Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA, is a Manufacturer’s Rep turned Author, Speaker and Consultant. She has sold millions of consumer products to the world’s largest retailers and now dedicates her time to teaching Entrepreneurs how to market and sell their products to Major Retailers, Online Retailers, Catalogs and Small Retailers, too!
Karen Waksman has taught over 10,000+ product entrepreneurs and companies across the globe on the subject of selling to retailers. Her goal is to empower and inspire companies to transform their businesses by providing them all of the necessary information they need in order to become chain store vendors.
Most importantly, Karen’s clients have utilized the Retail MBA time-tested sales formula to get their products into retailers such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowes, Kroger Grocery Stores, Bed Bath and Beyond, BuyBuyBaby, Groupon and much, much more!
Paint Brush Cover Review – Retail MBA Brands – They are now in 30,000 retail outlets nationwide!
Paint Brush Cover Success Story – Retail MBA Brands
We just want to congratulate and spotlight our Paint Brush Cover Clients. They got their products into over 30,000 retail outlets nationwide. Wow!
They are now in Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware, True Value, Sherwin Williams and Much, Much more!
We started working with them prior to their big experience on Shark Tank, the TV show. This was a memorable product on Shark Tank as they were 3 firefighters who created this cool new invention called The Paint Brush Cover. Look them up – it’s a fun story to watch!
Before this experience happened though, they were just a few guys trying to figure out how to sell to big box retail chains. They wanted to understand how to communicate effectively to buyers and ultimately how to get them to buy.
We walked them through the steps to take to success. And wow – did magic happen for them shortly after!
They articulated the success and got into stores and then they got on TV – and business took off from there!!
Sometimes it’s just the desire to succeed that gets the train moving toward financial success with retail chains.
We couldn’t be prouder of you guys! Thank you to our Paint Brush Cover clients for going for it! Not everyone does :). Yippee!
Congrats! Go, go, go! Who’s next?!
Watch the short video on The Paint Brush Cover success listed above because it’s fun to watch other people’s successes and what’s possible for you!
We want this for every client of ours!
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA Brands
P.S. Want to get your products on retail shelves? Check out our upcoming free 90 minute webinar on ‘How to Sell Your Products to Big Box Retail Chains’ by clicking here: https://retailmba.com/free.
New training on How to Sell to Wayfair and Become a Wayfair Vendor. A Few Quick Tips and Strategies!
Wayfair Vendor – How to Sell to Wayfair and Become a Wayfair.com Vendor!
Do you have a product perfect for Wayfair.com?
If your product is ideally suited for this website, check out our new training video on some quick tips and strategies on ‘Wayfair Vendor – How to Sell to Wayfair and Become a Wayfair.com Vendor.’
We have clients who sell tremendously well on this one website.
Just click on the video to watch!
(For those of you who prefer to read this content, transcription is included as well below!)
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
P.S. Want to Get Your Products into Chain Stores in a Fraction of the Time? Check out our Retail MBA System! We walk you through exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to chain stores. No sales experience, patents or buyer relationships required!
Transcript for Wayfair Vendor – How to Sell to Wayfair and Become a Wayfair Vendor
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today I want to talk about wayfair.com and becoming a vendor for Wayfair. So why am I teaching this little segment? Well, I’ve over the years taught tens of thousands of business owners across the globe on how to generate revenue with their physical products, to major retailers, online retailers, small retailers, catalogs, and so forth. And along the way, different websites show up that are doing phenomenal and I like to talk about it to help you out. To give you some ideas some things to think about to support you in your quest to generating revenue. So Wayfair comes up because some of you guys are selling home products, home goods, and so forth. Well, Wayfair is now the world’s largest destination for home products. And so if you go to their site, it’s tremendous, I’ve purchased stuff from there. It’s a great website for really interesting home good products and so forth.
So a few things to think about in regards to Wayfair and why you should consider working with them and some tactics and so forth is that they currently sell 18 million products across their five brands. They have five different brands online. They’re selling 18 million different products. I mean, it’s a massive enterprise. And so a lot of you guys have never heard of Wayfair’s so first of all, just take a look at it. And if your product makes sense for that website, definitely explore that option. But also, they’re massive. They employ almost 16,000 employees as of today. And they’re growing and they’re scaling and they’re basically selling anything related to furniture and different types of things for accessories and stuff for the home.
