Vendor Portals

Making it easy to find out insurance requirements

We specialize in helping start-up businesses with their Product Liability Insurance needs.

We get a lot of calls from start-ups asking us to help them with their business plan and budgets. It is important for start-ups to have done some research regarding the insurance requirements of their potential customers prior to contacting us.

The information below is a follow-up to Trying to Place Your Product in a Retail Chain?. It should help you understand the needs of the national distributors you are targeting to buy your products.

Vendor portals

Most national chains have a vendor’s portal or website that is dedicated to suppliers of products.  A vendor’s portal is designed specifically to help suppliers understand the chain’s business requirements, including insurance requirements.

I found the following vendor portals by simply going to Google and typing in the name of the retailer or wholesaler and vendor or supplier:

• Walgreens
• Wal-Mart
• CVS
• Target
• Pier 1
• Lowes
• Home Depot
• Toys R Us
• Rite Aid

Why is this important?

In my experience, too many start-up businesses enter the market without fully realizing the insurance requirements of the national chains they will be approaching to buy their products.

They’re then unpleasantly surprised to find out liability limits may be as much as $5 million or more, causing their products to be as or more expensive than similar competitors’ products.

Knowing this information prior to product development may impact your decision to enter the market or at least change your marketing or business plan.