How to Turn Walmart Marketplace Success into In-Store Growth

Treating Walmart like a backup to Amazon is a massive profit leak. Retail buyers are actively looking for digitally native brands to replace stagnant legacy products on their physical shelves, making your e-commerce performance the ultimate gatekeeper to national retail distribution. Jake returns to the hot seat to map out the exact progression from an unknown third-party seller to a fully integrated Walmart retail supplier.

We sit down to break down the technical differences between 3P and 1P models and how to navigate the operational jump to in-store placement. We discuss the strategic timeline for timing your pitches around mod resets, using search insights to track your impression rank, and why mastering OTIF compliance is non-negotiable. The real breakthrough comes from understanding that your digital ad spend is actually a direct marketing campaign to category buyers, building brand familiarity months before you ever send a formal pitch email.

The reality of scaling into retail is that physical fulfillment is a heavy logistical lift that will break unprepared brands. Transitioning away from familiar FBA pipelines into a rigid 1P replenishment process means a single out-of-stock event during a retail test can permanently burn your relationship with risk-averse buyers. You will walk away with a realistic 6-to-8 month roadmap for building necessary digital leverage, plus a clear view of the inventory infrastructure required to survive your first major purchase order.

If you care about diversifying your sales channels, mastering omnichannel logistics, and moving from a digital seller to a national supplier, you’ll get a lot from this. Please subscribe and share this conversation with another founder ready to take their operations offline. What is the biggest logistical hurdle stopping you from pitching physical retail buyers right now?

0:00 Introduction to Walmart Omnichannel
3:18 The Differences Between 3P, 1P, and In-Store
11:40 Why Treating Walmart Like Amazon Fails
16:15 The Timeline for Pitching Walmart Buyers
23:55 Handling 1P Replenishment and Out-of-Stock Risks
30:21 Walmart Open Call and Long-Term Strategy

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Marketplace Code, your go-to spot for everything Walmart related. By popular demand, we have an amazing guest back in the back in the hot seat. Jake, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Yeah, happy to be back again. I have a lot to say and could be a could be a lot of episodes, but we'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I'm sure there's there's gonna be plenty of opportunities. I am I it's it's always a good time. So thank you for coming back. Appreciate you staying late. Sure. Awesome. So today, uh, what are we gonna be covering? What are we gonna be talking about today?