But you never know, sometimes they throw in different things that could conceivably work for your product. So what would I say about Wayfair? First of all, go check them out. If they [inaudible 00:01:54] anything of value to your product, definitely consider going after them. I have clients who crush it on websites like Wayfair, because basically what those websites are, they’re destination sites where millions and millions of people are going to buy products and they’re essentially emailing them and letting them know about different deals. And trust me, Wayfair is on it. And so you get access to a whole other audience that you wouldn’t have had to… You don’t have to do anything once they allow you to be a vendor and so forth. So it’s a really, really big deal if you can get somebody else to do all the work for you essentially. And that’s what some of these websites are all about.
So what do you do about reaching out to Wayfair? Here’s the problem with these online sites, most people don’t realize that Wayfair actually has actual buyers who purchase things. It’s not just submitting your product to their website and getting your product reviewed and so forth in the cloud or whatever. They actually have buyers who look at things all day long to add to their assortment because they’re hungry for that next new product to put on their website. So why that matters to you is because you can go and try and submit your product on their website and see if they’ll add you to the vendor. But a lot of times they don’t respond or it doesn’t work out or maybe their questions that they’re asking you isn’t great for your particular product.
And it just doesn’t feel right when you’re submitting your product. You don’t know who’s checking out your stuff and maybe you want to talk to the buyer about pricing depending on quantity. There’s things that you want to have a little bit more control of. The way the professionals would do it is they would find the appropriate buyer within Wayfair, reach out to them directly in a very particular way, get the buyer to review the product based on what you want her to see and ultimately get a purchase order and, or, set it up as a vendor through them. Now, why does that matter? Well, most people don’t know how to do that. And so that’s where people get stuck, where they’re submitting their product. They’re not getting [inaudible 00:03:47]. They’re thinking that there’s no way to generate revenue with this company.
But honestly you just didn’t know the strategies and tactics that the professional use. And why would you know it? Most of you guys aren’t in the business of knowing this type of stuff. So I’m here to tell you that finding the appropriate buyer at Wayfair and so forth, submitting your product to them directly in a very particular way, you don’t want to just spray and pray and hope that the buyer takes a look at your product. This could be a lot of money for you. You want to learn a little bit because it’ll help you across the board in submitting your product to all these websites and so forth. So the thing about what to actually say to buyers, and most of you are going to get annoyed with me now that I’m not sharing that with you. It’s not because I don’t want to, it’s because when I support somebody, we actually look at your products and support you and your particular product, because every product is unique.
There’s words to be said that’s unique to each person. And so I don’t like to throw out garbage. I really want you to get supported and we want to help you and want to make sure that you’re getting the right verbiage out to these buyers so you get them interested in your product. So, anyways, I hope that provided value for you. Oh, by the way, you don’t want to submit your product on LinkedIn or something like that. Like if you find the buyer’s name and you see that she’s on LinkedIn, you’re not submitting your product through LinkedIn. That’s her resume set up. That’s a place where she puts up her resume online. She’s going to hate you. It’s not a pleasant place for a buyer to get information about a product. It’s really not cool for them. So they don’t like that.
So you actually need to find that appropriate buyers contact information. You can buy lists and so forth. But again, it’s the words you use that will ultimately get them to convert. And we sell lists. There’s all sorts of opportunities there. But anyways, it’s really about the words and the reach out and so forth. But the opportunity is there. So anyways, take a look at their site, see if that’s interesting to you.
If you want to learn how to approach, pitch, and sell to online destinations like Wayfair, we have actually a webinar that we created. The next one’s coming up soon. The link to that free webinar is listed below. All you have to do is click on the link, sign up. It’s free. We have an opportunity for you to see a replay if you don’t want to wait for the next week and so forth. But ultimately what we do is we walk you through the details of how these retailers operate and what ultimately gets them to purchase things and so forth. So, just wanted to help you out. So click on the link below, sign up, love to support you. Or if you like this information, subscribe, comment below if you like. Keep in touch with us, we are always adding new information. This is Karen Waksman, Retail MBA. I hope this helps. Thanks so much.
Swannies Glasses By Swanwick – Retail Review – Retail MBA – He Got His Product into 550 Sleep Number Stores!
Swammies Glasses Success Story – Retail MBA Brands
We just want to congratulate and spotlight our Swannies Glasses by Swanwick Client. They got their products into 550 Sleep Numbers stores. Wow!
We met Swannies Glasses By Swanwick at various events as they are internet marketers and we work with many.
The blue light glasses that Swannies Glasses By Swanwick created was epic for their target audience however they really thought they could scale into retail chains if they knew how.
So we walked them through the steps to success with chain stores.
And they soon figured out that since their Swannies Glasses By Swanwick were great to help with sleep – as they block out stress from overuse of computers and such, that they approached a Sleep Numbers store.
