As Ryan Wright walked by an array of glass-walled conference rooms in Walmart’s corporate headquarters, he could see other entrepreneurs pitching their products. It looked, he said, like “the biggest episode of Shark Tank you’ve ever seen.”
Mr. Wright, who owns the Maumee business Sposie, was walking to his own sales pitch meeting. He didn’t know it, but he would walk out of that meeting having hit the big time.
In front of two Walmart buyers and the company’s executive vice president, he promoted his product.
Sposie produces disposable pads which significantly increase the absorption of diapers. At the end of the presentation, which included pouring a water bottle on a pad to show its absorption capacities, Mr. Wright was given a high-five and a green card: a buyer’s agreement.
This would produce a significant amount of business for Sposie, but also the company that manufactures its product, Principal Business Enterprises of Middleton Township in Wood County. The deal will result in a new production line devoted to producing Sposie products.
Sposie was one of more than 100 owners and executives of small businesses nationwide that walked out of the Walmart conference rooms with significantly more business orders. They were participating in Walmart’s 2017 Open Call event — part of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s initiative to purchase $250 billion of products made in America by 2023. More than 500 businesses, pitching about 700 products, descended on Bentonville, Ark. recently, jostling for a place in Walmart’s mammoth distribution chain.
Sposie products should be on Walmart’s website within eight weeks, Mr. Wright said, and they will be on Supercenter store shelves in March in a limited trial run across 100 stores. There are 3,534 Walmart Supercenters nationwide and two in the Toledo area.
“They want to make sure that we can meet production, that we’re processing orders properly,” Mr. Wright said. “Walmart is so big that they need to make sure their vendors can handle Walmart.”
He hopes that a local Supercenter will stock Sposie.
Before the Walmart distribution deal, Sposie sold its products exclusively on Amazon.com and its own website. The company employs 12 people at its office at 4064 Technology Dr., where they handle marketing, strategy, and all other parts of the business aside from manufacturing. Mr. Wright declined to provide sales numbers, but said the firm’s sales have grown 300 percent a year since it started in 2015. The Walmart deal, he said, will help maintain that “growth curve.”
Should Sposie do well as Mr. Wright expects based on existing sales with Amazon.com, the success could lead the firm to add six jobs.
“They’re the [nation’s] largest retailer,” he said. “This is a huge, huge amount of business.”
Contact Victorio Cabrera at vcabrera@theblade.com, 419-724-6050 or on Twitter @vomcabrera.
First Published July 14, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
