Walk into any Walmart and you are standing in the part of the business that still drives most of its sales. Years into the rise of ecommerce, the store remains where the largest share of Walmart’s revenue is won, and it is also the part of the operation that is hardest for a supplier to see clearly and shape directly.
The shelf is where it all comes due. A forecast becomes a sale or a lost one. A planogram earns the basket or sits ignored. And behind every result at the shelf is a supplier team that made it happen: the people they hired, the way they work, and the tools they chose.
On Wednesday, October 7, the Winning With Walmart In-Store Supplier Forum brings the full picture into one room in Bentonville for a full day: the challenger brands taking share, the teams recognized as Walmart’s best, and the companies building the technologies and solutions that help suppliers win inside the store.
The Conversations
The Forum is built around five moderated conversations with respected voices from across the Walmart supplier community, each one paired with open discussion so the room can take part rather than just take notes.
The first two put suppliers themselves at the center: the brands taking share and the teams taking home trophies.
Playing Big: Challenger Brands Disrupting Categories & Taking Share. Category leaders have the budgets and the headcount. Challenger brands show up anyway, and some of them walk away with share. A panel of leaders from brands punching above their weight at Walmart, on how they earn the modular, stretch a lean team across a growing business, and turn a single placement into a foothold. Relevant whether you sell to Walmart as a 1P supplier or on Walmart.com as a Marketplace seller.
Supplier of the Year: A Look Inside the Teams Walmart Calls Its Best. Every year at Walmart’s Supplier Growth Forum, a handful of supplier teams accept Supplier of the Year honors, the retailer’s highest recognition, in front of the entire supplier community. Those awards are won all year, in line reviews and JBPs, on the OTIF scorecard and the modular, by teams built deliberately for that work. Leaders from recognized teams talk about how they recruit, how they develop their people, and how they build a culture that keeps performing when the requirements keep growing. If you lead a supplier team, this is perspective you can’t get from a scorecard. If you want a seat on a team like that, this is your look at what it takes, straight from the people doing the choosing.
Three more build on one another. The first gives you a true view of the shelf. The second turns that view into decisions made at machine speed. The third uses both to win the sale at the shelf itself.
Knowing What’s Where: How Next-Generation Tech Is Giving Suppliers Visibility Like Never Before. The system says the item is in stock. The shelf says otherwise, and the empty space is funding the competition. A look at how RFID, computer vision, and on-shelf availability tools are giving supplier teams a clearer view of the shelf, and a faster way to act on it.
When the Data Decides: Automating Decision Making at Scale. Supplier teams are not short on data anymore. They are buried in it, spread across Scintilla, Supplier One, and Retail Link, with scorecards, alerts, and deductions queues piling up faster than anyone can work them by hand. This conversation turns to how teams are using AI to surface the exceptions that matter and act on them before they cost a sale.
Winning the Last Three Feet: How In-Store Media and Activation Decide the Sale. Being on the shelf is not the same as being chosen. Retail media is now one of Walmart’s fastest-growing businesses, and the store is its newest frontier: digital screens, Walmart Radio, in-store demos, sampling. Yet most supplier teams still have no framework for what it is worth or how to prove it pays. A look at how teams are learning to win the moment of decision at the shelf.
No decks. No sales pitches. Just real conversations about what it takes to win inside the store.
The Innovation Crawl
The Innovation Crawl is a curated exhibitor hall where companies from all over set up to demonstrate what they are building for the in-store challenge. The rule on the floor is simple. Show, do not sell. This is a place to see the work up close and get hands on it, not to sit through a pitch.
The hall gives you unhurried time to walk it and spend it with the teams whose work is closest to the problem you are trying to solve, alongside everything else the day holds.
Exhibitor Categories Include
- Shelf Visibility & In-Store Intelligence. Item-level RFID and tagging. Computer vision and image recognition for shelf state. On-shelf availability and phantom-inventory detection. Electronic shelf labels and the digital shelf edge. Retail execution and store-walk audit apps. Hardware integrators and deployment partners. Real-time location and sensor systems.
- Category Management, Assortment & Space. Planogram and space optimization. Assortment and item rationalization. Modular integrity and planogram compliance. Store clustering and localization. Shelf-edge and macro-space planning. Shopper and category insights feeding all of it.
- Supply Chain, Logistics & Replenishment. Supply chain visibility and control-tower platforms. Replenishment and store-level allocation. OTIF management, scorecard monitoring, and defect tracking. Inbound logistics, Prepaid Consolidation, drayage, and importer-of-record services. EDI, order management, and integration. 3PL, warehousing, and transportation.
- Forecasting, Demand & Inventory Accuracy. Demand forecasting and AI-driven planning. Inventory accuracy and perpetual-inventory tooling. Safety-stock and service-level optimization. New-item and seasonal forecasting. Scintilla, Supplier One, and Retail Link analytics built for replenishment teams.
- In-Store Retail Media & Shopper Activation. The in-store slice of Walmart Connect, including digital screens, Walmart Radio audio, and experiential formats like demos and sampling. Shopper and trade marketing. Displays, signage, fixtures, and retail-ready POP. Measurement partners quantifying lift at the physical shelf.
- Packaging, Item Setup & Compliance. Retail-ready and display-ready packaging. Item setup, data quality, and content syndication through GDSN and Item 360. GS1, barcoding, and labeling. Sustainability and packaging-scorecard compliance. Quality, safety, and regulatory testing.
- Trade, Deductions & Financial Recovery. Deductions and chargeback management and recovery. Trade promotion management and trade-spend optimization. Post-audit and claims recovery. OTIF fine and supply-chain-defect penalty management. Cash application and dispute automation.
- Financing & Growth Capital. Inventory and purchase-order financing. Working capital and revenue-based financing. Factoring and receivables financing. Trade and supply chain finance. Capital for retail media and in-store activation spend.
- Full-Service Agencies & Managed Services. End-to-end Walmart account management. Broker and sales-agency representation. Retail Link and replenishment managed services. Joint business planning and line-review support. Fractional and outsourced Walmart team support.
- AI & Creative Production. AI creative and content production. Product photography, video, and on-shelf-ready creative. Packaging and label design. Retail-ready creative for displays and signage. AI applied to operations, deductions, and analytics.
- Data, Analytics & AI for In-Store Ops. Scintilla and Retail Link dashboards, alerting, and scorecards. Sales and operations analytics platforms. Exception detection and root-cause tooling. Scorecard and compliance monitoring. Benchmarking and competitive shelf analytics.
What to Expect
- The Conversations: Five moderated discussions with respected voices from across the supplier community, each open to questions and input from the room.
- Lunch With the Panels: Over lunch, conversation presenters are stationed around the room so you can come ask questions and go deeper on the topics that matter most to you.
- The Innovation Crawl: A full exhibitor hall of companies building for the in-store challenge, open on a show, do not sell rule.
- Meaningful Networking: Dedicated time to connect with the speakers, the exhibitors, and the wider supplier community, all in one place.
- The After Parties: The day doesn’t end when the hall closes. Partner-hosted after parties around Bentonville keep the conversations going into the night.
Interested in Reaching This Audience?
Our in-person and virtual events give solution providers a place to introduce their teams and capabilities to a community with thousands of suppliers and sellers looking for answers to questions and solutions to problems. Contact us for sponsorship information.
Winning With Walmart is an independent platform and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Walmart Inc. or its affiliates. Supplier recognitions referenced in this event are matters of public record, announced by Walmart or by the recognized suppliers themselves.
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