SPEAKER_02 0:39

I think on the last episode, we touched a little bit about how Walmart.com and in-store kind of like touch on each other and tie together. I think on this one specifically, there's a lot of companies out there, a lot of like e-commerce companies that I speak with that have uh currently maybe some 1P business, but don't have in-store placement or don't have any 1P business and are just strictly 3P or and have been on Amazon for 10 years, and they always talk about how they're looking to get offline and they're looking to go with their retailers. And although Walmart might be the biggest retailer, a lot of times it makes sense for it to be the first step for company, especially since you don't always have to launch on a nationwide launch or you know, something massive, and there's different steps and you know, uh to building a Walmart relationship and doesn't always have to start at something massive, which if you look at the Walmart open call event, we could talk about that as well today, is really what it's based upon, like bringing smaller brands for that. It's specifically USA made, but it's really you don't have to be the a large national brand to start a relationship with Walmart. You could end up becoming a large national brand, but you don't have to you know start off at that. So there's a lot of different you know methods I would say to go about it. So we could we could talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, I like that like how to grow your brand specifically by driving, or how to drive or grow, develop within your one P store relationship with Walmart. So we've spoken about this a little bit in the past, like we've spoken about with Michael. Um, we went through some of this. That was already a few months ago, and obviously things constantly evolve. Company the size of Walmart, obviously the evolution is going to be pretty standard, but I think we'll get a little bit more into the today. We're gonna get a little bit more into the technical components of it, the different launches, what those things mean, what is national, regional, you know, all these different modes. I think a good place to start would be just clarifying what are the different methods that exist today. I think simply we'll clarify just the basics of 3P, 1P, and then let's say store, and then we can get into some of the specific launches. Let's just keep it just like really simple, just to start. I'll go through what those are, and then we'll get into some of the specifics, and then we'll talk strategy. Like, how do you actually move along throughout this? How do you go ahead and gain more storage placement from doing something through 3P or through one P.com, whatever the specifics are. So if you understand a little bit more about the internal operations and the business, it'll help give you a little bit more clarity. You know, how do I actually do this? How do I tackle this? What's the way to do it? So let's just start simply with, you know, I think three categories is really a simple way to look at it, which is the 3P, 1P, and then the store business. So 3P is, you know, third-party Walmart marketplace. This is where pretty much any brand could come, and you could just list your products over there, you set the price, you could do promotions, you have really the most levers. You could fulfill orders yourself through seller fulfillment. You could use Walmart Fulfillment Services, which is WFS. I would say the most similar to Amazon. This is your third-party marketplace, you come in, you do what you want, and at the cost of this is Walmart charges you a commission for your products. Typically about 15%. It does range slightly lower for some of the more specific categories, but that's generally what 3P is for. Then you have the one P side of the business, which is a number of different factors. There's we can go into depth over here, but I would say the most common ones that you're going to be facing is 1P. When it's typically when you hear 1P, typically people are referring to dot com only, like Walmart.com, which is specifically you selling inventory to Walmart and they're purchasing it and storing it in their fulfillment centers. So Walmart has fulfillment centers dispersed throughout the US, you're not getting any store placement, it just lives, inventory lives over there that then gets shipped. Uh, you know, as a customer comes to the to Walmart.com, they see a product, and they just get a ship. There's no pickup and delivery option. So, how can you identify this? If you see a listing on Walmart that says sold and shipped by Walmart, and it says um, you know, shipping, but no pickup and delivery, that often is indicative that it's onep.com. It is possible that it's DSV. We're not going to dive too much into DSV as that's something that's generally being deprecated from Walmart's end, being replaced by the 3P model. And then the other option, which is like what people like really strive for, is the store placement, is to be able to get their products in store, which is where they can now have, again, we'll talk about like the different levels of being in store, but just say at an ideal place, you have your product across all your stores, and there you have the ability to have store shared inventory where they could use that same inventory in store, which then also gets fulfilled online. You could even have store inventory in onep.com as well as having it in store. So those are kind of like the I would say the most general, the most general take on it. Do you have any like anything to add to that specifically?

SPEAKER_02 5:41

That's a good way to break it up. Um, I would say that on the a lot of brands probably listening to listening to this come from the Amazon angle. And there's been a lot of conversations from the Amazon end about should you be 3P? Should you be 1P? And the benefits with Amazon of 1P over 3P have significantly reduced these days as Amazon has started open like in the beginning when it was harder to get a 1P vendor relationship with Amazon, you know, people obviously really wanted to get it. But now, you know, you'll always see these LinkedIn posts of like what the advantages are, what the disadvantages are. But at the end of the day, I believe on the Amazon side, 1P and 3P inventory are hosted still in the same warehouses. So the shipping speed is still going to be the same between a 3p and 1p item. And yes, Amazon is buying the item from you, but because Amazon also has small and light, or they got rid of small and light, but they're still they haven't they have easier ways, I would say, to work off of um like smaller items or single packs, I would say, as opposed to Walmart, where it's more difficult to sell the lower priced items on 3P. Yeah, I think that's what we need to highlight over here is the main difference on the one P side or the two main differences is number one, the shipping speed. It's gonna be quicker from one P owned. Now it's not gonna be as quick as if the item is nationwide in every store, but they do have a certain amount of DCs that will usually hit quicker than WFS fulfillment centers, which could take up to three days sometimes. Right. That's number one. Um, and number two, and once again, if an item isn't is in store, it could hit you within a half hour to two hours. One P owned, obviously, depending on how many DCs you're you know, they're they're just how they're distributing it, will usually be faster than WFS. And then the main point is price point wise, they're buying the item from you, they're incurring the shipping, they're paying for it. So you don't have the WFS fee. The WFS fee that still stands right now, which is for any items under ten dollars that you're paying an extra dollar for, you don't have that as well. So it's just a lot easier to sell, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:42

