PLMA’s 2026 Annual Meeting & Leadership Conference will be held April 15-17 in a familiar Ozarks town with a world-famous resident: Bentonville, Ark., home of Walmart.
The location for 2026 is in keeping with PLMA’s plan to move the event around the country and locate it near major retailer hubs.
The two most recent Leadership conferences were held in San Antonio and Scottsdale. The latter in April drew 167 attendees, including presenters, the highest number of Leadership participants in more than 20 years.
The 2026 edition will again offer concurrent sessions that enable participants to build their own agenda. It will feature dozens of breakout sessions on separate tracks with several main stage presentations by industry experts.
Introduced this year, the new format received high marks from attendees for its wide-ranging subjects and diverse points of view.
Topics to be discussed include opportunities and challenges of product development and sourcing, the latest sales statistics for private label and national brands, consumer and retail trends, marketing, technology, inventory management, among others. The format and retail-centric location promotes business networking and relationship building opportunities throughout the two-day program.
Dubbed the “new capital of cool” by The Wall Street Journal, Bentonville is the birthplace of Walmart and home to its new corporate headquarters. In 2024, the retailer achieved 5% revenue growth year over year, totaling $681 billion with private label penetration at about 25%. Today, 21 Walmart private brands each have more than $1 billion in sales, with five accounting for $5 billion each. The chain offers products in 90 owned brands.