My family distro company inked a deal with Wal-Mart and with all the documents and testing and auditing that needed to be done, we ended up shipping them 15 months later.

You do not know the requirements of the account. I can assure you there are a ton of forms to be completed before a vendor number is created.

Big retail will vet the crap out of a prospective vendor before approving them for a vendor number. From that point it can take 30-90 days to receive PO's and get the products out the door.