So, yeah, that's actually I I I I didn't didn't touch on this, but that's really like a core piece of one P is Walmart is purchasing from you. That is like the key differentiator between the one P model, the supplier model, if you will, versus the settle, sell the seller model, which is 3P, which is for the seller model, you determine the price, you determine all that, which is what I mentioned. But for the one P side, all you do is set a cost to Walmart. That's that's it. You said, hey, this is what you're gonna pay me per unit, and then Walmart will then place a purchase order, even if it's DSV, they're purchasing one at a time, they're purchasing in bulk from you, and that's it. You get that money. If they sell it for twice the price, hooray. If they sell it for less, you know, that's again, that's something that you and the buyer would you know work on figuring out. But that's the idea is you don't really have those same levers as you do on the 3P side, and that's really what the 1P model is. Is they're buying, you know, in bulk, they're buying, they're making purchase orders from you, um, just you know, to get to get more to get uh you know more product as uh at once, you know. So you mentioned uh mention a number of interesting things here, which is like the the fee structure, right? So you look at profitability, let's say for 3P versus 1P, right? A lot of people 3P may not necessarily be as profitable for a lot of people, but it's because it has all these levers, it enables you to perhaps scale, you know, maybe quicker than a lot of these 1P items versus 1P, you might you might get a little bit more stuck potentially with with some of your abilities to to you know run a promo and like really take advantage of Walmart being you know always a very cost, uh cost effective play for a lot of these brands. So I don't know, just each each model has its own benefits. And I find the brands, you know, we find the brands that are the most successful are the ones that are able to leverage you know all of them to really leverage the omni channel to be able to sell across 3p and 1p and in store on really everything feeds and supports each other because this way you have the benefits of each platform and not just stuck to you know the benefits or the detriments of just one of them.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

