Walmart is becoming a haven for more emerging, premium brands

Founders and other leaders at four different brands Modern Retail spoke with said they like the exposure and reach Walmart can provide. In addition, they said it has gotten better at recruiting digitally native brands or those in new categories relevant to higher-income shoppers.

Walmart, more generally, is on a mission to expand its assortment to cater to more kinds of shoppers. “We’re expanding choice for our customers and members by improving our first-party assortment, especially in areas of trend and fashion,” Walmart president and CEO John Furner said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call this month. In beauty, 75% of Walmart’s growth in the category this quarter came from brands new to Walmart, such as the skin-care brand La Roche-Posay. Walmart is also broadening its digital assortment through its third-party marketplace, which saw almost 50% sales growth in the first quarter.

And just on Wednesday, Walmart announced a new assortment of brands in its hardware and home categories, such as Greenworks and Hyper Tough power tools — including some exclusive, professional-grade products — and the Mainstays Kids line of kids’ home decor aimed at being stylish and affordable. Hyper Tough and Mainstays are Walmart private-label brands; Mainstays is its first new home brand launch in five years, with 600 new items.

“We’re providing an assortment that appeals to customers of all income levels,” Furner said. He and other Walmart executives have said as recently as this year that it has gained share among households making more than $100,000, while continuing to also cater to low-income shoppers struggling to afford food and other goods.

From the search bar to the shelves

Some of the brands that have recently launched at Walmart got their start online, signaling Walmart’s interest in digitally-native brands as it expands its e-commerce presence. Beard oil brand Viking Revolution launched seven SKUs in 900 Walmart stores in January. Co-founder Victor Mendoza said he hopes to soon expand to 2,000-3,000 stores.

“I think they’re much more attuned to the trends that are coming,” Mendoza said, comparing to how he remembers the Walmart of around 10 years ago. “They’re much quicker to react to putting products in there that people are looking for.”

Walmart was especially attracted to Viking Revolution as it was a top seller on Amazon, Mendoza said. Currently, Amazon represents about 95% of Viking Revolution’s sales. The brand has also had success on TikTok, with its videos gathering about 500 million views, according to Mendoza.

“Even if Amazon is a great channel for us — and it’s been the basis of our growth — the reality is that, as we move forward to really become a global brand and a household name, which is what we want to be eventually, we definitely need to crack the retail code,” Mendoza said. He noted that Walmart fits well with its core demographic of low- to middle-income men who want an uncomplicated, affordable beard routine. “Walmart is the best place for people to actually see the product.”

He said Walmart has tended to his brand’s needs by giving it prominent shelf space for an entire regimen of eight products. “They’ve been putting emerging brands in a higher place, which sounds like a small thing, but the reality is, in retail, it makes a big difference,” Mendoza said. “You’re more accessible.”

The brand has done over $500,000 in sales at Walmart since entering the retailer earlier this year, Mendoza said.

Matt Goldbloom is the founder and CEO of Common Shelf. He currently works with brands to get on the shelves of off-price retailers such as TJX and Ross, but has previously worked with brands on getting into Walmart and Target. He said that, in the past, the kind of brands he worked with — largely digitally native, premium brands — would have avoided Walmart for fear of devaluing their brand.

“That’s not really the case anymore,” Goldbloom said, noting Walmart’s share gains with higher-income consumers and the presence of more premium brands on the shelves. “A lot of brands have it on their radar earlier, some as early as their first retailer.”

Goldbloom said he believes the recent change in strategy at one of Walmart’s biggest competitors, Target — to focus more on creator-led, Gen Z-specific or socially relevant brands — is a reflection of Walmart leaning into those areas over the last few years.

Scarlet by RedDrop, a period-care brand designed for girls ages 8-18, launched at Walmart this year in May — like others, it was mostly new to physical retail. It launched at Ulta in 2025 through an accelerator program, but had been direct-to-consumer since its founding in 2019. Walmart is now featuring the brand in a new section of about a dozen tween-focused period products in 476 stores, according to Scarlet.

