New Walmart Site Targets Women Only

Walmart announced plans to launch a dedicated page on Walmart.com that will feature an assortment of products created by women in nearly two dozen countries, including women who work in cooperatives and own small businesses. Scheduled to be available in spring 2012, products will include jewelry from Guatemala, Thailand and Ethiopia; coffee from Central and South America; and dresses from Kenya.
 

This builds on the five goals Walmart announced last week around global women’s economic empowerment. By 2016, the dedicated e-commerce site will feature approximately 500 items — from apparel and jewelry, to stationery and accessories – by more than 20,000 women in nearly two dozen countries.

“The challenge for small women-owned businesses – and particularly women artisans — is that they have a fantastic product, but they may not have the size or scale to sell in our brick-and-mortar stores,” Leslie Dach, Walmart’s executive vice president of Corporate Affairs, said at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. “This commitment today gives these women access to an established set of customers on Walmart.com, as well as the benefit of the company’s knowledge about customers, packaging and promotions.”
 

Walmart’s partners for the initial line include Full Circle Exchange and Ethical Fashion Africa, a program within the International Trade Centre.
 

“Walmart’s effort to empower women through e-commerce will truly create ‘scale for good’ and transform the lives of countless women, allowing them to work their way out of poverty in ways that are both sustainable and dignified,” said Mark Priddy, co-founder, Full Circle Exchange. “This initiative coincides with Full Circle's mission to empower women through commerce and exponentially increases the reach of entrepreneurs who have the skills, capacities and imagination to create more just economies.”
 

For more information on Walmart’s Global Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative, launched by Walmart President and CEO Mike Duke, visit www.walmartstores.com/women.