Over the course of 2.5 years Walmart paid me $252,125 But I only kept $37,000...

Over the course of 2.5 years Walmart paid me $252,125 But I only kept $37,000... That works out to about $1,200 a month. For one of the biggest retail deals a small brand can get. Let me show you where it all went. Scorch Marker Store Opportunity External [Gmail]/Walmart x to me Sep 18, 2023, 8:15 AM Hi Evan, I buy the General Crafts category for Walmart stores and I would like to learn more about the Scorch Marker. I think it could make a great addition to our Wood Burning set. Let me know if you have time this week to connect. Thanks! Associate Merchant - General Crafts Walmart * Save Money. Live Better. It all started with a three-sentence email from a Walmart buyer that I honestly thought was a scam. On the call, she offered to put me in all 4,000 stores. I'd been burned by supply chain before, so I asked for 500 to start. Remember that number. It's the only reason I'm still in business. Then the real bill showed up. I had to put an RFID sticker on every single marker by hand, find a consolidator to ship for me, set up an EDI to talk to Walmart's systems, and order $10,000 worth of cardboard just to follow their packaging rules. HOW IT WORKS PREP SHAKE APPLY HEAT KEEP WATCH APPLY HEAT SUGGESTED MATERIAL TYPES SOLID WOOD, BAMBOO, CORK, PLYWOOD, LEATHER, FABRIC, PAPER, CARDBOARD, AND MANY MORE SCORCHMARKER.COM Scorch Marker Pro THE CONSOLIDATOR ALONE COST ME $76,000. The EDI ran $700 a month. And Walmart pays net-90, so I was out of the cash before I sold a single unit. That's 90 days from the day you invoice not when you get a PO or ship I finally got it all working. Then about 18 months in, I got an email saying I owed Walmart $140,000. All from one wrong cell in a spreadsheet. They accidentally double paid me I spent three weeks auditing every invoice by hand, about a thousand of them. The real number owed was $44,000. I proved the math, and I cut the check. On me. I should have caught it sooner. The buyer then goes on maternity leaves and never comes back. Rapport gone. New buyer comes in, axes the category and us. After all that, we lost the WalMart account So here's the real math. +$252,125 what WalMart paid me -$44,000 the clawback -$76,000 consolidator -$10,000 cardboard -$21,000 EDI -$64,000 product, RFID stickers, testing and compliance I kept $37,000 (about $1200 a month) over 2.5 years And the money wasn't even the worst part. It pulled my attention from the parts of my business that were already working and actually making me money. The real price was my attention Now imagine I'd said yes to all 4,000 stores. That $140,000 error becomes $1.1 million. It would have bankrupted us. Asking for 500 instead of 4,000 took the most profitable decision I made throughout the entire deal. Here's the lesson: The most expensive mistakes don't look like mistakes. They look like wins. Paper doesn't pay suppliers. Cash does. Before you say yes to a big retail deal, answer three questions: 1. 1. Can you afford the entry fee, all the setup, not just inventory? 2. Can you afford the float, with cash locked up for 3-6 months? 3. Can you afford the attention it pulls from what's already working? 4. 5. Staring down a big opportunity and not sure if it's a trap? That's exactly the kind of call I help you make inside Operator Academy.