The Inspiration Theater at The Inspired Home Show kicked off with a diverse group of speakers who provided multiple perspectives on the marketplace and how to address consumers as they are living their lives today.
In the session, “How Leading Brands Are Harnessing Walmart Marketplace to Dominate Their Categories,” Mayur Shah, director of Walmart Marketplace, and Michael Lebhar, CEO of SellCord, an approved Walmart agency partner that works with third-party sellers to help them improve their businesses, discussed opportunities and ways to address them.
Walmart Marketplace is growing and as it has gained, the company has added fulfillment and marketing functions that allow sellers to better refine their operation on the platform. This provides an opportunity not just to sell but, with research capabilities provided and support, sell in a more targeted way.
Shay and Lebhar made several points, one of which was that Walmart has a broad customer base but one with some specific characteristics. Marketplace sellers today have the opportunity to use available tools to take a more sophisticated approach to selling that can generate better engagement and, ultimately, success with Walmart’s gigantic customer base.
Other advantages of participation include the ability to control a brand message. Resellers frequently use marketplaces to sell brands based on their own representations of them. By participating in the marketplace, companies can tell their own brand stories in their own way.
“By taking ownership over that, you can make sure you’re protecting your brand and your items,” Lebhar said. “You make sure you control your brand story. The easiest way to do the brand protection is to make sure you’re the one controlling it rather than taking down brand listings and things like that.”
Success on Walmart.com requires an understanding of the Walmart customer but also execution of that understanding. For example, sellers need to curate assortments as offered on the platform, which puts their products in a better position for sale and promotion. Such specificity means that marketing spend will be more effective as it focuses on products that are most likely to get the best reception.
By keeping assortments tailored to the Walmart customer base in produce and promotion, marketplace sellers have a better opportunity to capitalize on a major advantage their participation with Walmart offers, which involves playing off the swell of consumer attention generated by the company’s schedule of event-related marketing. In promoting products, Lebhar says events are key. Marketplace participation by third-party sellers benefits from the big investment Walmart makes through all the available marketing channels for the holidays and other annual occasions, which gives third-party players a lift they can build on even with modest promotions as consumers visits to walmart.com grow and their desire to purchase for occasions such as those during the holidays become greater.
Mayur Shah, Director, Walmart Marketplace (left); Michael Lebhar, CEO, SellCord (right)
Retail in Review
Warren Shoulberg (pictured top), in his Inspiration Theater session, “The Best of Stores… and What’s Coming in 2025,” the long-time retail journalist, trade magazine editor and blogger, as in the case of WarrensReport.com, made the point that companies operating physical stores are looking for new ways to reach out and connect with consumers, sometimes building fresh operational variation on existing retail operations and sometime taking fresh new approaches to enticing shoppers.
In his review of retail operations, he noted that not all stores were housewares-oriented. He pointed to Erewhon, a healthy-eating concept that has earned the reputation as the most expensive grocery store in the United States, as an operation designed for a very specific, in this case, affluent, consumer who wants wellness as part of a luxury experience.
“It’s Whole Foods on steroids,” Shoulberg said.
Then, he cited the six-story Nike store now operating in Manhattan as an example of a store designed as a statement for the brand. Not that housewares companies can’t cover the same ground. He also noted that Dyson had developed a branded store concept, one that can be found in Chicago, to support the brand. It does so not only through elaborate presentations. The store design also showcases the whole product line on one stage. Product segments that would be broken up across most stores make one comprehensive statement at a Dyson-branded store.
Shoulberg cited the Wayfair store, which recently debuted in Wilmette, IL, as the best home retail operation to have opened in the past year.
“I think they’ve done a terrific job translating the Wayfair online shopping experience to in-store,” he said. “You have a clever racetrack layout, and it really is fresh and exciting.”
Shoulberg said Wayfair has developed the first retail concept that is directly competitive with Ikea mainline stores, although it’s about 49 locations short, so far, in taking on its Swedish competitor. That said, he pointed out that Ikea’s Plan & Order stores are another retail concept to watch, as they’re the company’s attempt to get closer to customers in more densely populated environments where a huge Ikea mainline store wouldn’t work. The Plan and Order stores have nothing to take home, everything is delivered, and Ikea even has its TaskRabbit contracting subsidiary for consumers who want someone else to assemble the furniture.
Shoulberg added that if Wayfair is his top retail location this year, the Crate & Barrel store in Manhattan was his favorite visit last year. The way it executes Crate & Barrel’s strategy of integrating housewares and home furnishings across an open floor plan to give shoppers an idea of how the different products it sells pull together gives it a unique quality among retailers who often segregate housewares and home furnishings categories.
