Gorilla Grip Had Never Touched a Store Shelf. Its Entire Walmart Case Was Sitting on One Public Listing.

The bath mat that built its resume in public

Gorilla Commerce announced on July 14 that its Gorilla Grip Bath Tub Mat is launching in Walmart stores, which the company describes as a nationwide rollout and the first time any product from its flagship brand has been sold in physical stores. The company says the rollout coincides with Walmart’s Back-to-College season and includes dedicated endcap placement in stores across the country. As of July 14, the announcement carried no store count and had drawn no independent coverage, so the in-store claims here are the company’s own. What does not need the company’s word is the online record. The live Walmart.com listing, pulled July 14, reads: Sold by GORILLA COMMERCE, Pro Seller badge, Fulfilled by Walmart, 4.7 stars across 9,175 seller reviews, with a Best seller flag and a dedicated brand store page. The mat was priced at $28.99 that day, marked down from $33.99. That is a brand-controlled third-party Marketplace operation, and it is the machine that, by the company’s account, earned the shelf.

No founder myth, just a seller record

Gorilla Commerce is not a brand with a storybook origin, and the honest version of this feature says so. The Norwalk, Connecticut company is led by CEO CJ Bilangino, per the announcement, discloses no outside ownership, and public reporting on its founding is scarce. What it has left is a channel record. Seller-tracking site SellerRatings ranks the company among the top 50 sellers on Amazon and reports it previously operated there under the names Gorilla Grip and Hills Point Industries. By its own account, the tub mat has been its cornerstone for more than a decade with over two million units sold, and since joining Walmart Marketplace in 2024 the company has earned more than 40 bestseller placements and was named Walmart’s Outstanding Home Seller of the Year in 2025, an award that could not be located in any Walmart publication and is therefore attributed here to the company. “The ability to learn directly from customers in real time,” is how chief brand officer Diana Takach framed the marketplace years in the announcement.

The graduation path is visible to anyone who looks

Here is the supplier read, and it favors the 3P audience. Walmart’s own emerging-brands executives told a trade audience at the Summer Fancy Food Show in late June that Marketplace performance data helps brands figure out which physical stores fit as they scale, and the retailer’s 2025 seller summit announced it would begin showcasing Marketplace items in stores. Gorilla Grip is what the finished version of that pitch looks like, and every credential is public: the seller line proving the brand controls its own listing rather than riding resellers, the Fulfilled by Walmart tag, the Pro Seller badge that Walmart ties to sustained service and delivery metrics, the review volume, the bestseller flag. A 3P seller can audit its own listings against that checklist today. The channel structure now becomes the interesting part. The online business remains third-party, sold by Gorilla Commerce and fulfilled by Walmart, while the in-store product moves through whatever supply arrangement the company has not disclosed. Running both at once means two different margin structures, two different data feeds, and one brand promise stretched across them.

The open question is the one the listing page itself asks. On July 14, the same page offering the $28.99 Gorilla Grip mat, sized 35 by 16 inches, showed Walmart’s own Mainstays rubber tub mat, sized 18 by 36 inches, at $13.96. Online, Gorilla Grip wins that fight with reviews, badges, and search placement. None of those travel to a physical shelf. The endcap the company describes buys position, not proof. Can a brand that built its entire advantage out of digital proof points defend a price roughly twice private label in an aisle where the proof is just a package?

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