In late July, Daymon’s Retail Merchandising team, SAS Retail Services (SAS), scored a huge win to become just one of five Preferred Service Providers (PSP) in retail giant Walmart’s over 4,600 stores throughout the United States.
The story of SAS and Walmart starts like many new business opportunities do, with an introductory meeting. Daymon CEO Jim Holbrook and President of SAS Michael Bellman met with Walmart leaders in the fall of 2016 to introduce them to the range of end-to-end retail services offered by Daymon. But for more than six months, they heard nothing from the retail giant—until a request for proposal (RFP) landed on their desks. The RFP described Walmart’s need for retail execution providers to assist the retailer in centralizing its merchandising activities and integrating standard operating procedures.
“SAS didn’t have an existing relationship with Walmart,” explains Justin Yancey, Director of Marketing for SAS. “This was a challenge, as the RFP was largely focused on asking providers to explain how they would ensure the ‘Walmart way’, but we didn’t have a lot of experience in Walmart stores.”
Instead of following the RFP directions to the letter, the team got creative and offered Walmart an alternative strategy. Although it was a risk, the SAS team of Nick Mills, Michael Hankins and Abhi Beniwal knew they had to set themselves apart from the competition since they didn’t have an active relationship with Walmart, like the competitors did. Fortunately that risk paid off, with SAS delivering a winning proposal that resulted in the Walmart folks thanking them for not following the format—and for providing industry leading thought leadership.
As one of Walmart’s new PSPs, SAS will provide modular resets, features and displays, point-of-sale placements, new cut-ins, stocking and availability, and more for Walmart and its suppliers. The program began September 1, and will continue to ramp up through early 2018 when all current non-preferred providers are required to exit the Walmart business.
“SAS’s work proves that pushing the status quo is key to success. Because of their efforts, we will now have the privilege of aiding Walmart in driving sales, leveraging costs, increasing efficiencies and improving the customer experience,” says Holbrook. “We couldn’t be more excited to see our retail merchandising expertise come to life at the largest retailer in the world.”
To learn more about SAS Retail Services’ merchandising solutions, contact Michael Bellman, President – SAS Retail Services, at michaelbellman@daymon.com.