Their first introductory test order was for $250,000! And they scaled from there.
These glasses are sold in various ways all over the web – so this was not an easy product to get into stores. So they worked on clever strategies to start with first and show proof of concept.
We couldn’t be prouder of you Swannies Glasses By SwanwickTeam!
And in such a short period of time, you have excelled. Congrats! Go, go, go! Who’s next?!
Watch the short video on Swannies Glasses By Swanwick success listed above as it’s fun to watch people succeed.
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA Brands
P.S. Want to get your products on retail shelves? Check out our upcoming free 90 minute webinar on ‘How to Sell Your Products to Big Box Retail Chains’ by clicking here: https://retailmba.com/free.
How to Sell in Retail – What to Do If You Have Zero Sales History
How to Sell in Retail – What to Do If You Have Zero Sales History When Trying to Sell to Big Box Retail Chains?
Do you have a product perfect for chain stores such as Walmart, Home Depot, CVS, Nordstrom, Kroger Grocery Store…?
If so, you will love our new quick training on “How to Sell in Retail – What to Do If You Have Zero Sales History When Trying to Sell to Big Box Retail Chains!“
In this training we give you some quick tips and strategies on what to do if you have a product ideally suited for retail chains but you have zero sales history on your product.
If you’re interested in learning more, then I suggest click on the video to watch!
(For those of you who prefer to read this content, transcription is included as well below!)
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
P.S. Want to Get Your Products into Chain Stores in a Fraction of the Time? Check out our Retail MBA System! We walk you through exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to chain stores. No sales experience, patents or buyer relationships required!
Transcript – How to Sell in Retail – What to Do If You Have Zero Sales History When Trying to Sell to Big Box Retail Chains
Hey everyone, this is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. And today I want to talk about a question that comes up all the time in my workshops and classes. People always ask me, “Karen, can I sell at chain store if I have zero sales history? I have a brand new product and I haven’t sold it online or I have very minimal sales or it’s brand new to the market. Do I go after the chain stores first? Do I start small? Do I grow? What’s the situation here with chain stores, especially now with just so many products out there, just any advice would be great.” So I just want to walk you through some things to think about, as to what you should consider if you have a brand new product and should you go after chain stores first. A little background about me before we get started.
My name is Karen Waksman. I’m the founder of a company called Retail MBA. Taught tens of thousands of business owners across the globe on how to sell products to chain stores. And this question comes up all the time in my workshops and classes. You can take a look at what we’re up to at retailmba.com. Anyway, let’s talk about this question. So people really are concerned about this brand new product. So here’s the deal. Some people think that they have to sell on Amazon and they have to do certain things before they can go after stores. And I’m here to tell you that we have clients who just want to get into Walmart and they just get into Walmart. They haven’t sold their product anywhere before, and they actually get into major chain stores. And then I have other clients who started slow and built up their business and eventually went after the chain stores.
And honestly, the difference is who are you as a human being? Some people are like, “I am going after Walmart or whatever chain store it is. And I just want that account. And I want to sell it to that particular retailer. And I don’t care about anything else. I don’t need to test the market out and all these things. I just want what I want.” That person needs to go after a chain store like Walmart. Other people are nervous Nellies. they like to go a little bit slower and they’re a little bit more concerned about whether or not it’s going to impact them longterm, whatever it is. If there’s a lot of heaviness for you in regards to going up to the big stores first, start reaching out to the small to midsize stores because you can start building out your business and it doesn’t have to be any one way.
So the short answer is yes, you can go after chain stores on day one, you don’t need sales. People will always tell you, “Oh, that’s impossible. These retailers are looking for sell throughs and all these things and proof,” and stuff like that. Yes, there are some retailers that are more complicated than others to start brand new with. For instance, Costco, right? So they buy by the pallets and they don’t want to take you under. And so they want to make sure that you can handle manufacturing and there’s all sorts of other reasons why they want this. So they might not work with a person who hasn’t sold their products anywhere before. Most likely not. There are other retailers like that. But some retailers have an entire division set up for testing new products out and making sure that whatever it is that they’re putting in stores will be interesting to their clientele and so forth. And so they’re looking for new, interesting innovation and so forth.
So we’ve done live events with big chain stores like Walmart and Whole Foods and all these different retailers, where we match make and help people out, getting in front of retailers and so forth. And one of the things that came up was that these buyers were looking for people with tons of sales and stuff like that. Sure, why not? Why wouldn’t they? However, they didn’t pass up on the products that had not sold anywhere before. And the reason, again, is because they are dealing with a lot of competition, a lot of stuff’s going out in the world, and so sometimes they can’t get what they want. They see a new product, they know it’s going to convert. They’re willing to test the product out and it didn’t have to have sold anywhere else before now.