“Walmart has always been a dream. … It brings a validation and a trust with it,” said Scarlet by RedDrop co-founder Dana Roberts, adding that it also brings a sense of accessibility at scale. “Being at Walmart really helps us lean into our mission of having products available — the best intentional caring products for every single girl.”

The brand developed two new products specifically for Walmart, as the retailer wanted three SKUs on the shelf, said the brand’s other co-founder, Monica Williams. These include a mixed pack of 32 pads for $9 — leaning into Walmart’s value ethos — as well as a “Code Red” kit that includes a pink pouch for the pads, as the buyer wanted a product with a pouch.

“We’ve put a lot of time and effort and energy into thinking about what the consumer would want to put on her shelf versus in her cabinet, and I think Walmart is taking the time to find brands that have done that,” Williams said.

Chasing social trends, new categories

Walmart has been especially focused on bringing culturally relevant products into stores, said Stephen Bram, CEO of TAL Hydration, a brand of water bottles and tumblers that has been in Walmart since 2017. The brand most recently has been putting prints and patterns on its water bottles akin to designs found at Anthropologie.

“Despite their scale, they’re the most entrepreneurial organization that I’ve ever worked with. … They’re willing to take a risk, they’re willing to take a shot,” Bram said. “When they see an opportunity to bring their customer better value and excite their customer, they jump.”

Bram also said he has noticed more products at higher price points sitting alongside his products on the shelves over the time his brand has been at Walmart. TAL’s 40-ounce water bottle currently sells for about $15.

“Walmart shifted from being an organization only focused on price to being an organization really focused on value,” Bram said. “Our products, instead of being next to the opening price for our types of products, are now next to products that can be 20%, 30%, 40% or 50% more expensive, but we haven’t seen any reduction in sales due to those brands.”

Walmart has also embraced newer categories such as functional beverages. Liquid Youth, a brand of sparkling collagen waters founded in 2024, launched in Walmart and Target in February of this year, including 200 Walmart stores in five states. The drinks are now on end caps within the wellness category. Walmart discovered Liquid Youth through a meeting with its founder at a trade show, according to Brian Armstrong, svp of sales for Liquid Youth.

“Rewind to five, 10 years ago, and you’d have to go to a niche specialty store” to find drinks like this, Armstrong said. Everyday customers, he added, are now “looking for those products at the big-box stores where they’re shopping two, three times a week. And so, Walmart and others are really going into this space [heavily].”

Another category where Walmart has been expanding, that others may not have had a strong focus on, is kids’ and toddlers’ bath products, as opposed to baby-focused products. Stephanie Leshney, founder of Dabble & Dollop, a brand of shampoo, bubble baths, body washes and bath bombs, said the brand is one of at least three new premium brands in the kids’ bath section. At about $10, Dabble & Dollop’s three-in-one shampoo is almost twice the price of other, larger-sized bottles of shampoo found at Walmart.

She believes Walmart reached out because of its new, higher-income customer base and its greater focus on bringing in digitally native brands.

For Dabble & Dollop, going into Walmart with 10 products this February was all about volume, scale and accessibility, especially as retailers like Buybuy Baby and Babies “R” Us that used to carry baby and kids’ products are no more.

“With the disappearance of outlets like that, there really are two retailers where parents shop, and that’s Target, and that’s Walmart,” Leshney said. “Walmart is unique in that they have a kids’ bath section that is devoted to kids. … We’re really seeing it as a discovery engine for the brand.”

But this doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk once brands get on the shelves. Goldbloom said Walmart emphasizes brands doing their own marketing to get people to shop their brand at Walmart.

“You need to really invest back into the partnership,” Goldbloom said. “I think a lot of young founders don’t realize that before they kind of get it in those spaces. They think, ‘I’ve made it,’ whereas getting on the shelf is really just half the battle.”