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A retail or wholesale buyer is a professional judging whether your product will sell, make money and arrive on time. Thirty minutes, prepared, with an advance at the end.
Walmart’s annual Open Call gives entrepreneurs with US-made products “30-minute one-on-one meetings” with its buyers. In 2025 more than 500 entrepreneurs took part, and more than 100 left with a “Golden Ticket”, an offer of a chance to sell at Walmart or Sam’s Club, in stores or online Reported. Thirty minutes is not much time to prove a product belongs on a shelf. It’s plenty if you’ve prepared.
Retail margin is worked out on the retail price, not the cost. Say your product retails at $30 and the retailer wants a 50% margin: your wholesale price is $15. If you sell it on your own site at $30 with a $9 unit cost, you make $21 a unit there and $6 a unit in the store, before any promotions, freight or marketing support you’ve agreed to pay for. Know that number and the payment terms before the meeting, because long terms tie up cash while you wait to be paid. The Price Rise covers pricing and Cash Before Growth covers terms and working capital.
| Minutes | Move | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | Open | Thanks, purpose, time; ask to start with questions |
| 8 | Discover | Their category goals, what’s underperforming, their shoppers, their next reset or deadline |
| 2 | Diagnose | Say their goal and gap back; get a yes |
| 8 | Recommend | Which items, why, with evidence from your customers and stockists; the margin at retail |
| 5 | Objections | Raise the likely one yourself; answer the rest with proof |
| 4 | Advance | A test in named stores, with a start date, a review date and the measure agreed |
Discovery comes first even when the buyer expects a pitch: eight minutes of questions tells you which three of your ten slides to show. Appendix B has the agenda.
Agree on the measure of success before the test starts. A test without an agreed measure gets judged on whatever looks worst.
The best first yes is usually small and measurable: a few stores, a set period, and an agreed measure, most often units per store per week at full price. Support it by telling your own customers near those stores. Report back on the review date with the numbers, good or bad. That report is the next sales conversation.
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If this is your store
The free Klaviyo audit reads your own account and scores it. Start with your store’s address. A read-only key gets the full report.
Written by Andrew Lauchner, a growth and retention operator for consumer brands. The paid work is one ninety-day Sprint.
This is one chapter of One to Many, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.