The partnership has meant a boost in business and employment for the family-owned company, which has close to 300 workers, said Philip Ali, vice president of international sales for the company.
“It felt good,” Ali said. “It felt like our brand had matured in a lot of ways.”
While there has long been cost pressure to have products made overseas, Ali said 95 percent of his company’s products are made in Fairborn. He disagrees that having a product made in America means little to customers.
“I think just in the last five years, ever since the Great Recession, ‘made in the USA’ does mean something,” he said. “It means jobs to people. It means a certain pride.”
But the quality and price must be right, he added.
Ali declined to give sales figures or to say what Walmart spends with Ali Industries, but he said the retailer has high standards. A product’s price has to be right and an American origin is a plus.
“I think Walmart is not just going to put anybody in,” Ali said. “There has to be a certain quality and a certain price obviously. And we met all of those criteria.”
Ali Industries already has its wares stocked by several major retailers — Ace Hardware, True Value, Auto Zone and others.
Now Ali has goods in three different Walmart departments — automotive, tool and paint. The retailer today is Ali’s fourth biggest customer, and is on its way to being Ali’s second biggest.
It’s the realization of a dream for the 56-year-old business.
“We’ve tried to get into Walmart for a long time,” Ali said in an interview at one of their company’s two buildings off East Xenia Drive. “We specialize in retailers, and Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. We’ve been trying to get in there for 30 years.”
Scott Markley, a Walmart spokesman, said the company is aware of criticism in some quarters that Walmart allegedly relies on cheaply made foreign-made goods.
Markley said that notion needs to be set straight. About two-thirds of what Walmart has on its shelves is grown, sourced or assembled in the United States, he said.
“Buying products that support American jobs, we’re able to bring new products to our shelves that our customers want and new jobs to our communities,” he said. “Increasing domestic manufacturing helps create additional jobs in the U.S.”
Walmart customers tell the company that a product’s country of origin and price are two of a product’s most important features, Markley said.
A million new jobs will be borne out of the effort to spend $250 billion on U.S. manufacturing, a number that comes from a Walmart consultant, Markley said.
“No one else is doing that,” he said.
Ali’s parents Frank and Viola started what Ali calls his company’s “made in the USA story” in 1961 with $400 in their Huber Heights home.
Ali’s “Gator” brand has been thriving since the mid-1970s. In fact, visitors to the company’s main lobby will be greeted by a life-size bronze alligator.
“It’s been selling like gangbusters,” he said.
Walmart also a relationship with a manufacturing partner in Lima, Ohio, 50 Strong, a producer of water bottles. The company in the process of moving some production of water bottles from China to Lima, Markley said.
Walmart has a total of about 4,600 stores in the U.S.
Walmart spent about $15.6 billion with Ohio suppliers last year. The retailer has 173 stores in Ohio. Across the U.S., Walmart has 4,692 stores plus 662 Sam's Clubs.
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