By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: July 9, 2014 12:13 pm ET
Updated: July 9, 2014 12:18 pm ET
Image By: Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon kicked off a open call for manufacturers to present their products to company buyers.
For manufacturers, it can be a challenge to crack into the world’s biggest retailer, but Wal-Mart made it easier on July 8 by hosting its first-ever “Made In the USA” open call — and about half of the 500-plus suppliers made their first pilgrimage to Bentonville, Ark.
It’s part of a plan by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to spend an additional $250 billion on U.S.-made products over the next decade.
Michelle Gloeckler, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president of consumables and U.S. manufacturing, said the retailer wants to increase the U.S. items it already buys, support the re-shoring of those goods and source products from new domestic suppliers.
“We’re about 18 months into this initiative,” Gloeckler said in a conference call. U.S. manufacturing is becoming more competitive internationally thanks to automation and lower energy prices, she said.
“We’ve identified many of these [cases] where the U.S. is incredibly productive,” she said.
Suppliers who visited the Made in the USA event held about 800 meetings with Wal-Mart buyers and attended classes on labeling and packaging, product compliance, sustainability, diversity and an analysis of Wal-Mart’s customer base. Each got about 30 minutes to make a pitch, and explain how the product fits with Wal-Mart and is differentiated from existing offerings in the stores, Gloeckler said.
Deals got made on the spot for a wide range of products, including plastic toys, trash bags, shower curtains and office supplies.
“I had no idea what to expect,” said John Cundy of Detroit, who invented and makes the Trash-Ease, a bent wire frame that supports a plastic trash bad hung off the edge of a picnic table or stadium bleachers. Cundy said he expected to get “beaten up” by the Wal-Mart buyers on his first-ever trip to Bentonville, “but it felt great. It was just so easy.”
Cundy, who sculpts clay models of cars at General Motors Co., said he got the idea for the bag holder after crawling around under the bleachers helping clean up after one of his kid’s track meets a few years ago. He participated in the Wal-Mart conference call.
So far this year, his small company has sold 42,000 Trash-Ease units, to Lowe’s Home Improvement stores, Ace hardware stores and local campgrounds.
Wal-Mart ordered 50,000 units, more than double Cundy’s previous largest order. “I got the biggest order of my life. It was an amazing moment. I was walking about a foot off the ground,” he said.
Gloeckler said Wal-mart also bought a taco plate, shampoo, flashlights and other new inventions like the Trash-Ease. Many could appear in the stories in the next 60 days. “You’ll see many of these products in the stories for the holiday season,” she said.
One advantage of China is a complete network of component suppliers, often in the same town. The United States will have to rebuild that network.
“They have difficulty finding component parts that are made in the U.S.,” Gloeckler said. So Wal-Mart will be hosting component suppliers at a future U.S. manufacturing forum in Bentonville. | 