Now, a lot of Amazon sellers can’t imagine not selling on Amazon first and then transferring over to retailers. But I’ll be honest with you, if I was bringing a new product to market and I knew it was great for chain stores, I’d go after the chain stores because I know that through our methodologies and so forth, that if I really believe in this product or whatever, I would conceivably go straight to the big leagues and try and make as much money as possible. And that’s my personality and that’s why I always went after chain stores. I’m not the type to go opening up accounts, door to door to door, and small retailers locally, and boutiques and stuff like that. I know how to do it and so forth, but it doesn’t mean that that would be my go to move.
So again, it’s a lot about personality, who you are, what inspires you. Again, we have so many clients who get into the big chain stores who have never sold their product anywhere before. The trick is that some may reject you a little bit more often than others. And it might take a little bit longer to get that first, “Yes,” but it happens. And it’s not the only reason that a retailer buys how much units you’ve sold and so forth.
So I hope that gives you an idea of what to think about. If you want to learn exactly how to approach, pitch, and sell to retailers, how to get them to buy, take a look at the link below. We have a webinar coming up that is a 90 minute free training that you can sign up for, and it walks you through how to sell to stores. It’s really powerful and it’s free. And there’s one coming up and there’s also replays and so forth. We do them often. So please join us. If you liked this information, please like, subscribe. If you enjoy this, comment below, we really appreciate your support. And be on the lookout for additional content that we create. Karen Waksman, Retail MBA. I appreciate your time. Thanks so much.
DivaCup – Retail MBA Review Success Story – She Got Her Products into Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Kmart, Albertsons, Sprouts and More!
DivaCup Success Story – Retail MBA Brands
We just want to congratulate and spotlight our DivaCup Client. They got their products into Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Sprouts, Safeway Stores, Kmart and Albertsons! Yay!
We met DivaCup through a virtual event we did with one of our partners. She had been selling online and really wanted to scale into the biggest retail chains in the U.S. as she was living in the UK.
Her goal was to educate people on a new product that would disrupt the tampon industry. A tough industry to break into. Plus her product cost significantly more than most products on retail shelves in the U.S. But she believed in her cause and went for it.
During our work together we put together a plan of action. We discussed the strategies available, where the money is for her product and how to handle it since she lives overseas. And she went for it!
And what a tremendous success she has had.
We couldn’t be prouder of you DivaCup!
There is nothing cooler than seeing our clients products on retail shelves.
And in such a short period of time, too. Congrats! Go, go, go! Who’s next?!
Watch the short video on DivaCup’s success listed above – it’s fun to hear about others successes.
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA Brands
P.S. Want to get your products on retail shelves? Check out our upcoming free 90 minute webinar on ‘How to Sell Your Products to Big Box Retail Chains’ by clicking here: https://retailmba.com/free.
New Training on How to Get Your Product into Stores – 5 Tips for International Companies Trying to Sell to US Retail
New Training on How to Get Your Product into Stores – 5 Tips for International Companies Trying to Sell to U.S. Retail
Do you have a product perfect for U.S. Retailers such as Macys, Home Depot, Walmart, CVS, Kroger Stores, etc?
And are you an international company trying to sell to U.S. Retailers? Then you will absolutely love our new training video on the subject!
We discuss the top 5 things international companies do to harm their chances of selling into retail chains!
Click on the link to watch!
(For those of you who prefer to read this content, transcription is included as well below!)
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
P.S. Want to Get Your Products into Chain Stores in a Fraction of the Time? Check out our Retail MBA System! We walk you through exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to chain stores. No sales experience, patents or buyer relationships required!
Transcription for How to Get Your Product into Stores – 5 Tips for International Companies Trying to Sell to U.S. Retail
Hey everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. And today I want to talk about the five tips to success for international companies trying to sell to US retail chains. So if you have a great product but you live overseas like the UK, Canada, India, wherever you are and you want to sell to Walmart or Home Depot, or Macy’s or whatever it is in the United States, and you’re really curious about it, you need some strategies and some thoughts about what to do with that. So I want to give you some support here on the five tips to success as international companies trying to sell to US retail chains.
So let’s talk about the five tips. Tip number one, make sure you understand the target market. So if you’re in another country and your packaging has certain things on the packaging that matters to your country, it might not matter to the US. It sounds so simple, but I’ve seen it happen all the time. It’s not translating well. So you’ve got to hire somebody, find somebody in the US who can review the information, make sure that it’s clean and clear for the US retail market. The buyers don’t play in the US. It’s got to be professional. It’s got to look good. They’re not messing around with anything other than what’s ideal like for their ideal audience.
