs, or home shopping network.
4. Enter the suggested retail price.
5. Your contact information.
6. An image of the product in its package. Don’t make the image too large, 2 x 2.5 inches is fine. They can enlarge the image if necessary.
Also include as attachments as many items as you can from the above list on how to convince the store manager to meet with you.
Other options
While Wal-mart and Target have a process that anyone can use to present their product, that doesn’t mean that it will be easy for you to get an appointment with a buyer where you can present your product. You may be excluded and never get a chance to present your case convincingly. If that happens, you still have two other options to explore: sell through distributors who could sell to large 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 if you sell through other companies, you will make much less money than if you sell direct. But if you can’t get in the door at first, you may need to take another approach.
Dealers
There are many ways to find distributors to handle your product. Industry trade magazines often have an annual directory where they would list distributors. Larger libraries will have Gale’s magazine and broadcast media source, which lists almost all trade magazines, or you can try an internet search. Trade associations will also have a dealer directory. Gale’s Encyclopedia of Associations in Larger Libraries can help, too, as can an Internet search.
You can also search the Internet for lists of dealer directories, for example:
-Top ten wholesale
-Wholesale directory
-Directory of wholesale distributors
-Central wholesale
Contact the distributor and get the name of the person in charge of the products they sell. Then send that person the same package that you sent to Target and Wal-mart about your product. Even if the distributor doesn’t sell to Target or Wal-mart, they may still be willing to sell their 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 look for products in the same area as yours. For example, if you have a kitchen product, you would be interested in all other kitchen product manufacturers. Try to find a medium-sized company. You can then contact the marketing department and say that you have a product that has been very successful in sales and would naturally fit into their product line. Have a Wal-mart-like package ready to send to the marketer if they are interested. Expect manufacturing to increase its price for them by a minimum of 33%.
Good luck
Selling to Wal-mart and Target is difficult, and even if they like your product, they will often try to negotiate such a low price that you could have trouble making money. But while it’s difficult, it’s not impossible, and small vendors sell to Wal-mart and Target all the time. Just remember that if you are rejected at first, you can go out and make upsells and then come back and try to sell again.