And and and that fit that answers a few problems is I I think number one is a lot of brands when they come to Walmart, and this is specifically with a lot of the e-commerce brands that I speak with, they're just looking at it as hey, I've heard Walmart is 10% of Amazon, but it's not because if you're looking at the long-term plan, Walmart could be obviously Walmart's growing significantly, and a lot of categories are hitting 15%. But if you're getting one P, all of a sudden that number increases, you know, significantly. Could be more. It could be more. That's one P owned, but if you're getting in store, then it could definitely be more. But even if you're one P owned and not in store, it could it could hit high volumes. So I think that's one piece. I think another piece that we have to kind of like discuss over here is a lot of brands when I you know that I speak with or that I have spoken with have really just been looking at their Walmart, get their Walmart.com plan as how quickly can I get to profitability on the three-piece side. And when you look at the e-commerce space, and if you've had any background in Amazon for a few years, you know how difficult it is to get a business there. So just like you would look at an Amazon launch and be like, hey, I'm only planning to make money in year two or three, a Walmart plan should be looked at as the same. But instead of looking at it as just the Dalcompiece, if you have any one piece or in-store goals, which in most cases, if you have a good product to offer that should be somewhere in your picture, then you need to look at the Walmart plan from the beginning, like that, as opposed to, oh, I'm just gonna do marketplace now. If that's not profitable, it's on its own, and then in-stores separately on its own. So I really like looking with people at a two, three year growth plan of okay, at what point are we gonna graduate 3P? Even if it's 30 items that we have on 3P, if only one or two of those items get in store, all of a sudden that changes our PL and everything that we've invested from year one and two. So, how to look at that process and when to graduate in different stages.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's it's definitely, I would say, why so many brands we've worked with who, you know, they've they maybe failed or they haven't necessarily seen the success that they've wanted to with Walmart, is because they're trying to just replicate their Amazon business, but it's a different model. It has a it has an angle to this that's very different from Amazon. If you treat Walmart the same way you treat your Amazon, generally that's where you're not going to see that success. You have to treat it for the platform it is today. It's not just another third-party, you know, e-com platform. It is an omnichannel platform. That is their distinction. That is, you know, even what I would say is their ability to win in the space, that's something that they have their edge over Amazon, is they have a massive store business that drives so much volume and so much recognition that if you're able to really build up your you know your e-com place and you're able to win your store placement or win your even your 1P placement, like that is something that you could win over Amazon. Let's even, yeah, you do well with Amazon, you get to that vendor relationship with them. Yeah, you know, it's definitely like it's it's something worthwhile, and you could definitely get to a good spot and you can become make a very profitable business. But just think of like the largest suppliers on Walmart versus the largest suppliers on Amazon. And I would say there's a clear distinction over there, right? These these Walmart powerhouses, right? Just having that again, their store business is essentially as much as Walmart's econ business. That's crazy to think about. And to think that they're just continuously going to be growing their e-com business, like you know Amazon's e-com business. Yes, I'm saying, yeah, well, I'm saying Walmart store business is is comparable to Amazon's econ business when you look at revenue, and that's that's insane, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah, I think for a lot of brand, like I was speaking to a brand today, they literally they're in very general categories, storage organization, like just these categories that you would think are very hard to penetrate, and you would think that the you know the the the shelf space is just locked down and there's no way no way to get in. But they're having conversations with the Walmart buyers, and the buyers are telling them, hey, the brands that we have in the space are quote unquote dinosaurs. If you come in with strong digital numbers, we're gonna be able to, you know, we can give you some of that shelf space. And I know that's true because there's a brand that came to us a year and a half ago that's storage organization, very general items, nothing unique about the items. He told me at that time, and this was a year and a half ago when the whole digital game was still quite new for Walmart. And he was telling me that he's just launching with us because he wants to get into Walmart stores. At that time, we knew a little bit about the in-store side, but I just told him I'm like, hey, let's, you know, let's uh let's do it, like we'll launch you. Little do you know, a few months ago he's launching with 15 SKUs nationwide at Walmart in one of the hardest categories. So I mean, this just kind of proves it's like no matter what category you're in, obviously you gotta have a good brand. And if you have a patent or something really cool, yes, there is different ways to fast track. And if the Walmart buyer really loves your product, like there'll be ways to get in. But no matter what, you're gonna have to show that dot com performance. And even if you think that your shelf space is locked down, like Walmart's always looking to bring that next product in store and see how it performs, especially if you're able to have that digital game and back it up. So this guy that spoke to you today was literally just adamant on like I every time we bring a product to them, he's in multiple different categories. Every time they're just dot com, dot com, dot com. And it's something I hear every day, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