Also, for the target market in the United States, if you’re selling to women, you want to put women on your packaging, certain types of things. You want to get additional support to make sure that you understand the US target market. It is different. And again, like in Canada, you have French on the box, it’s not going to be the same in the US. You might have to change your packaging out. There are some things you have to do and to hyper focus that intention there.
Another thing is that you need to understand that if you’re going to be interested in selling to US retailers, calling them directly from your home country usually is not an ideal thing for you to do. So let me explain. So say you’re calling from the UK, we’ll use the UK as an example. You want to sell to Home Depot, you’re calling, trying to do a deal with Home Depot, right? What happens is that the buyers typically don’t call you back if you are overseas, except for one particular division that generally works with the international market. Most of the time, the buyers are busy. They have a lot going on.
They’re not going to call you at the different time differences and so forth unless you reach out to a specific location, divisional within their organization that supports the international market. So there’s a couple of ways to sell to US retailers. One way is to be he based in the United States even though you live in the UK, meaning that you set up an LLC or whatever in the United States, and you basically run your business from your home country but somebody in the US is setting up, you have a business there where somebody can interact with the buyer and they think that you also have a division in the US. That’s okay. That’s very easy for the buyer to call back.
However, the other option is to reach out to them from your home country and only be placed in a group where you are combined with all sorts of other international suppliers. So basically the difference between you making millions of dollars or not is, are you willing to place somebody in the United States, one person, somebody who can interact with buyers, set up a little office there, super basic, and then have all the interaction back and forth to get the biggest return on investment, or are you only interested in selling directly from your home country but then all of a sudden you’re piled into the international market, which basically means that they’re looking for commodity-based products, products that are really great priced.
Otherwise, they can get most of the stuff from the US and so forth. Yes, people sell from other countries and so forth all the time, but all I’m saying is the opportunity is for you to possibly open up a tiny little office in the United States, have her interact with you and have a much better experience with that. So hope that makes sense. My suggestion is to consider getting a foot on the street in the United States to help you along. Otherwise, she tends to not call you back. Otherwise, you’re going to be pigeonholed into the international market, which tends to take a lot longer.
You’re kind of clumped in with all the other international companies. And you basically are being pressed for price and these types of things, because otherwise they could buy a lot of those products in the United States. So I hope that makes sense.
Another thing that a lot of international companies struggle with is that they rely on third parties that they don’t know very well. And they’re just agreeing to work with them because they don’t know very many people in the United States. And so that actually can be disastrous. So say you hired a sales rep who says that they can help you and they’re in the US, you don’t know them that well, but you’re rushing because you really want to work in the United States. And they say that they can help you. That actually backfires a lot.
What you want to do is since you’re so reliant on a third party to support you, you definitely want to take your time on picking who your partner is going to be because it could really, really harm your business. I’ve seen so many international clients not get anywhere because frankly, that person promised them the world and is not doing much and so forth. So definitely want to invest in learning about those people. You got to fly in, you got to talk to them, you got to do things. You don’t have to, but the more you take it seriously, the longer term opportunity. I’ve seen for people get to really invest in the time to make sure that third parties are going to do the best for you in your business.
Another thing that causes a lot of international companies pain and suffering in selling to the US is, and some strategies to think about is that you guys don’t always know all the different ways to make money with the US retail market. And that’s not your fault. You don’t live here. You don’t understand the retailers and so forth. Most people who live in the United States don’t know the money strategies. When I say money strategies, I mean, there’s probably 20 different ways that you could sell to Home Depot or whatever. There’s 20 different ways that you can contact them.
You can sell to the online division. You can sell to the store division. There’re so many different buyers within the retailers, a lot of different opportunities that people miss out on. So if you’re going to go out to the US retail market, I highly recommend getting a coach or somebody in the United States who focuses on the US retail market. You can always work with us or somebody else, but just make sure you got enough data to understand all your different options because that could save you so much time, money, headache.
Because a lot of international companies lose a lot of money because of the simple errors of not knowing the market very well and all the money strategies and all the ways to sell to US retailers. There’re so many different revenue opportunities. We’re going to be placing new videos talking about the different money strategies soon enough in our YouTube channel. So be in the lookout for that. But otherwise, just note that you definitely want to make sure that you understand all the different strategies and all the ways to make money before you launch into the US retail market, because it could be the difference between you making millions of dollars or not.
