Arena blog

So, your item is in Walmart or other retailers, but sales growth isn’t what you'd hoped. Perhaps fewer shoppers are aware of your brand, or the competition is fierce, or your marketing budget is modest. In short, you’re not sure how your current marketing choices are working. Join the club—famed ad man John Wanamaker once said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half”.

A recent series of best-selling books titled How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp pierces the clutter, laying a course of action for brand owners and marketers worldwide. How Brands Grow is a manifesto for evidence-based marketing: building brands based on what works in practice, rather than what should work in marketing theory. Guest blogger Jim Hauskey of Happy Egg Co. shares his take on How Brands Grow, and his company's experience applying the principles.

When you’re looking to launch a brand across U.S. retail, businesses tend to take any opportunity they’re given. They’re not highly selective when it comes to expanding into the U.S. market and instead, they throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.

That may be a fine strategy when you’re just trying to get your products on U.S. store shelves. But when those opportunities start to develop, the “throw everything” approach needs to go out the window. Instead, it’s time to be strategic and develop a game plan for where you go from that point on.

So let’s assume that your business has developed a presence in U.S. retail, and it’s looking to build upon that early success. What’s the path forward? What strategic variables need to be considered? Here’s a look at the strategy considerations to keep in mind.

Mama always told me, “Son, if I can’t trust you with the little things, how can I trust you with the big things?” (That probably should have been written in ALL CAPS, because it was usually after I’d done something to make her blow a gasket). I didn’t anticipate how impactful and applicable that nugget of wisdom would be during my career working with Walmart Inc.

We’ve all heard war stories about the brand that went out of business from losing money on Walmart. The reputation for driving out product margin is nearly folklore, but it doesn’t have to be true! 

Toyota President Taiichi Ohno developed and implemented the first Just-in-Time inventory plan in Japan in 1938. The concept was simple: “make only what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed.”

What does it mean to “button up” for your buyer?

The discipline of “buttoning up” for your buyer meeting with Walmart may sound like a foreign concept to you. Today’s workforce is full of remote work stations, home offices, coffee shop warriors, “work-cations,” and a general shift toward a more casual way of thinking.

Lucky for you, we’re not addressing the desire to be comfortable at work in “dress sweats” and dry wick woven bamboo t-shirt; or the paradigm shift in overall work-appropriate attire. We’re tackling a substantial factor much more important to Walmart: A comprehensive and detailed approach to the way you present and service your business at Walmart.

Your first meeting with Walmart Inc. is a landmark moment for your brand. Make a strong impression and it could be a giant leap toward placing your products on Walmart or Sam’s Club shelves. On the other hand, if you can’t make a compelling case for your brand, it could be a blown opportunity that alters the course of your company’s growth trajectory.

Preparation is key. When you go to Walmart headquarters to make your pitch for your brand, you need to know exactly what you’re walking into. And when it comes to Walmart, you’re likely to find a different meeting environment than the one you’re used to.

With that in mind, here’s what you need to know to prepare a winning pitch to Walmart Inc.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a recurring trend of consumers that are drawn to small, emerging, innovative brands rather than large legacy companies. Every consumer is different, of course, but the general feel is that small challenger brands offer advantages as a supplier that some larger brands simply can’t match.

This is great news for brands currently selling at Walmart, or looking to launch at Walmart for the first time. As an emerging challenger brand, your consumer goods can actually leverage your small outsider status to strengthen your pitch to retailers. 

Here’s what those challenger brands are doing to win the battle for space on Walmart shelves.

Most retailers develop their own approach to evaluating their sales success through performance metrics. When you start selling through Walmart, you don’t have to throw that analytics strategy away—but you do need to give priority to the metrics that Walmart buyers care about most.

Every supplier working with Walmart is evaluated with a scorecard that measures weekly, monthly, and quarterly sales, along with a bunch of other performance metrics. Those numbers will have a direct impact on your relationship with your buyer. 

It doesn’t matter if your own performance metrics tell a different story about your retail success: There are certain metrics for which Walmart buyers expect you to put up strong numbers. Here are five data points you can expect your buyer to obsess about.

Walmart doesn’t set a lot of hard-and-fast rules for its suppliers. More than anything, it wants to see that suppliers have the resources and expertise to follow through on its promises.