That's really your advantage as an Amazon or just a general e-commerce seller is you know digital well. And because Walmart, again, right, spoken about this so many times, is that that's where the area that they're trying to dominate in. If they have a store business that's you know doing really well, but they're not embracing the dot com, you know, they need to make decisions and start to work on bringing in brands who are able to have more of that influence, who are able to have those strong digital penetration numbers and really set the category because those are numbers that matter to them in order to be able to succeed in you know today's today's space. In order to succeed in today's space, you need to have that strong digital performance. So that's why they're leaning more on that. So that's where you as a brand now have the ability to you know to lean in and actually win some of the shelf space. So let's talk a little bit about like you know, the journey. So to say, like, you know, your you know, your brand, you've been selling on Amazon, like what is the opportunity that exists for these sellers? Do you just you know strike get strike up a conversation with the merchant? You go to Bentonville, you just go find flag someone down and start speaking to them. Do you start with 3P? What does the progression look like? You know, you mentioned nationwide. Let's let's talk through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah, so I think it's first is like looking and developing just your Walmart strategy, going in store, checking out what your self space looks like. Literally, just do a walk in Walmart stores, see who the competitors are, what they're currently doing, just a little bit about their brands. Even look at the companies on LinkedIn. Are they medium-sized companies? Are they national brands? And you'll find that some don't seem as scary as you would think. They're there are brands that launched at trade shows, had some good products, got in touch with the Walmart buyer, and you know, and they they got in the store. And obviously, it's not that easy of a process. And back in the day, it was easier to skip the dot-com game. But once again, if you're looking at it from the Amazon, if you're an Amazon brand and you're looking at it from that angle, you already come in with a significant advantage that these other brands don't wear, they're not Amazon first companies. So you're already ahead on the digital game. Now, obviously, you gotta have the right brand and the right product. So really just depends like what your shelf space looks like. Getting an idea of that based off of that, if you feel like you have the price point, obviously, which is gonna be the main thing to come in with Walmart and you're gonna be able to, you know, pitch that to them. Number one is if you have a good brand, you don't necessarily have the right price point. There's always an exclusive skew that you can make for Walmart for a smaller retailer, maybe that's not worth it, but for the biggest retailer in the world, that is worth it. And you don't have to necessarily even build that skew when you're launching your marketplace because you really just need to build your brand with Walmart and a little bit around the category. And it doesn't have to be that you built that specific skew for the past year to bring it up to the Walmart buyer. That's you know, you just really need to build a brand.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

You need to make the noise, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

So you can always have a plan of like, okay, if we get in, you know, as we get in touch with the Walmart buyers, which it's that's not the hard part. Like a lot of people could get in front of Walmart buyers, they're they're reachable. It used to be back in the day that they were reachable to everybody. Now these days, obviously it's a little, you know, they can't respond to everybody, but all I've seen is that with good brands, like even if they don't have a personal relationship with them, if they reach out to the buyer directly and they have a good product, like they'll get a response. So it's really identifying, like, okay, like, am I gonna have some sort of game plan for Walmart? If I am, let me get my dot-com, the digital game started first. Timeline-wise, I would say six to eight months would be probably the minimum of building like enough to build uh strong presence within a category, obviously, dependent on the category and how competitive it is. There's some categories that are more niche, some that are more general. At that point, that's when you should be starting aggressive outreach. I would say to them to the Walmart buyer saying, Hey, uh, have you seen our brand before? We're actually the top sellers, uh the top, we know one of the top three P sellers in the category. And uh, you know, basically kind of you know, showing your story through there. Instead of I would say the most annoying way to do the sales pitch is to email them every day, hey, look at my brand, look at my brand, without actually having to do the work. The softest way to kind of pitch the buyer is as they're typing in the main keywords in their category, which they always are because they're responsible for their category, you're just showing up in their face. So three months into it, during your soft launch, they're already starting to see your brand. They're getting familiar with it. And it's just you're just continuously marketing to them, you know, as you're scaling more and more in dot com. So I think six to eight months would be when you should really start outreach directly to the buyer. But until then, it's not like you're not doing outreach, you're building your brand, you're getting in front of the buyer, and they're noticing.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