The final thing that people struggle with in the international market is that you don’t know how to communicate with buyers about your product effectively. It sounds pretty common, but the reality is that in the US retail market, they’re very particular about what you say to them about your particular product. I’m not talking about accents, I’m talking about the words you use to get the buyer to believe that your product will convert for instance in stores. They want to make money. They want to make sales. They have their own language. It’s very complicated to just assume that just because you’re a good salesperson, that things will convert really well for you nicely in the United States.
You definitely want to understand their language in the United States, again, through education, coaching and so forth, and some support. Because ultimately what will happen is the buyer will look at your product and say no to you. And we don’t want that. We want a yes. We want someone to make sure that that product succeeds in stores, and we want to make sure that buyer knows that this product is going to do well. And there are ways to express that to the US retail buyer. And they’re very particular about their words, more so than most industries I’ve ever worked in.
Anyways, those are the five tips to success with selling to chain stores if you live overseas. The big thing here is just to make sure that you understand that there’s so much money to be had in the US retail market. Just get a little education. You’ll be fine. If you want to learn more about how to sell to US retailers, we actually have a 90 minute webinar that’s absolutely free that you can sign up to below. The link is listed below. Just click on that link. You can also go to retailmba.com/free to get access to this as well. Basically, we just walk you through selling to US retailers, we take our time. You can ask questions and so forth. We also have a replay option as well.
Or if you like this information, like us, subscribe, comment below. We’re always adding new content. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA, and I hope this helped. Thanks so much.
Rocco & Roxie Supply Co – Retail MBA Review Success Story – They Got Their Products into 1560 Petsmart Stores, Walmart, Chewy.com and Costco!
Rocco & Roxie Co. Success Story – Retail MBA Brands
We just want to congratulate and spotlight our Rocco & Roxie Co. client. They got their products into 1560 Petsmart Stores in the U.S. and Canada. They also got their products into Walmart, Chewy.com and Costco Stores. Wow!
We met Rocco & Roxie Co. in the last year or so. They were interested in getting their pet products out in the world. They had been selling products online for a while and knew that chain stores was the next best step.
During our coaching Q&A calls we discussed how to increase their chances with the success of their products and chain stores. We did this by helping them with the verbiage they needed to use to scale as they were in a very competitive market.
Since then, they have scaled and we are so thrilled for them!
We couldn’t be prouder of you and your team!
In such a short period of time, you have excelled. Congrats! Go, go, go! Who’s next?! 🙂
Watch the short video on Rocco & Roxie Co.’s success listed above to learn more! We like to spotlight our clients when they scale fast!
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA Brands
P.S. Want to get your products on retail shelves? Check out our upcoming free 90 minute webinar on ‘How to Sell Your Products to Big Box Retail Chains’ by clicking here: https://retailmba.com/free.
New Quick Training on Selling on Walmart Marketplace
Selling on Walmart Marketplace is not exactly the same as selling on Walmart.com. This is a common misconception that comes up all of the time in my workshops and classes.
So, if you think you have a great product for Walmart.com, I suggest watching my latest training video about Selling on Walmart Marketplace Vs. Selling on Walmart.com! I share some quick tips and strategies that may just be helpful to you when selling to this big box retailer. Just click on the video to watch!
(For those of you who prefer to read this content, transcription is included as well below!)
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
P.S. Want to Get Your Products into Chain Stores in a Fraction of the Time? Check out our Retail MBA System! We walk you through exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to chain stores. No sales experience, patents or buyer relationships required!
Transcript for this training on “Selling on Walmart Marketplace vs. Selling on Walmart.com”
Hey, everyone. This is Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. Today, I want to talk about selling on Walmart.com versus selling on Walmart Marketplace. The reason I decided to create this particular training is because for the last decade, I’ve taught tens of thousands of product companies across the globe on how to sell to retail chains like Walmart, and a lot of people really want to sell to Walmart, and Walmart Marketplace comes up all the time, and I really wanted to discuss the differences because it could be the difference between you making millions of dollars or maybe not as much. So just really wanted to share this information with you.
Walmart is an amazing retailer, obviously. There’s a lot of reasons why you’d want to sell to them. They have millions of people who know about them. They’re worldwide. They can buy a lot of product. With that said, Walmart.com, a top destination for people to purchase stuff, and so where it gets confusing is there’s a few ways to sell to Walmart on their website.
