Hi,
I just saw my Amazon competitors’ products selling on Target Plus marketplace. Their listings already have half a dozen review stars. It seems that I’m slow to learn about this. I wonder about the sales volume, whether it would be enough for us to get into? For example, I sell on Amazon and Walmart. The volume on Walmart is only about 1% or 2% of volume on amazon. I wonder that if Target Plus’s volume would be even lower (my guess is yes). Please share your thoughts/experiences. Thanks.
I believe Tplus is invite only. Well, sort of. You can apply to be invited - LOL
EIN / DUNS # and all the usual established business info needed to apply.
Here are the deets for those interested:
Before you apply, please ensure your business can meet the following requirements:
A. Partner SKU
B. Barcode (EAN)
C. Brand
D. Product Title
E. Product Description
F. Partner Item Category
G. Primary Image URL
H. Ship Speed (Ground, 2 day, 1 day)
I. Retail Price
J. Partner Item Subcategory
Our team will evaluate all submissions and will reach out if your assortment aligns with our current priorities. Responses are not guaranteed.
You’re right that it’s invite only. However you’re right again that they would invite you after applying 
Thanks for the requirements. What is this one? SKU count lives within 75-days…? huh?
I wonder if the sales volume is worth all the trouble…
Good question. No idea…
Is it worth it? Not sure. Our goal is to be on their shelves, not the marketplace. We are not set up or interested in shipping direct to the consumer. They don’t have a FBA / WFS type setup.
We might look into it after round 2 of our broker’s work.
We’re in at Rite Aid / ShopRitre (launching Q4) and have a shot at CVS / Walmart / Dollar General (which would be amazing), Weis market, and a few other smaller players.
We’ve spent the last 9 months really gearing up to actually be successful. We shall see what happens. Hoping for the best.
Dollar General - We made real mockup samples of tiny sizes that crush their current other brand name assortment on price by 50%. Actually they are “bonus” sizes with a matching price with 50% free as to not erode their avg ticket. Tapped into my old Nature’s Bounty experience with that one. Haha.
If we get into Dollar General, I will probably just die of a heart attack due to excitement.
That would be ~360,000 units per month per sku.
The nice thing about DG and Walmart is they don’t require any additional support - just 50 points. Getting in is the hard part of course.
Not bragging, just showing what’s possible if you’ve got something special. Worked 7 days a week since 2019 on building this brand. Worked 20+ years before that learning my craft.
Who knows, maybe it will all fail. Again, hoping for the best. TBH, as good as we do on Amazon and Walmart, not swimming in $. Put exactly $0.00 in my pocket from 2018-2021 with all of this work.
It’s not easy.
As in don’t ship from FBA, or don’t use FBA at all?
I’m assuming they are talking about dropshipping without saying drop shipping.
Might be a gamble to use MCF from FBA to fulfill these orders even though you should be able to.
The problem with MCF (that I just recently discovered) is that Amazon is still noted as the shipper even if you click off packaging / smile van.
Once the tracking # is inputed, Target will pick that up and that will probably be that.
I THINK this means they ask you how many SKU’s your going to list, and within 75 days of being approved you must have at least 75% of your said items live and for sale
That’s what it sounds like but seems like a silly requirement. That’s new one.
Presumably it’s to prove that you can quickly make available what you contractually agreed to make available, breadth wise. A bit nitpicky, but good to know up front.
Who would go through the effort of applying, then getting accepted, and not be able to sell what you say you can sell? Real amateur hour ish…
Maybe their selection process isn’t that stringent???
Anyone with a DUNS # is normally a pro although it’s not that hard to get and doesn’t even cost anything.
Actually, that sounds a LOT like a bunch of the recent suspensions for Amazon rookies that are clueless.
It still amazes me that people think ecommerce marketplaces are easy and / or gold mines.
You really need to be pretty light on brain cells to not understand what you’re up against.
That is exactly what they mean. As it’s invite only, they are offering limited “spots” for sellers so they don’t want anyone who is planning on selling something that they don’t actually have available for sale now.
I applied and didn’t get invited, so it’s not as easy as just completing their requirements. From what I understand, they are only looking for a few sellers in each category as they don’t want to deal with the drama that comes with competitor games like we see on Amazon. Smart decision in my view. They said they would open it up more in the future so there may be opportunities later.
Don’t die. Be happy
I think it’s worth it. Our Target store performed better than Walmart this last quarter with only 10% of our catalog we have listed on Walmart. We recently were accepted as a partner and went through the onboarding mentioned above. I unfortunately did not take part in onboarding, but now I have the task of keeping our catalog up to date. I’m still learning Target’s account metrics; they keep track of your in-stock/out-of stock-ratio and you must maintain an Order Defect Rate of 5% or less for your account to be in good standing. I should probably look more into their policies, but for now I’m listing away and trying to catch our catalog up haha.
Wow! That’s cool. How difficult is it to get your products on to the shelves of these retailers? Like you, I’m also not setup to ship direct to consumer. So, I’m interested to be on the shelves like what you’re doing.
Hahaha 
happy death
Hmm how did they come up with that estimate for products that never been sold there?
No, you’re bragging. It’s an inspirational story. How to start working with these big box retailers? Did you read books, follow YouTube channels, etc? I would like to start learning how to.
I THINK you’re right. Man, I feel ashamed that I need someone to translate English to English for me 
It’s because of the YouTube gurus who keep making videos painting rosy and rainbow pictures selling on Amazon. In the last 3 years, I have had about half a dozen guys at my gym talked to me about wanting to sell things on Amazon.
Thanks for sharing this info. Did they tell you the reason for denial?
Yes, it’s good that they only accept US sellers. No Chinese sellers to bid the prices down. Let’s see how long that last. I think eventually Target would have to do like Amazon and Walmart, to let Chinese sellers sell on their platform to have the price advantage to compete.
We got a category veteran broker involved. Someone I knew for 25 years and someone that just happened to be working with my partner on another brand his company manufacturers for.
First we buttoned ourselves up though with a nice social media presence, good data to back up our business from Amazon and Walmart, and a very professional website.
It also helps to know people. I wasn’t all sorts of crazy about going into Rite Aid considering they just got out of bankruptcy but the broker got 3 items in and I got an additional 4 in because a good friend of mine from the past (a previous boss from my past life) is a VP there now. Didn’t want to pull any favors so I never even told him we were approaching RA until after we got in. With a friend there, it makes it a little easier to stomach and trust we will get paid…
That’s their avg unit per door in the category. 6 units per week per store.
15K X 6 X 4 = 360K. They have 19K doors but only 15K handle supplements.
DG is a beast and they are pretty selective with who they work in. Getting into that curated assortment is automatic validation and most everything that gets in sells.
It’s impossible without good representation from a broker unless you have an endless advertising budget to have them come to you.
DG moves so much product, they can’t keep the shelves stocked.