They'll notice you, yeah. You don't have you don't have to send that email just for them to know who you are, right? Um, with the changes that that happened within the Walmart org over the past few years, part of that was that you know, digital or rather, merchants are now responsible for the digital, the digital outside of their department as well. So when they have a department that they're overseeing, say fitness, it's not just about the in-star fitness, they also oversee and they are responsible for the GMV that comes from you know fitness from e-commerce as well. Even three P brands that is something that matters to them. So if they have you know a specific high volume keyword that they're searching for and they see who's this brand, and I don't know this guy, like and they're and they're always there, they're always there when you're searching for it. So it's interesting, you know, maybe your ROS doesn't look so good today, but think of it from uh the ROS that you're getting from eventually winning that store business, it could be really significant that one ad that you paid for, who knows when. So I find there's a lot of really cool data to support this. There's obviously, you know, the hard numbers is the sales, right? Just making getting those dollars up there, right? You have to make sure that you're actually driving sales, even if you're not driving necessarily the most profitable sales. I I know there's something that you don't want to go too aggressively where you're like really losing money on everything and you're completely overspending because you know they want to make sure that you actually have like a business that you could bring in and support. I've heard some some things around this, but you still like if you're going aggressively and you're pushing and you're you're willing to take a maybe not the best return, and really you're not thinking of it from the Amazon profitable angle, you're thinking, hey, a larger, broader scale over here, then you're able to see, like, all right, I need to hit a certain dollar amount, and that's gonna make enough of an impact. That's that's that's a great choice. Now, how do you know what that dollar amount is? Obviously, every category is gonna change. I would say one of the best places to look is within search insights, within you know, seller within seller center, there's it's right over there. It tells you, hey, within your product type, within your category, what's your sales rank? You know, what's your impression rank, your click rank, your at the car rank? I love this data. This is like some of my favorite data in Walmart, but like you could use that and actually say, hey, like essentially it's it's mimicking the BSR from Amazon. Who is am I winning? Am I winning? Am I I started off as 200, I'm right now number five. I'm the fifth largest or top selling product within this category. Awesome. You're now on someone's radar. There's something that someone cares about now. So it's very important to like see the dollar values, obviously, but also being able to take a look. At what these metrics are because again is something that you could then present to the to the buyer. So you come and tell that story. Now, hey, when I first started, I was at X, now I'm at Y. You know, let's let's let's push to have this conversation. They should again already be aware of you. So it's a very important lens to really consider within this, you know, this Walmart plan. Something that may not always work out for you though is you know, there are you know mod resets, which is you know, throughout uh throughout the year, there's different periods um that a that a category will be changed for what they're bringing uh into stores. And something just to consider is like you know, your timing of your six to eight months may not align with that timing of the mod reset, which you know could definitely be the buyer just made the decision and they're taking another brand in store, and now you just came knocking at the door literally two days later. Definitely the timing of things is is always is always going to be an impact, but that's why consistency is so important. Even if let's say you worked on it for six to eight months, keep on pushing. There's going to be that opportunity. If you have if you worked on it for let's say two years and you're still getting nothing, maybe at that point, you know, maybe it's something to consider looking into fundamentally where there might be some issues. But at least if you're working on it consistently for a year from the point that you already are at that point where you feel like you have a marketable product to a to a merchant, then you have like at least I would say like a good year that you could really be putting in the effort, continuously reaching out, using your data, staying top of search for your keywords. That's just a great way to scan get that visibility.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

So good note, just good note about the uh about the mod resets and just when line reviews are. You it's you could dig and get that information. You could just reach out to Cell Cord. We'd be happy to you know get you what those dates are, you know, depending, you know, just per category. Once again, some categories have a few times throughout the year, some categories are less, just depending how often you know Walmart resets the mod. Um, but yeah, that's uh that's a good point to kind of keep keep an eye for that.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

Right, but you still have the dot com, right? You still have the one p.com.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Of course. And so the one p.com that could come in at any point. And I think once again, that's the next phase, right? So we're building 3p, we're getting it to a good position. Um, there's some categories, I think this is important to explain. There's some categories that the most in most categories the one p.com is bought from the same buyer that's buying in-store. There are some categories, generally in larger categories where the one p.com business is that big that they'll have separate, like they'll have a separate buyer for just one p.com. That buyer is not buying for in-store, and then you have a separate buyer for in-store, actually. And they'll obviously work together. But in most categories, you'll have the buyer is also just the buyer that's buying in store is buying for one p.com. And that's really your that's really your entry to really proof to them because they're watching what you're doing on 3p and they're seeing your brand. And, you know, that's how you're getting in the door. But once you're in the door and you get a onep.com order, they'll say, Hey, we're ordering 2,500 units right now for onep.com. We'll test it over the month, see how it goes. That's your real test. Like right now, you went from uh, you know, like just the first day to like, you know, you're going on your fifth, sixth date with them, and this is where you really want to prove right now that you could really, really drive traffic. So that's I would say key right now is that you need to show them, hey, yes, we've done awesome digitally on 3P, we could blow out the 1P order. And a lot of times brands will have a misconception. They're like, oh, now I'm getting 1P, so they're gonna pin me to the top. I'm gonna be ranked well either way because you are gonna get very good ranking because it's faster shipping speeds, as we spoke about, lower price point. So it's gonna sell well either way, but you want to blow it out of the water. So with good content optimization, good ads, that's where you take it to the next level and really lock down.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Go out of stock. You know, on three P, you should never run out of stock on one P. Exactly, go out of stock.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

