Following the retail supplier community
More than 20 years after the death of Sam Walton, nearly 1,300 suppliers have set up offices within a 27-mile radius of Wal-Mart’s home office in Bentonville.
The supplier community provides roughly 5,800 high-income jobs and brings further socio-economic development and cultural diversity to the region.
Having the supplier offices in Northwest Arkansas is one of the catalysts that buoys income levels and home prices higher than in surrounding counties. This sector also creates a critical mass of top talent from a vast array of industries related to products, services and supply-chain logistics. Not only does this sector support Wal-Mart, but many of the suppliers in Northwest Arkansas also do business with other large national and regional retail companies.
Talk Business & Politics, through the sponsorship of Propak, intends to enhance its coverage of this important economic sector. (Please submit your story tips, ideas and feedback here)
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Roughly six months after New York-based Genpact set up shop in Bentonville, expansion is already underway. CEO Tiger Tyagarajan was recently in Bentonville to discuss a new digital retail hub…
by - June 11, 2019 2:08 pm
Zoya Hajianpour of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., joined the ranks of Walmart suppliers nearly one year ago. An entrepreneur whose passion is designing products that can improve everyday life, Hajianpour said…
by - June 9, 2019 3:30 pm
Sam’s Club executive Clint Gill, who oversees grocery and beverage for the retailer, said his sales team is in the midst of its annual review of merchandise assortment with plans…
by - May 22, 2019 3:29 pm
Data breaches are always on the minds of retailers regardless of their size. In brick-and-mortar stores or online, all retailers face millions of hacker threats each day. Walmart recently held…
by - May 16, 2019 6:23 pm
Bodylove Naturals owners Stacey Antonelli and Wyatt Foley pitched their all-natural skin care product to Walmart at Open Call in June 2018. Walmart gave them a green light for the…
by - May 14, 2019 2:15 pm
Entrepreneur and inventor Louie Graham was in a hurry for a meeting and frustrated with the process to clean his razor while shaving. He wanted a better solution to clean…
by - May 5, 2019 5:38 pm
Retail realities are shifting, and many categories from apparel to pets are moving online. But that does not negate the importance of brick-and-mortar that continues to pay the bills for…
by - April 28, 2019 10:24 am
Retail commerce continues to transition into an omnichannel business with retailers like Walmart investing heavily in online and in-store pickup and e-commerce giant Amazon also looking at more brick-and-mortar stores…
by - April 2, 2019 12:41 pm
Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran recently said if the retail giant can’t get its orders on time from suppliers then nothing else it does works. Speaking to the investment community…
by - March 27, 2019 4:02 pm
While retailers and suppliers are focused on the unique shopping behaviors and attitudes of the mega Millennial generation, the up and coming Generation Z (ages 18 to 22) has its…
by - March 19, 2019 4:23 pm
LeeBob Willingham and his business partner Trevor Jensen may seem like an unlikely tandem, but their combined passion for dogs, ingenuity and business savvy has landed their product — Bullibone…
by - March 17, 2019 2:57 pm
A majority of retailers (85%) have not yet completed the digitization processes needed to give them full control and transparency of their supply chain, according to a recent survey of…
by - March 6, 2019 4:17 pm
Wisconsin-based Artemax Inc. is one of Walmart’s Open Call success stories in the retailer’s efforts to grow and support U.S. manufacturing jobs. The wristband manufacturer based outside Milwaukee employs about…
by - February 25, 2019 3:33 pm
“Elevating the everyday” is the mantra of Fayetteville-based Field Agent, which continues to harness data from an army of 1.4 million consumers around the globe. The crowdsourcing machine is the…
by - February 20, 2019 1:00 pm
Consumer households spend an average of $10,500 annually on food and consumables, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While that comprises a big part of household spending, it’s also…
by - February 18, 2019 12:54 pm
Walmart’s big sustainability push known as Project Gigaton was announced in 2017 in partnership with the Sustainability Consortium. The milestone project involves Walmart’s removing 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse…
by - February 4, 2019 3:37 pm
Voice assistants are a new frontier in retail. With the majority of consumers (77%) now using smartphones, the market is ripe for disruption, according to Jake Stanley, co-founder of Little…
by - January 28, 2019 4:55 pm
Crossmark, a marketing and merchandising services firm, announced a new alliance with Fayetteville-based WhyteSpyder designed to provide clients with immediate digital merchandising solutions to grow online sales. David Newman, chief…
by - January 16, 2019 1:11 pm
Online grocery is slowly growing its share in the U.S., but in the next five years, analysts expect e-commerce food sales will be a $59.5 billion market, a compound annual…
by - January 3, 2019 3:41 pm
In early 2019, consumers across Northwest Arkansas will be among the first in the country to eliminate clunky coin change using digital piggybank software developed by Bucket Technologies. Bringing the…
