198: Hardware Success on Walmart Marketplace

With Will Haire, CEO of BellaVix

Hosted by Kevin Mako, President of MAKO Design + Invent

Will Haire serves as the Chief Executive Officer of BellaVix, a marketing agency dedicated to the strategic growth of emerging hardware brands on Amazon and Walmart.com. With a background in military technology and supply chain management, Will has honed his expertise over a decade in the digital marketing realm. In this episode, Will will impart invaluable insights tailored for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers. He will elucidate the nuances of the Walmart.com Marketplace, guide you through the product listing process, and illuminate best practices for effectively launching and expanding your hardware product in this competitive space.

Here are the key takeaways from the episode:

• Walmart online differs from Walmart Retail Stores.
• Not all products on the website are available in physical stores.
• Online sales can demonstrate a product’s value effectively.
• Many Walmart online products catch the attention of retail store buyers.
• Walmart is aggressively expanding into the e-commerce sector.
• Walmart possesses a vast infrastructure.
• There’s a substantial opportunity for brands to join Walmart, especially as it’s still in its early stages.
• Getting a new product on Walmart.com is now surprisingly straightforward.
• Previously, it was challenging to access the platform, but it’s now more friendly to emerging product brands.
• It takes less than a week to list your product on the Walmart marketplace.
• Avoid simply mirroring listings from other marketplaces; tailor your approach to Walmart’s platform.
• How Walmart presents and promotes your product is crucial.
• Different online marketplaces have varying sales metrics for the same consumer products.
• Maintain control over your product brand at Walmart.
• Walmart Fulfillment Services is akin to Amazon Prime Fulfillment.
• Transfer reviews from Shopify, if available, to your Walmart listing.
• Advertising is essential for brand scaling, especially after garnering positive reviews.
• Carefully design and engineer titles, keywords, descriptions, and bullets to match buyer intent.
• Experiment with software to find the most effective keywords for traffic and conversions.
• Utilize Pay Per Click ads and the DSP Programmatic Platform in both on and off-platform advertising on Walmart.com.

Episode Highlights

• 3:46 – What is Walmart Marketplace? What opportunities does it create?
• 5:16 – Walmart is interesting because they have the infrastructure to become a major player in e-commerce.
• 5:45 – The idea of the “first-mover advantage” with Walmart.
• 6:36 – Product placement on these online marketplaces is a two-way process from both the inventor and the Marketplace, itself.
• 8:03 – The Seller Walmart Marketplace application process, today.
• 9:09 – The correct way to do a product launch on Walmart Marketplace to best suit consumer online shopping habits and SEO tracking.
• 10:17 – Whatever platform you decide to use, it’s better that your consumers are getting the product from you directly rather than from a third-party.
• 12:13 – Why you should consider WFS.
• 14:03 – The best thing you can do for your product and brand is getting great reviews online.
• 14:36 – Use apps and software available to you to increase the effectiveness and traction around your products and brand.
• 15:08 – The importance of advertising to scale your brand.
• 15:28 – Best practices for advertising well – Optimizing for search engines, navigating for KPIs, etc.
• 18:43 – Make sure you are curating your content to each individual platform.
• 19:20 – More about BellaVix – bellavix.com.

Will Haire Links:

LinkedIn | BellaVix

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube

MAKO Design Links:

https://www.makodesign.com

YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter

Partner: PTC’s best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality.

Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to the above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories.