Many inventors and new goods entrepreneurs want to sell to Target or Wal-Mart. And some do. You won't have any easy time development the sale, and there are plentifulness of obstacles, but the fact is that both Wal-Mart and Target are open to new vendors, both have an open submission procedure and you might be able to result if you set up a plan to that will show the retailers that your goods will sell. Wal-Mart goes a wee bit supplementary than Target in being accessible to new retailers by having a local buying agenda where inventors can as a matter of fact have their goods test market in their local store, and if it succeeds it just might be picked up over the country. The road to both Wal-Mart and Target success is to build up some market momentum to show the goods will sell, and then naturally work straight through the retailers' submission process until you can get in front of a buyer.
Many of you are probably skeptical about your prospects about getting your goods into Wal-Mart or Target. So I'm going to start with a merge of success stories.
Walmart Jobs
Success Stories
Kim Babjack launched her company at Qvc, selling her first 2,000 Zip-A-Ruffles, which is a ruffled bed skirt that zips on and off the bed pad for easy cleaning. The Zip-A-Ruffles ran successfully on Qvc for any years and created a history for Babjack when she came up with a new goods idea in 2005, the Animalid a toilet-lid cover with 3-D animal graphics designed to help toddlers feel more comfortable during the potty-training process.
Babjack was sure her goods would sell at Wal-Mart and she advent her local Wal-Mart Store employer to carry the Animalid. After working for a year to get an appointment, Babjack made her presentation, the store employer loved it and after only a small mountain of paperwork and approval of the district employer Babjack's goods was on the shelf. Animalids had a name upgrade to Animal Lidz, and never dominated the market but it still had its spot on the Wal-Mart and a chance for permanent glory.
The husband and wife aggregate Vanessa Troyer and Chris Farentinos came up with a simple idea, a lockable mailbox. The mailman could put the mail in, but you could only get the mail out with a key. Their two products', the Oasis and the Oasis Jr., sales have Troyer and Farentinos' company Architectural Mailboxes off and running in the marketplace and right into Target's catalog and website. To date they have sold more than 150,000 of their locked letter drops, which retail for to 8.
Troyer and Farentinos developed their credentials by selling successfully straight through Amazon. straight through a persistent effort she settled the home address of Jeff Bezos, president of Amazon and sent him a presentation on how much money Amazon was losing because their packages were lost. The day after the presentation arrived Amazon called and today they carry over 50 of Architectural Mailboxes products. The Oasis locking mailbox is not just sold by Target, it is also sold by Home Depot, Costco and Lowes.
The Submission Process
Both Wal-Mart and Target have a submission process before you have a chance to meet a buyer. Your chances of meeting a buyer will increase as you have success in the market.
Wal-Mart
National Program
1. Go to the Wal-Mart's web page and find the victualer section.
2. On the left side of the page and for goods Submission. There will be a link at the site for Wal-Mart's online submission package.
3. You are allowed to upload only 512 Kb of data. So you might need to cut down your brochure image potential to keep under that limit.
4. The online submission form doesn't ask for your sales success but if you keep your brochure down in size you can contain a jpeg of a page with your current sales success.
5. Once you do this you need to wait for the buyer to contact you to ask a sample or hopefully an appointment.
You can only be so active in the National Program, and you can't as a matter of fact operate how the buyers will respond, so it can be discouraging as you don't have operate of the situation. Fortunately Wal-Mart also has the local buying agenda option that offers you an chance for a one-on-one meeting.
Local Buying Program
If you want to sell your goods only in a wee market, Wal-Mart requires you to use their local buying program, where you need to convince one Wal-Mart employer to like your product, then you need to faultless a local victualer questionnaire and have the District employer approve the questionnaire. You can do this even if you hope to at last sell to all Wal-Marts, but you just need to start with the local store manager.
