Might be a good time to consider adding a new sales channel…
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Highly recommend…
For all of those that might sell something under your own brand, and something that would fit with B&M Walmart, there’s no better way to get your foot in their actual doors.
We haven’t gotten a full commitment from them yet but they were impressed with what we have been able to do on their marketplace.
It’s also the first place their category managers look when adding new items to their stores.
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This makes sense
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Paris Hilton is hawking her brands at Wal-Mart. Have you seen her commercials?
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Of course, it’s the same concept as Amazon Basics managers looking at marketplace sellers’ data to figure out which products to knock off or to start selling as a 1P. On any large marketplace there’s billions worth of market research data. How could they NOT use that?
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Oh God, make her STOP. My wife got invited to one of her parties, so I had to escort her. This was 2015 or 16, and she was living in one of those warehouses that sat derelict from the 1970s to the 2000s, and then suddenly became “chic” due to the name “SoHo” being applied to anything south of Houston St.
Anyway… photos of HERSELF on nearly EVERY wall. It was surreal. Bigger than poster-sized photos. And her dogs were not at all trained… a Pom, a Pug, several Chihuahuas, all not interested in the attention and snacks available, but more interested in grabbing and pulling on hems of rather pricey dresses worn by the female attendees.
She is not much of a conversationalist, but there were far more interesting people there, any way. I don’t understand why she was “famous” for a while, but I do know that her DJ career was cut very short by just about every venue, as people would not show up when she was slated to get anywhere near the turntables.
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Was getting a tour of Kimberly-Clark in Appleton, Wisconsin 30+ years ago (yes, I’m that old) and they had just gotten into Walmart. Employee giving the tour pointed at a long line of pallet wrapping stations and said, “See those? When we got the Walmart contract we had to rip the entire line out and replace them with ones that worked with Walmart-sized pallets. Cost? $3 million (1990 dollars). All this for a 1% profit.”
Selling directly to Walmart will get you huge volumes but at the cost of tiny margins and a huge investment in scaling quickly to meet their demands. Not saying that it’s not worth it, but it will change your business model a little. 
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I think the new way to make profit selling at B&M Walmart, is off the insurance claim when your stuff gets stolen or shot up on the display.
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There have been a lot of articles about the surge in high income Walmart buyers.
I have not found one which defines high income.
There is definitely an effect. I probably meet someone’s definition of high income, I do some buying at Walmart, using Walmart.com to tell me what is in stock in the local stores.
But Walmart has been a shopping destination for me for quite a few years.
And there is a downside to the relationship between the stores and Walmart.com. More empty shelves in the stores because the merchandise is being sold on .com.
Walmart used to be noted for its unmatchable inventory management process. It is not what it once was.
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From the article, a quote by a consultant. Not sure if this is how Walmart themselves defines “affluent” or “high income”:
“Walmart hits the sweet spot by offering both convenience and quality while making several changes to better appeal to more affluent households – with households with more than $100,000 in income now being one of their largest contributors to growth.”
Personally, I’m not certain that $100k is a good marker for “rich consumers” in 2024:
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I do not think it is. BUT Walmart has claimed “more affluent”, and I believe they might be claiming that based on the estimates which have been published on the income of Prime members.
The estimates of the Walmart customer, the Amazon non-Prime member and the Prime member of often been compared. $100k is close to numbers I have seen for Prime Members.
I have a hard time with numbers like this. Especially when I see articles like this
It is one town over from us.
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Or you could be the manufacturer. That’s the other way.
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Walmart exclusively buys from manufacturers. A company of that size doesn’t buy through a 3rd party distributor. And they’re notorious for driving a hard bargain with their suppliers, which include many very large companies that have a lot of negotiating power.
That said, if I were you I would jump at the opportunity to get your product on the shelves there even if that means breaking even on your sales to walmart. The exposure you would get for your brand is massive and would open the door to have more favorable deals with other chains.
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They buy exclusively from brands, not necessarily manufacturers. You’d be surprised how many brands that are huge in my world rely on a contract manufacturer to make their product.
I’ve played on both sides of the fence since the 90’s so we know what we are doing and all the risks / rewards. It’s 2 years later than I wanted to be at this stage but we are finally ready and doing our best to be the best with a very solid team / sales team behind us.
IDK what’s going to happen but you never know until you try.
My excitement is tamped down because we tried to cross this road once before, with the wrong people and before we were really ready. Learned from that mistake and spent the time and the cash to do it right for the best possible result.
For now, just going through the motions before we go through the emotions.
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Walmart also has exclusive contracts with brands. Years ago, the parents of a friend of mine owned a shoe store. Like many shoe stores, they also sold socks for customers who wanted a new pair of socks to go with their new pair of shoes. One day the store owners were contacted by Walmart and informed that they could no sell the brand of socks that they had been selling for many years. Why? They were told that Walmart now had exclusive rights to sell that brand of socks. 
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