by
Greg Writer on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 |
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OK Cliff and I flew a very small plane to Bentonville AR to meet with Wal-Mart buyer and it was very exciting and different. Why different you ask, well Cliff has been there before when he was pitching his cookies (see www.cookieclubofamerica.com) and he said there was a hallway with hundreds of rooms and you got a number and went to a room and did your thing.
Well not for us, we got to have a meeting in a conference room at EA Sports, not sure why but it was very comfortable and the buyer we met with was a great guy with a great personality.
Well as the story goes I started by telling him my story and how passionate I am about protecting and educating kids online. I then gave him a demo of the Shrek Browser for Kids (see www.ShrekBrowser.com) and when I was done he said he loved the product and it was very cool! A great way to start a meeting and presentation with a buyer for the largest company in the world!
But he said he could not work with us because we only have on product and we would have to go through a distributor. Well we were ready for that one. We promptly replied we are in contract with Global Marketing and Navarre is our distribution company....and he said great.
Then he said he could not buy the product as it is currently packaged, one it is not the right packaging for their cash register isle and the boxes would not go well there, he actually said he might be killed if he made a PO of this product. This is where we promptly reminded him we have "Clip Strips" too and he replied he would be "coached if he brought those in.
I was puzzled and asked what he meant, he replied with "we refer to coaching as a form of disciplinary action" so it was not good!
But he really liked the product and said it should be given away and they may be interested in helping facilitate that. We explained that DreamWorks would not allow that and he said if we could convince them to allow that we could use his name.
You could tell he wanted to figure something out as he really liked our product and said it is perfect for their customer base.
He then suggested we try and got the route of a gift card. A plastic credit card type package that you see popping up all over the stores and when scanned product is activated and then customer could download from the web. He liked this because he said it lowers his inventory and loss from theft. SO he gave us the name and contact info for the company that handles this and we will follow up with them this week.
He also did say if we had a more traditional Jewell case or DVD like packaging he would give it a try, so we are working on new packaging to see if we can make this happen.
So more work and follow up needed but someday you should see our software in Wal-Mart.