Sounds easy enough. The question is getting that appointment with the store manager. This is where you need to provide lots of success data about your product, state exactly in the store where your goods should go, and explain how your goods has outsold the other products that Wal-Mart has on the shelf at other locations. The store employer is busy, and won't see you until you can be convincing that your goods will sell. You need to expect to try to make an appointment for at least 90 days and you need to keep furnishing data to get the store employer interested. You also might want to try and get in to see any store managers. The store manager's point of view is going to be that only one out of 100 products will be worth seeing. Your job will be to provide short bursts of data that will show your goods is the right one.
Some steps you can take to help the employer see your goods is right:
1. Have sales success, preferably in bigger stores. Be sure to show pictures of your goods on the shelves of those stores.
2. Attend trade shows, show your booth display.
3. Collect testimonials from satisfied users.
4. Show Pr you have generated in manufactures or buyer magazines.
5. Originate productive 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 fund deliveries.
Target
Target wants new vendors to call their Sourcing data town at 612-696-7500. When you call they will direct population who want to sell a goods to Target to send an email to target.globalplanning@target.com. You will only get a response if the Target population like your product. So you need to be sure that you contain all the data you can about your product, your sales success and also your potential to fund production. The email itself should show a photo of the product, in its box if you can. You only have a brief chance to make your point so you have to be direct. You can send in your item multiple times, but space the submittals at least six weeks apart.
I propose you have in the email itself, not as an attachment,
1. Start with the category, for instance: New Electronic Product.
2. Mention one or two items currently carried by Target that your goods should be next to. For example: place next to digital cameras and camcorders.
3. State where it has been sold. Just on one line, list only the biggest retailers, catalogs or Home Shopping Network.
4. List the recommend retail price.
5. Your contact information.
6. A photo of the goods in its package. Don't make the photo too big, 2 x 2.5 inches is fine. They can strengthen the photo if needed.
Also contain as attachments as many items as you can from the list above on how to convince the store employer that he or she should meet with you.
Other Options
While Wal-mart and Target both have a process that anyone can use to gift their product, that doesn't mean that you will have an easy time getting an appointment with a buyer where you can pitch your product. You might be shut out and never get the chance to make your convincing case. If that should happen, you still have two other options to explore: selling straight through distributors who might sell to the big retailers, or having a company that already sells to Wal-mart or Target market your goods for you. Always first try to sell your goods yourself, often Target or Wal-Mart prefer to buy from the create first, and if you sell straight through other clubs you will make far less money than if you sell directly. But if you can't get in the door at first you may need to take other approach.
Distributors
There are many ways to find distributors that would deal with your product. manufactures Trade Magazines often have an yearly directory where they would list distributors. Larger libraries will have Gale's Source of Magazines and Broadcast Media which lists practically all trade magazines, or you can try an internet search. Trade Associations will also have a directory of distributors. Gale's Encyclopedia of Associations at larger libraries can also help you, as can an internet search.
You can also check crusade the internet for directory listings for distributors, for instance:
-Top Ten Wholesale
-Wholesale Directory
-Wholesale Distributors Directory
-Wholesale Central
Contact the jobber and get the name of the person in fee of what products they carry. Then send that person the same box you sent to Target and Wal-mart about your product. Even if the jobber doesn't sell to Target or Wal-mart they might still be willing to carry your goods and sell it to other customers. Expect the jobber to mark your price up from 20 to 33%, so you recommend retail price will also need to go up. Retailers will mark a goods up from 50 to 100%. Once you know what mark-ups are accepted in your manufactures you can conclude what your recommend retail price is.
Other manufactures or Marketers
Your other option is to go into the store and find products in the same area as yours. For example, if you have a kitchen product, you would be concerned in all the other manufacturers of kitchen products. Try to find a mid-size company. You can then contact the marketing department, say you have a goods that has had strong sales success, and that would be a natural fit into their goods line. Have a box similar to Wal-mart's ready to send the marketing person if they have interest. Expect the create to mark-up your price to them a minimum of 33%.
Good Luck
Selling to Wal-mart and Target is difficult, and even if they like your goods they will often try to negotiate such a low price that you might have issue development money. But while difficult, it is not impossible, and small vendors sell to Wal-mart and Target all the time. Just remember if you are rejected at first that you can go out and make supplementary sales and then go back and try to sell again.
Selling to Wal-Mart and Target
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