I've been following this site for a while, and I just wanted to write up what I've been thinking. Apologies if it's a bit dry.
First off, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the significance of even being in Walmart in the first place. Walmart is not interested in "good ideas", or plucky up and coming businesses. They just want money. To that end, they won't even test a product unless they have vetted the company that makes it (to ensure that it is appropriately run / can support expansion), and the product itself already has a proven track record. It creates a sort of catch-22 for new companies, but I'll get back to that later. What I'd take that to mean is that Walmart was already fairly confident going in that Koma Unwind could make money (otherwise they wouldn't have bothered testing it).
Next, think about the message that Brian Weber posted on August 22nd. Within it, he says, "South Carolina Wal-Marts will continue to carry Koma Unwind for the foreseeable future." Knowing what I do about Brian Weber (the guy that has PR'd a PR with a PR), I think this post may have been his way of celebrating / sort of clandestinely announcing that Walmart had deemed Koma successful, and would thus continue to carry it on their shelves.
Another thing to keep in mind would first be the current location of Koma within Walmarts (referencing Stoutman's pictures). If sales were proceeding poorly, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have been given so much real estate within the store. It's conceivable that they're still being given a chance, so to speak, but that wouldn't be my guess as to what's happening.
Looking forward, given what I know of Walmart, I would expect one of two scenarios to play out. If sales have not gone well, I would expect even the test Walmarts to stop carrying them. If they're not making you money (or less money than another product you could have on your shelves), why carry them anywhere?
On the other hand, if sales have gone well, then I think we can reliably expect expansion. If they can make money off of it, there's no real reason to keep it confined to the test stores.
Putting it all together, if the test Walmarts are going to continue carrying Koma Unwind for the foreseeable future, this should mean that sales have been sufficiently profitable to warrant their space in those test stores. And if they've been profitable there, they can be profitable elsewhere.
Going back to the catch-22 I mentioned earlier: getting into Walmart alone is a huge boon to Bebida, but it has a secondary benefit which is actually rather important. It gets Koma Unwind on the other side of the catch-22 of new products; Koma is no longer untested. Moving in to additional stores should be exponentially easier if Walmart has given Koma its seal of approval. Though not particularly exciting in and of itself, the recent announcement of the E-Z Shop Convenience stores could be the beginning of a large number of new contracts, which, combined, add up to a great deal of potential revenue.
If Walmart is indeed expanding to North Carolina (or anywhere, really), I would say that (at least as far as I am concerned) the debate over BBDA is over. There will certainly still be obstacles to overcome, but it'll herald an almost certain explosive growth of the company. AKA "Boomville".
AI
