ThomasNet and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have teamed up to create a platform to help Wal-Mart's vendors find U.S.-made products — as part of the retail giant's Made in the USA push.
Wal-Mart has opened up the ThomasNet/Corporate Edition for its vendors. ThomasNet has half a million U.S. suppliers on the site, accessed for free.
Features include unlimited RFI (request for information) supplier inclusion, so vendors can invite as many qualified suppliers as they want to replay to a request for information, quote or proposal.; approved supplier integration to upload details about a vendor's current preferred U.S. suppliers; sharing of saved suppliers and shortlisted ones for collaboration with their team members, RFI followup service, where the ThomasNet team contacts all suppliers and suggests a timely response to the vendor.
Wal-Mart has pledged to spend an additional $250 billion on U.S.-made products over the next decade. Officials of ThomasNet and Wal-Mart debuted the ThomasNet Corporate Edition for Wal-Mart at Wal-Mart's U.S. Manufacturing Summit July 8 in Bentonville, Ark.