Kohl's runs roughly 1,100 stores and a large e-commerce operation, which means it buys two very different kinds of things: the merchandise on the racks, and everything that keeps the company running behind it. If you sell to retail, you already know how hard the front door is. The useful news is that Kohl's publishes an actual registration path, recognizes the diversity certifications you may already hold, and runs a mentorship track that puts founders in front of its sourcing team. Here is how the pieces fit, and where the realistic openings are.
What Kohl's actually buysTwo buckets, and they behave differently.
Merchandising is product for resale: apparel, footwear, home, beauty, accessories, toys. This is the bucket every consumer-brand founder wants, and it is the hardest. Buyers here are looking for proven sell-through, the production capacity to fill 1,000-plus stores plus online, and a track record that de-risks shelf space. Cold pitches into merchandising rarely move without traction somewhere else first.
Non-merchandising is everything Kohl's consumes to operate: facilities and construction, marketing and creative, IT and software, logistics, store fixtures, professional services, packaging. This bucket is where small and diverse suppliers most often get their first contract, because the buying decisions are driven by capability and price rather than by what shoppers will pull off a hanger.
Knowing which bucket you fit changes everything about how you approach the company. If you sell services or B2B goods, you are competing in a market with far less gatekeeping than a brand trying to land a beauty endorsement.
How registration actually worksKohl's takes new-supplier registration through its corporate site at corporate.kohls.com/become-a-supplier. You create a company profile and, in the process, set up a username and password. That login is not just a form receipt. It becomes your standing account for updating your company information and, importantly, for accessing bid opportunities as they open. So registration is less "send us your pitch" and more "get into the system so you can be found and can respond when something matches you."
Two things to set expectations on. First, registering is necessary, not sufficient. A profile in the database does not produce a purchase order; it makes you discoverable and lets you bid. Second, Kohl's holds suppliers to its Terms of Engagement, the company's published standards covering ethics, labor, and fair dealing. Read those before you register, because agreeing to them is part of becoming an approved vendor, and a sourcing conversation can stall fast if you cannot meet them.
Fill the profile out as if a buyer who has never heard of you will read it cold. Be specific about NAICS codes, certifications, capacity, geographic coverage, and the named retailers or enterprises you already serve. Vague profiles get skipped.
How to get noticed (and the diversity-certification angle)This is where a certification earns its keep. Kohl's recognizes the major third-party diversity certifications, specifically NMSDC (minority-owned, the MBE certification) and WBENC (women-owned, the WBE certification). Holding one of these does two things: it lets Kohl's count its spend with you toward its supplier diversity goals, and it gets your profile flagged to the people who run that program. For a small or mid-size supplier, that flag is one of the few ways to jump from "row in a database" to "company a buyer actually looks at."
If you are eligible and not yet certified, that is the highest-leverage move you can make before you register. NMSDC certification requires at least 51% ownership, management, and control by qualifying minority group members; WBENC requires the equivalent for women owners. We walk through what the minority-business path involves in our NMSDC certification guide. If you want to handle the paperwork across multiple programs at once instead of one portal at a time, that is exactly what CertifyAll is built to do.
A word of caution from the screening side: Kohl's verifies. Diversity-supplier review can involve documentation checks, interviews, and in some cases site visits, and approval can take several weeks. Treat the certification as real, hold the records, and do not pad your capacity claims, because the diligence will surface gaps.
The other on-ramp worth naming is the Kohl's Supplier Diversity Mentorship Program, run in partnership with WBENC. It is structured to teach women-owned suppliers how Kohl's sourcing works and to put them in direct contact with the Kohl's team. Mentorship-style programs like this are one of the most reliable ways to get a real conversation, because the relationship is the point. Watch WBENC's calendar and Kohl's supplier pages for the next cohort.
The Tier 2 side doorIf selling to Kohl's directly feels out of reach this year, the second-tier route often is not. Tier 1 is a direct sale to Kohl's. Tier 2 means you supply one of Kohl's existing prime vendors, and Kohl's counts that diverse spend through its supplier-diversity reporting.
Why this matters for a smaller company: the prime contractor controls the buying decision, the contracts tend to be smaller and faster to land, and a clean Tier 2 track record is the credential that makes a future Tier 1 pitch credible. The move is to identify the large suppliers already serving Kohl's in your category, then approach their supplier-diversity or procurement teams directly. Many big retail vendors carry their own diverse-spend targets and are actively looking for certified subs to help hit them.
You can map which corporate buyers run programs like this in our corporate program directory, and if you want a public, certified profile that buyers and primes can find on their own, list yourself in our supplier directory.
Where to start this weekPick the realistic lane. If you sell services or B2B goods, register on the corporate site, get your certification verified, and build a non-merchandising or Tier 2 case. If you are a consumer brand, build proof of sell-through somewhere smaller first, then come back. Either way, get certified if you qualify, because at Kohl's the certification is what turns a registration into a lead.
If you want to see which other corporate programs accept the same certifications you are about to file for, the corporate program directory is a good next stop. Apply once, then point that credential at every buyer it opens.
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Sources: corporate.kohls.com/become-a-supplier, corporate.kohls.com/our-suppliers, Kohl's Supplier Diversity Mentorship Program (WBENC), NMSDC
