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Persuading Wal-Mart to say 'yes'

The nation’s leading retailer warms up to packaging that simplifies communication and emphasizes speed and ease for both consumer and sales associate.

Auto-racing graphics rev up interest among men for a triple-blade razor.
Auto-racing graphics rev up interest among men for a triple-blade razor.

One of Wal-Mart’s leading packaging influencers wants to set the record straight for brand marketers and packaging suppliers who fixate on “cracking the code” inside the nation’s No. 1 retailer. A code doesn’t exist, says Bob Connolly, executive vice president of marketing and consumer communications.

Successfully selling Wal-Mart requires packaging that simplifies life for both shopper and sales associate, Connolly says. When the approach focuses strictly on ingenuity, failure often results.

“Wal-Mart customers come in on a mission,” Connolly explains. “All they want is to have a safe, easy shopping experience.”

That experience can be summed up this way: Eighty percent of the time, the purchaser is a woman, even in men’s products. Upon spotting a particular brand, she spends no more than six seconds eyeing a product and then making the buying decision. She’s often in a hurry, and she despises delays caused by falling materials as she pulls product from a display.

Wal-Mart sales associates are on a mission built around speed and ease, too. In a company that rings up 130 million sales transactions each week, product turnover is swift. From a packaging perspective, their approach is “Wheel it in, open it up, it’s there,” Connolly says. That means packaging displays that set up quickly and intuitively, and that minimize labor costs as the displays sell down.

“As soon as you ask for more, you make it more likely Wal-Mart will back off,” Connolly says.

In this scenario, packaging can make or break a brand at Wal-Mart. Consider one estimate that losing Wal-Mart’s business can cost a brand more than 20% of its sales potential.

Two hot buttons

Connolly discusses two pivotal areas where both brand owners and their packaging materials suppliers can leverage packaging to gain a winning edge with Wal-Mart. In his view, it’s all about time and execution.

As a slew of marketing messages bombard consumers each day, time has become their new currency. They expect their shopping experience at Wal-Mart to help them sort it all out.

“Consumers are willing to accept a certain level of complexity. But you don’t want complexity thrown upon you,” Connolly observes. “Where we have the ability to control that complexity, there is a movement to do it. And that’s where brand managers and vendors come in.”

Wal-Mart shoppers expect packaging to take complexity out of their lives. They favor a communications hierarchy that helps them understand the nuances of a product and how it differs from competitors. That helps them save time by getting through the store faster, confident they’ve selected the right product, Connolly explains.

He describes simple communication as the foundation to a time-saving packaging strategy. It recognizes women as Wal-Mart’s primary shopper, even when the consumer of the product is a man.

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