From just one meeting with a national discount retail chain at an ECRM Session, SneakERASERS ended up getting a product on the shelves that saw millions of dollars in sales and hit the No. 2 spot for shoe cleaners, according to NIQ data.

But that meeting almost didn’t happen.

It was ECRM’s 2019 Impulse, Front-End & Checklane Session, SneakERASERS had just recently launched, and when Co-Founder Kevin Consolo saw the retailer on his schedule, he thought of removing it.

“At the time, we only had a couple of concepts,” he says. “It was all SneakERASERS, which were packaged and assembled in America, at price points between $4 and $10. So when you have a discount retailer on the schedule, my first instinct was that we were not a fit, we were too high a price point for their shoppers and we should remove them.”

After some thought, he kept the appointment. “I figured why not meet with them?” he says. “We paid for the Session, and we’re a young company, so let’s meet with everybody on the schedule.”

Turns out it was the right decision. The buyer from the discount chain loved the product, and said that if they could get the price point and margins correct, they might be interested in picking it up.

So Kevin had some work to do.

Knocking off his own product

SneakERASERS core concept is a quick, convenient and easy pocket-sized solution to clean the white mid-soles of your shoes. “Everybody wears those shoes with the thick white midsoles, and if you just look at them wrong they get scuffed up,” says Consolo. “That became a problem with the athleisure trend and casual footwear, and the only thing in the market were brush kits and foams that were not portable, and required a lot of time and elbow grease. So we made a pocket-sized pre-moistened cleaner that was essentially a foam eraser with a shammy layer adhered to it, that you could keep in your pocket, purse or gym bag.”

But for this particular discount chain, the price point was too high. So Kevin took a flight overseas, found a supplier, changed the composition of the product and adjusted the price point and the margins in line with the retailer’s request, essentially creating a knockoff version of its flagship brand. He called it Shoe Eraser. 

The retailer tested the new product, and it sold out in two weeks – something that has never happened before. They requested a container right away, and the rest is history.  

Expanding the SneakERASER product lineup

Since that first experience, Consolo and the SneakERASERS team take meetings with every retail buyer who comes their way, incorporating the feedback and input from each into new ideas, approaches and products. Indeed, it seems there are no limits to the applications of the brand’s patented IP.

For example, it developed its AutoERASERS car detailing line after meeting with a buyer who asked if they could adapt their concept to clean vehicles. There’s GolfERASERS for cleaning golf equipment. There's PurseWIPES for handbags and backpacks. They even now have a SneakERASERS Soak shoe detergent.

And now SneakERASERS is getting into licensing partnership with the Rugged Shark footwear line, exclusively sold at Walmart, which will have dorsal fin-shaped Rugged Shark sponges as part of a Shark Week promotion. (SneakERASERS currently has four SKUs at Walmart stores nationwide).

Keeping an eye out for opportunities

Today, as an established brand with a national footprint, new opportunities keep popping up (like Shark Tank, where Consolo and Co-Founder Chris Pavlica landed deals with two sharks). “Now that we have all of this business from ECRM, we can confidently go to these companies and say that we’re in Walmart, We’re in Target, we do private label, we do licensing,” says Consolo. “It all happened step by step, but it’s all a result of keeping our options open and meeting with everyone we can. It’s fun to have these creative discussions with buyers who have 30 years of experience and know what really works in their stores.”

The key term here is creative discussions.

I cannot stress how important this concept is. For brands in buyer meetings, the "pitch" is only part of the equation. The brands that see the most success at ECRM Sessions, like SneakERASERS, or beauty brand Skin Centrick, pet brand Groomer’s Choice or food and beverage brand Mekor Corp. focus on discussions with buyers where they seek out ways in which they can solve their unique problems. 

They listen.

I interviewed Consolo at ECRM’s Household Cleaning, Paper & Disposable Food Storage Session last week in Florida, where the team had three days of 20-minute meetings with buyers from a variety of retail channels. While it’s too early to tell, I know some interesting things will come from it. They already won a Buyers Choice Award from this Session. Perhaps yet another new product line extension will come from this one too!

Maybe Kitchen CountERASERS? (I'll leave that in the creative hands of Kevin and the team to decide!)

Watch my full interview with Kevin below!