How to Succeed When You Secure a Test Purchase With a Major Retailer
So you got yourself a test purchase from Walmart or another large national retailer. Congratulations! That’s no small achievement. Very few brands ever reach this milestone.
You likely spent months (or years) getting buyer attention, refining your product and pricing, and positioning your brand as a strong fit for the category. You worked hard and achieved a real victory, but now the real work begins.
A test placement is not the finish line. It’s the beginning of your evaluation period as a retail vendor. This is where you prove that you can operate inside a complex retail system and perform consistently at scale. If you sit back and hope for the best, the odds are not in your favor. Things can and will go wrong, especially as a new vendor, and you need to be ready to manage the rollout.
The good news: you have more control than you think. Below are practical actions you can take to increase your chances of turning a test purchase into permanent inline placement.
1. Figure Out the Ground Rules for Success
Your first job is to understand what success looks like to the buyer.
Retail buyers are often hesitant to give exact performance targets. They avoid making promises and may not share hard thresholds, but they can give directional guidance.
Ask questions such as:
What does success look like in general for a test like this?
How many units per store per week are you expecting?
What is your expectation for weekly dollars per store?
Are there secondary metrics you care about (e.g., online reviews, ratings, returns)?
You may not get precise numbers, but you will learn what the buyer actually values, and that context is critical for prioritizing your efforts.
2. Understand the Boundaries of Your Test
Before product ships, make sure you fully understand the scope and mechanics of the test.
Clarify the following:
How many stores are included? Get the list of addresses.
How long is the test period?
What is the merchandising format you agreed on? Ex:
On-shelf
Shipper
Sidekick
Impulse or front-of-store placement
If You Are On the Shelf
You should know:
How many facings you are supposed to have
How many units are allocated per DC
How many units are allocated per store
How many facings you will be given on the shelf
If You Are Using Shippers, Sidekicks, or Displays
You need clarity on:
How many displays go to each store
Who is responsible for setting them up
When they should be placed on the floor
For any setup more complex than basic shelf placement, pay an approved third-party merchandising team to handle execution.
Yes, it costs money. You may even lose money on the test. But if it’s the difference between a failed test and chainwide expansion, it’s one of the highest-ROI decisions you can make. Store employees will disappoint you in ways you can barely imagine if you leave it to them to set up your products.
I’ve seen brands ship 300+ pre-kitted displays directly to stores and have fewer than 10% actually placed on the sales floor. That’s a test failure waiting to happen. Pay professionals, coordinate closely with your buyer, and ensure near-100% placement.
3. Understand What Data You’re Getting (and Use It)
Major retailers all have proprietary data portals. Sign up immediately and learn how to use them. If a paid tier unlocks better visibility, it’s usually worth it long term.
At a minimum, you should be tracking:
Whether your product has reached every store it should
If there are unexpected time lags in the supply chain
Where inventory is getting stuck (DC vs. store)
Out-of-stock frequency and duration
If your product never makes it to the shelf, customers cannot buy it. It’s obvious, but worth stating. Monitor your inventory positions obsessively.
If Available, Track Qualitative and Basket-Level Data
Some retailers provide deeper insights. If you have access, look at:
What else customers buy when they buy your product
Average order value when your product is included
Whether customers buy multiples
Demographic information, if available
Geographic performance patterns
If certain regions outperform others, compare that to:
Your DTC performance
Your Amazon sales
Your core marketing efforts
These insights help you refine your offer and strengthen future expansion discussions.
4. Stay in Constant Contact With Your Buyer and Planner
This is one of the most overlooked—but most important—steps.
Stay in regular communication with your buyer, and any assistant buyers or inventory planners you have interacted with. You want to keep them in the loop as much as possible, because there will be issues on they can fix that you must alert them to. Do not count on them to spot problems on their own.
You need to share with them your:
Wins (“We’re exceeding expectations in 55% of stores”)
Issues (“Product is not being received by stores on time”)
Insights (“30% of customers are buying two units or more at once”)
Risks (“Out-of-stocks are impacting sell-through”)
This keeps you top of mind and demonstrates that you are an engaged, proactive partner. It also creates a paper trail if issues outside your control negatively impact results.
The underlying goal is simple: prove that you are easy to work with and add value. Buyers love vendors who surface problems early, solve what they can themselves, and make the buyer’s job easier. Be that vendor.
5. Outline Next Steps Before the Test Ends
As early as possible, try to get a follow-up meeting on the calendar for when the test period concludes.
You likely won’t get firm commitments about exact store counts, the timing of expansion, or clear performance thresholds, but you will get something you can work with.
What is most important to push for is agreeing on:
A review timeline
A commitment to look at results together
A shared understanding of next steps if the test is successful
By the time this meeting happens, your goal is to have demonstrated—through both sales performance and operational execution—that you are a vendor worth scaling.
If you’ve done your job well, you’ll be preparing to repeat this process across 3,000 stores instead of 300.
We help brands navigate these tests every day. If you’d like some assistance with yours,
Or reach out to me directly at Michael@CrossStratinc.com