COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – College Station based business, KLĒNR, was one of four veteran-owned businesses in the US to receive a Golden Ticket after participating in Walmart’s 12th annual Open Call.
“When I got the ticket, I just wanted to sit by myself for a minute,” explained KLĒNR owner Chris Thompson. “Here’s the largest retailer in the world that’s saying, ‘yeah, we believe in what you’re doing and you know, we want to work together,’ and it was just a huge point of validation for me.”
After serving in the army for nearly ten years and being deployed seven times, Thompson was inspired to create naturally scented products made with organic ingredients.
“I couldn’t change what I was exposed to in the past, but I could change what I was putting on my body going forward,” said Thompson.
Thompson and his wife Becca, created KLĒNR over three years ago. Their products range from deodorants to soap.
“The products that we have are natural soap, deodorant, beard oil, and pomade. All of our products are natural,” Thompson explained. “They’re even naturally scented, and we use a high concentration of organic ingredients.”
A little over three years after their first sale, Thompson can’t believe where they are today.
“You could have asked me a couple months ago, [and] I wouldn’t have thought I’d be pitching in front of them,” Thompson emphasized. “I think with us being a veteran-owned business, our products are made in the USA, and they’re just a high-quality product[s]. I think that’s what really, [Walmart] had interest in.”
Thomas McMillan, the director of the Center for Retailing Innovation at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, says an opportunity like this is rare.
“Getting a Walmart deal like this can change everything. It’s almost like winning the retail lottery,” McMillan exclaimed. “We have a small brand that can go from selling a few 100 products locally to millions almost overnight.”
Within the next few months, KLĒNR will be available on Walmart’s online marketplace with the potential to be sold in stores worldwide.
“That next step is really where everything accelerates. You might go from being just online to likely you’re going to have a test area of stores,” McMillan said. “They might do 10 or 25 stores, do a test in those stores, and then they’ll expand from there. You could go from 100 to 500, 1000, [and] with Walmart’s case, you’re at 10,000 stores.”
Overall, McMillan said this is a great opportunity for the College Station business.
“You get more exposure and then more retailers start reaching out to you to be placed on their shelves, and then it’s a steamroll effect, if you will, ” McMillan mentioned. “It’s a great thing.”
McMillan calculated that a national product rollout to Walmart’s over 10,000 stores could potentially mean 10 million dollars or more in annual retail sales. That kind of annual sales, he says, is transformational for a small business like KLĒNR.
As the Thompsons celebrate their selection, they are grateful for the community that supported them on their KLĒNR journey.
“There’s so many people here locally, whether it’s other businesses or just people we’ve met or customers that have been incredibly supportive over the last couple years,“ Thompson added. ”There’s a quote that I really like, ‘when you focus on making yourself better, everything around you becomes better as well,’ and [that] is true [for] my story. A focus on my own health, [is now] something I can share with other people.”
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