And I think that that also will determine, depending on how, like, let's say, you know, the buyer originally had in mind, because if you're a new supplier, they're not gonna necessarily want to launch you nationwide. In very, very few cases they will because they're nervous if you're gonna be able to really handle it inventory-wise, it's a lot of risk for them. If you they end up launching in your store and you run out of stock, it's it's one of the worst nightmares for them. So the Walmart buyers are very careful taking on new suppliers, and you have to bring enough to the table that they're willing to take on that risk because no matter how much you tell them you're on top of your process, if you're a smaller brand, smaller supplier, they're always nervous of that. So I think really doing a good job on the one P could help the buyer say, you know what? Originally I was planning to launch them in 250 doors, I'm gonna give them a 500 store test, which will help you move a lot quicker. Um, you know, because you've been able to really prove yourself through onep.com and they know that even if you don't hit the sell-throughs right away on, you know, through in-store, you'll be able to push that rest of that volume on.com.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's so many metrics that you know these merchants are looking at. But like for the stock piece, I'm saying I want to clarify, you know, obviously, like as a supplier, you don't want to run out of your product. Obviously, that's super important. And running out of that is, you know, chaos. And you could really burn your burn your bridges with Walmart like that. You know, you you you flop on a on a launch like that. I'm saying, like, if you are getting a certain amount of units purchased from Walmart, we had a I know a brand in the diaper category that you know they were just kept, they kept just burning through other units because their ads were running really efficiently really well. They were driving a lot of sales, and just like they kept going back to the immersion. Hey, I need to purchase more and more and more. And just it builds that, you know, the relationship. And maybe it's not the best user experience, it's not ideal, but use that to your advantage. You know, say like, hey, I need you to buy more of this because we keep going out of stock. Like, please be on top of it. Obviously, from a production perspective, never go out of stock. You need to make sure that you can make your orders. And if that's an issue for you, don't overdo it. And really, like I think kind of the ramp up is what's so useful. Like, if you go to the onep.com first and then you start in a smaller launch and you're able to really like try and you know, make your you make your launch really tried and true, where you're like, hey, I know I could actually make this, I know I can make X mouth units instead of just going national off the cuff and suddenly, you know, you don't even know, you don't even have the ability to produce at such a scale, and then you're just, you know, you're in a pickle. So sometimes it's kind of good, like this ramp up. So it's important that obviously production is is so important. All these metrics, things you don't even know about. You're you're an Amazon seller, you know what OTIF is, like you're not thinking about these things. You don't know all these different metrics that actually matter to your merchants. That's why, you know, it's always important to work with your your local favorite Walmart marketplace or dot com agency. But you know, that's that's just something to know. So you have to know like what are these metrics that actually matter that you need to be on top of? And are you ready to take on such responsibility? Are you ready to really go national? Are you ready to take on, you know, to take on that kind of risk, so to say, but you know, ability within your company to perform at that level?

