The Supply Side: Woman-owned suppliers connect through non-profits

More than 350 sales items and 35 woman-owned companies have become Wal-Mart suppliers in the almost two years since Wal-Mart and Walmart.com announced an effort to bring more woman-owned suppliers’ products from around the round to an online marketplace.

The Empowering Women Together program is part of the retailer’s larger Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative aimed at helping woman build better lives through sales opportunities, training and promotion, according to Ravi Jariwala, Walmart.com spokesman.

“We've set specific goals for 2016 and are working toward them with good progress,” Jariwala told The City Wire.

He said Walmart.com is now working with 35 woman-owned companies who are supplying more than 350 items for sale via the Empowering Women Together website page on Walmart.com. Sales begin in March 2013 from 19 woman-owned businesses from around the world.

Wal-Mart said by 2016 the dedicated e-commerce site will feature approximately 500 items – from apparel and jewelry, to stationery and accessories – by more than 20,000 women in nearly two dozen countries. The retailer refers to its Empowering Women Together marketplace as a “Store for Good.” 

“Our hope is to provide these hard-working women with opportunities to improve their own lives, while creating new jobs and enhancing the lives of their families and their communities. Each supplier in the Empowering Women Together program is a woman-owned business or an aggregator with the mission of supporting women-owned businesses,” Walmart.com notes on its website.

Wal-Mart said the challenge for many small women-owned businesses – and particularly women artisans – is that they have a good product, but they may not have the size or scale to sell in the retailer’s brick-and-mortar stores.

The Women’s Bean Project based in Denver is a non-profit organization that employs chronically impoverished and unemployed women.

Women in the program make hand-crafted jewelry and food items, all while learning basic life skills, like how to solve problems and how to set goals and job readiness skills like computer skills and attention to detail. It’s more than a paycheck for them, it’s a path to a new life, notes MiKaela Wardlaw Lemmon, vice president at Sam’s Club. Lemmon previously worked as the executive director for the Walmart’s Empowering Women’s Initiative.

“Empowering Women Together has about 35% more suppliers since it began in 2013, and the program continues to grow.  This is just one way Walmart is working to empower women and source $20 billion from women-owned businesses,” Lemmon notes in her blog.

Thousands of miles away in New Deli, India Nimal Designs, run by Babita Gupta and her 25 employees, are at work crafting home furnishings, clothing and accessories.

“They told me I am nobody, but you have made me somebody. Now I dream of making all under privileged woman like me,” notds Usha, one of 10 female employees at Nimal Designs.

Nimal Designs was brought to Walmart.com by a partnership the retailer has with Full Circle Exchange, a non-profit social enterprise brand dedicated to empowering women and whole communities to rise above poverty through design partnerships, innovative products and sustainable economic opportunities. Full Circle Exchange artisans sell products in Walmart, Macy’s, Whole Foods and other regional grocers.

Jariwala told The City Wire that Walmart.com seeks to grow the number of woman-owned suppliers through the Empowering Women Together campaign. He said all eyes and ears at Wal-Mart are open for eligible women-owned business suppliers.

Wal-Mart outlines the following guidelines for potential woman-owned suppliers on its website.

“Internationally, we are concentrating on suppliers with very little or limited access to customers. Most will have revenues of $10 million or less and fewer than 300 stores selling their products. While we help these women-owned businesses grow, we want them to grow with us. So we will continue to work with suppliers who enter the program and grow into higher revenues.”