One of them is selling directly to Walmart.com, and one is to sell to Walmart Marketplace. So let’s walk through the differences. I did an event with Walmart, and the buyers were there reviewing products to purchase, and that’s what we do. We try and help people get in front of buyers and so forth in various ways. Walmart buyer is teaching, educating the class about what they’re looking for in regards to being a supplier and so forth. We have segments of that video in our YouTube channel if you want to take a look at that. But anyways, one of the things that somebody had asked her was, “Hey, I’m selling on Walmart.com.” And when she looked deeper, she said, “No, you’re not. You are actually not a vendor in our system.” And so he says, “Oh, well, I signed up through Walmart Marketplace.”
Now what happened was the Walmart buyer was liking his product. She went back to take a look to see what was going on because he had mentioned he’d already been selling on Walmart.com, but she didn’t find them in the system, and the reason for that was because he went directly to Walmart through Walnut Marketplace, and for her, that wasn’t something that was interesting to her. So if she wanted to work with him, she would actually have him remove himself from Marketplace and place him as a vendor.
Let’s walk through the distinctions here. Walmart Marketplace means that you can go to Walmart Marketplace, and it’s very similar to Amazon, and you can upload your photos and so forth and submit your products to be placed on Walmart.com, just like Amazon. So that is something that anybody can do. They can sign up for an account, get reviewed, get processed, hopefully, and get submitted. And that’s exciting, right? You can be on Walmart.com. Then you can sell on walmart.com and so forth. However, when you’re looking at the listing on Walmart.com, you’ll notice the distinction of the actual fulfillment house, and that would not be Walmart. It would be the company that is submitting their products there.
So when you want to actually sell to Walmart.com as a vendor, you actually need to interact with a human, with a buyer, and convince them that your product is interesting, and then she would give you a purchase order and she would buy a certain quantity of your product. She would get that product placed on Walmart.com with you, obviously, and your support. And ultimately, you then become a vendor of record. Why that matters is because Walmart.com, the buyer, is different than Walmart Stores buyer, which basically means that Walmart Stores is looking for new products. They always like to check what’s going on with Walmart.com. If you’re a vendor of record, you’re in their system and so forth, it’s very easy for them to transition as a vendor already in the system. You’ve done all the paperwork as an actual vendor to transfer them over to Walmart Stores and so forth. So there’s a lot of room for opportunity with Walmart and being a vendor actually makes a big difference.
So when I was mentioning the story of the guy who was at my event who thought he was on Walmart.com, he was, technically, but for the retailer perspective, he needed to resubmit, get interest from the buyer, get submitted all over again, start over, and then become a vendor, and then ultimately, hopefully get into Walmart Stores and so forth. So you can go the quote-unquote ghetto man’s way and submit your product on Walmart Marketplace. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’m just making jokes. But you could literally get your product on Walmart.com right now.
It really is not the optimal way. A lot of Amazon training programs teach you how to sell on Walmart.com. Seems exciting, but honestly, I would rather spend a few more steps learning exactly how to approach, pitch, and sell to Walmart correctly. Then, ultimately, you have this buyer connection, buyer relationship, vendor number. You can go after the corporate buyers. You can do all sorts of really interesting things. There’s a lot of ways to sell into Walmart. We have so many clients that got in Walmart Stores, and some of these strategies just can change your life, can make you millions and millions of dollars.
Anyways, just wanted to share the distinction. If you want to learn more about how to get your products in a Walmart or other chain store similar to that, take a look at the link below. We actually have a webinar that we have often, and that webinar includes information on how to approach, pitch, and sell to Walmart and other chain store retailers. All you have to do is click on the link below. It’s absolutely free. And we can go into detail about how retailers work, how they operate, and some of the nuances that you might not have known.
I’d love the opportunity to support you with retailers. Otherwise, please like this video. If you like it, place a comment below and/or watch our upcoming videos because we’re constantly creating new content and we’ve been doing this for so many years. There’s so much good stuff out there. So take a look at our YouTube channels, social media, Facebook, and so forth. We’d love the opportunity to work with you. Karen Waksman, Retail MBA. Thank you so much for your time.
Empava Success Story – Retail MBA Review – He Got His Products into Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy and More!
Empava Success Story – Retail MBA Brands
We just want to congratulate and spotlight our Empava Stove Top Client. They got their products into Walmart, Wayfair, Home Depot, Lowes, Sears, Best Buy and More. Wow! The video above shows what their product is and does!
We met Empava at one of our recent events. They had been selling online and really wanted to scale into the biggest retail chains.
We walked them through exactly how to contact buyers correctly and what to say to them to get them to buy and success occurred shortly after. Yippee!
We couldn’t be prouder of you Ricky!
When you came to our event with your large stove top product in packaging, we knew you were serious about your product. As it’s a very heavy item. And you were really ready to take your business to the next level.