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah, I think the Amazon um like replenishment process and running out of stock, I think is a nightmare for a lot of Amazon sellers and it's really trained them on how important it is. Take those same learnings over to Walmart. It's obviously a completely different replenishment process, but it's a lot harder. I would say I would I would dare to say it's even harder than the Amazon process, even though with Amazon a lot of times you're making shipments weekly and they have inventory limits and all that. I mean, with Walmart, your game has to be so strong, and you know, there just can't be any like holes in just a replenishment process with Walmart. So, like you said, that one P train well, that one P process is really kind of the training to learn how Walmart, how you ship a Walmart PO, how Walmart receives it, where you're sending it to, um, you know, all the different DCs that they have and kind of you know consolidators and all that uh that whole field like is gonna be new, especially for a lot of sellers that have just been sending into Amazon FBA and have never dealt with retailers and uh one as big as Walmart, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

For sure. Yeah. So I think it's once again like building the one, building the 3P with a game plan of uh when you come into it, when will you eventually hit the buyers, understanding when those line reviews are, which once again definitely reach out to us about once you build that, there'll be certain opportunities to get items into one P owned. In specific cases, if you have an amazing brand or you have a patented item or something just that really stands out, you will be able to skip the middle piece, which is the 1P, and the buyer will just be like, hey, let's launch you in stores. And then that's really up to you if you know you're ready for that. But um, you know, that's that's one scenario also we didn't discuss, but there's something called the Walmart open call event, which is one time of year. I think it's actually coming up. Applications are actually open right now. Um, and it's really for made in the USA brands, um, and also like minority brands, um, minority-owned brands. So it's a good opportunity for smaller brands to kind of get in the door with Walmart. Um, and there's something called the whole golden ticket process where a lot of the brands that go down there could win something called a golden ticket, which means on the spot, the Walmart buyer gives you a commitment, which is pretty cool. So every year there's some cool, there's some brands that get in through the Walmart open call event. One of those brands, I believe, is actually Dude Wipes because they yeah, they keep they keep uh having a booth over there. And I think it's because they were originally brought in, if I'm not mistaken, through open call. There's a few other brands also that like have like little booths at every open call event. So that's a cool event. But regardless, once again, like all depends on your category, how competitive it is, but come with a game plan of when you know you're gonna you're gonna want to graduate from 3P to 1P, which SKUs those will be. If you're gonna make exclusive SKUs, packaging takes a long time. Already get ahead of that, already have some mock-ups so that if the buyer reaches out to you and they'll be like, Hey, I love your brand, instead of drafting up within a day or two some mock-ups, like already have that all prepared so you can get ahead of the retail game because there's a lot of these pieces that are kind of needed. So while you're building through your 3P launch, like get those pieces kind of set, and then obviously the in-store side it could happen at any level. It could be uh regional launch, it could be nationwide launch. So, you know, kind of be ready for it, but then there's always gonna be that digital game. You launch in 250 doors, you're gonna need to show really strong numbers to get into 500, to get into a thousand, and to continue building from there. So there's always that game, you know, with Walmart.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Awesome. Really, really good nuggets over here. I mean, we've talked about this forever. There's so much levels of granularity to get into when it comes to stores. Obviously, you know, the specifics and what the heck is an end cap? You know, what are these things even mean? There's so much more to dive into over here, and I love to, you know, I'll love to pick this up again. But um, I think anything else before we wrap up for today.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

No, I think that's pretty much it. Like, once again, like think of your Walmart strategy on a holistic level. Don't just look at it as like, oh, Walmart's 10% of Amazon. Is it worth me? Is it worth me? Is it worth my time right now? They're the fastest growing marketplace. Very soon, it'll be at a much larger number than that 10, 15 mark that's thrown around. Even that number is literally getting higher by the day. But look at it on a holistic level and a two, three-year game plan. Already get ahead of it because the brands that did this in 2013, 2015 on Amazon are sitting there with 100,000 reviews. So it's gonna happen. It's just a matter of who really takes initiative first.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Awesome. Jake, thank you again for coming on. This was great. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

We'll reconnect for sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Oh, yeah. Thank you everyone for tuning in to the marketplace code. It's been a pleasure. Tune in next time to get some more great wisdom on Walmart.com.