Shoulberg said Miniso represents what can be considered a new retail segment that also includes Popmart and Dollar General’s pOpshelf, which offers novel items in novel ways. These include Miniso blind boxes that consumers buy without knowing the actual content, designed to intrigue younger shoppers. Prices are within their budgets as well.
Maya Kobray, Vice President, Beanstalk
Licensed Advantages
In The Inspiration Theater session, “Creating Breakthrough Products and Experiences Via Brand Licensing,” Maya Kobray set out to provide a basic understanding of licensing and its advantages. Kobray is associate vice president at Beanstalk, a brand licensing firm that works with a range of companies and organizations from the United States Army to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, with which it helped develop a portfolio of licensed products including items for the home, to help the institution leverage the image and reputation it has developed.
Kobray was inclusive in her presentation, making sure that everyone in the audience understood the basics, explaining that at its base, licensing is a brand owner granting a third party permission to develop and sell product using the brand’s logo, attributes, and intellectual property for a royalty or fee. Licensing in operation can be described in two ways. “Licensing out” involves working with owners to extend rights to manufacturers. “Licensing in” involves manufacturers of a specific category and product lines finding brands with which they can work to help achieve their growth goals.
Licensing can have benefits for both the licensor and licensee.
Among home goods operators, Epoca has been a Beanstalk client. Beanstalk and Epoca worked together on a licensing program with the goal of enhancing the housewares company’s retail distribution and growing the business.
“The first partnership we were able to negotiate for them was for Meredith Corps. Cooking Light brand,” Kobray said. “So this was for a full line of cookware, bakeware and kitchen gadgets. This initially launched in the off-price market. It was specifically Ross Stores that were interested in a brand for this category.”
At the same time, she said that Epoca wanted to develop the brand to expand beyond offprice. So the company and Beanstalk positioned the brand so it could cross channel lines, and it evolved into the mass, specialty and e-com sectors successfully. Other Epoca initiatives included a program with BuzzFeed’s Tasty brand for Walmart that targeted younger consumers, again involving cookware, bakeware and kitchen gadgets.
“Since the launch of this program in 2017, it has generated over $500 million in retail sales,” Kobray said.
The success with Walmart led to a deal with Epoca for BuzzFeed’s Goodful brand. This brand targets department stores and is focused on more mature consumers. It launched at Macy’s and has expanded into other retailers, generating more than $50 million in retail sales.
Pete Scott, President and CEO, American Pet Products Association
Barking Up the Right Tree
Success can take many forms, some of them four legged. In his session, “Pets at the Heart of the Home: Unpacking Consumer Trends and the Future of Retail,” Pete Scott, president and CEO of the American Pet Products Association, pointed out that in 2024, the pet industry in the United States grew to $152 billion. The 3.4% increase was heavily influenced by inflation, but it was $100 billion more than the total in 2014. The association is predicting that sales will reach $157 million in 2025.
In the U.S., 71 billion households have a pet, with 51% including a dog and 37% including a cat. Other categories from fish down, represent 7% or less of homes. Dogs have been the more popular pet until recently when cat ownership increased at a higher rate. In a post-pandemic world where people are returning to offices and inflation has taken its toll, cats are easier in terms of daily care and less expensive to own. At the same time, Millennials and Gen Zers have become more dominant in their pet ownership versus older generations, with Gen Z “really picking up.”
Numbers can only tell so much, though, Scott said.
“What we’re seeing, over the past 10 to 15 years is the realization and recognition of the human/animal bond,” he said.
Scott said research has demonstrated health savings from the bond, particularly in lower cardiovascular treatment costs, as well as benefits for diabetes, obesity, and mental health. Pets are increasingly considered to be good for owner well-being, which has promoted a change in consideration of animals in the home and a change in terminology from pet owner to pet parent.
The bond translates into spending as consumers increasingly identify pets as family members entitled to benefits on an equal basis with humans, including Christmas presents and birthday parties.
Among the top trending pet products for specialty housewares and gift stores expected for 2025 are:
- Luxury and Fashion Pet Products
- Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Pet Products
- Personalized and Custom Pet Products
- Pet-Centric Home Décor and Furniture
- Pet Celebration and Party Products
Scott emphasized that not all pet owners are the same nor do they necessarily do all their pet shopping in the same place or one place. Consumers range from people who have a more traditional sense of pet ownership and tend to basic products including kibble for meals and an old pillow for sleeping, providing basic nutrition and comforts. On the other hand, many consumers not only adopt pets as family members but some consider pets to be an extension of their identity and even personal brand. Such consumers will look for products that are on par with the treatment and even luxuries that they expect themselves.
So, pet trends are changing but their general direction of the market is for additional spending to ensure every species in the home gets to participate in the family lifestyle, and they are willing to spend to make it so.