In such a short period of time, you have excelled. Congrats! Go, go, go! Who’s next?! 🙂
Watch the short video on Empava’s success listed above because it’s fun to watch other people’s product successes!
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Founder of Retail MBA Brands
P.S. Want to get your products on retail shelves? Check out our upcoming free 90 minute webinar on ‘How to Sell Your Products to Big Box Retail Chains’ by clicking here: https://retailmba.com/free.
BH Photo Video Vendor – How to Sell to B&H Photo Video and Become a B&H Photo Video Vendor. A Few Quick Tips and Strategies to Support!
BH Photo Video Vendor – How to Sell to B&H Photo Video and Become a B&H Photo Video Vendor!
Do you have a product perfect for B&H Photo Video?
If your product is ideally suited for this retailer, check out our new training video on some quick tips and strategies on ‘B&H Photo Video – How to Sell to B&H Photo Video Vendor and Become a B&H Photo Video Vendor.’
This is a massive retail chain that can scale your business exponentially!
Just click on the video to watch!
(For those of you who prefer to read this content, transcription is included as well below!)
Wishing you so much happiness and success.
Karen Waksman, Retail MBA
P.S. Want to Get Your Products into Chain Stores or Major Online Retail Outlets in a Fraction of the Time? Check out our Retail MBA System! We walk you through exactly how to approach, pitch and sell to chain stores. No sales experience, patents or buyer relationships required!
Transcript for ” B&H Photo Video – How to Sell to B&H Photo Video and Become a B&H Photo Video Vendor.”
Karen Waksman, founder of Retail MBA. And today I want to talk about BH Photo and Video. This is a retailer. And the reason I decided to create this training, which sounds strange that I would create a video around a camera store. But there’s some cool things about this retailer that I really want to mention. And it can be a great resource for a lot of you who don’t have camera products, but you might actually want to get your products into that retailer. So let’s talk about BH Photo and Video.
So first of all, they do have retail stores, but they’re mostly online. And the reason why I mention that is because if I’m mentioning this retailer, it means that they probably have a really interesting footprint online because I try to tend to work on the things that will make people the biggest amount of money. And so I focus on retailers that can do that. So BH Photo and Video basically started out as a camera store. But their online site has actually turned into lots of things. I mean, they sell TVs, they sells all sorts of things.
Now, why did I create a video around this? Number one is because they’ve done a really good job online selling products. And now they are like the top 10, at least as of recently, obviously things changed, retailer online. They’re doing phenomenal in terms of, maybe not retailer, but like website based people coming to their site. They are like a top 10 on Alexa, as of now. They did phenomenally well. And so that just means a lot of people are going to their site. So for me, all I care about is sharing information about retailers that make money or could make money. And really that just means that they can get you in front of a lot of people.
So if you have a physical product and you’re trying to create a list of retailers to go after, consider BH Photo and Video, if it makes sense for your products. So go to their website and take a look at the different products that they have, and you’ll see, it’s not cameras and see whether or not your product can fit. So if you have any sort of consumer electronics or any sort of other things, they might actually be selling it. And so then you want to follow protocol and reach out to retailers and the buyers and so forth and go get your product into that retailer. A lot of times, because a lot of your competitors aren’t even thinking about BH Photo and Video. So I always like that, right? If no one else is reaching out to that retailer, that means that there’s more opportunity for me.
So maybe if I have some obscure product that maybe isn’t exactly what they’re selling today, that actually could be okay for me to get into their stores. The other thing is, is that, a lot of people will know about your product because you put it on their website and you’re getting them interested and so forth. Now how you actually get BH Photo and Video to put your product on their site is a whole other conversation. If you want to learn more about how to do that, you can go to my website, retailmba.com. I actually have a free video training that you can just put your email in. And it’s a six part training series on how to go after retailers like BH Photo and Video. Definitely explore that.
If you want to like go after retail stores and get them in the stores in a week, you should definitely go check out my Retail MBA website, because I also have a full training program that in a weekend will walk you through everything you ever want to know about getting your products into stores. And again, that’s my Retail MBA training program. And you can see both of the stuff at retailmba.com.
Either way, I hope this provided value for you. Put them on your list, great opportunity. They’re doing phenomenal online. And anytime a retailer is focused online, it means that they’re speedy. They’re willing to test new products. If you have great pictures of your product and so forth, they’d be more inclined to explore your product and so forth. And so definitely a retailer to put on your list. Who knew a camera store turned powerful? Anyways, this is Karen Waksman, Retail MBA. And please be on the look out for the additional videos that I create. Thanks so much.
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