Additional functional and/or consulting-based Walmart Support Services we offer include:
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Qualifications for Selling On the Walmart Marketplace
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
Go deeper into Walmart product listing optimization with our guide to Walmart SEO.
“…I’ve also [run] into issues where I want to sell a single count of an item…I go to enter in the UPC from its packaging only to find out someone already is already using that UPC as a multi-pack, which now makes it impossible to sell the item as a single.”
If you have not configured your tax settings to enable Walmart to collect and remit sales tax for all states, you will continue to receive taxes collected on orders from states that aren’t part of those that Walmart automatically handles (per state laws). In these instances, it would remain the seller’s responsibility to remit taxes in those states.
How to Make Your Walmart Listing Stand Out
Walmart Marketplace customer service requirements include:
First-party sellers have always had the option to ship directly to a Walmart fulfillment center and let them take care of the rest, while third-party sellers were responsible for handling shipping, exchanges, returns, and customer service without exception. 3P sellers were given another option in February 2020, when Walmart Fulfillment Services launched.
- Go beyond the minimal requirements and shape up your listings with a variety of highly relevant keywords and other helpful specs (while avoiding fluff at all costs). Your listing should first help people find your product, then sell them on buying that product
- Walmart uses the Walmart Optimization Triangle to determine your listing quality score, which judges three factors of your listing: the quality of your content description, your offer, and the customer experience
- Visit your Listing Quality Dashboard regularly to stay on top of any and all issues, and opportunities for further improving your listings
- Apparel & Accessories – 15%
- Automotive & Powersports – 12%
- Baby – 8% for items $10 or less; 15% for items above $10
- Beauty – 8% for items $10 or less; 15% for items above $10
- Books – 15%
- Camera & Photo – 8%
- Cell Phones – 8%
- Consumer Electronics – 8%
- Electronics Accessories – 15% for the portion of the sales price up to $100; 8% for the portion above $100
- Furniture & Decor – 15%
- Gourmet Food – 15%
- Grocery – 8% for items $10 or less; 15% for items above $10
- Health & Personal Care – 8% for items $10 or less; 15% for items above $10
- Home & Garden – 15%
- Industrial & Scientific – 12%
- Jewelry – 20% for the portion of the sales price up to $250; 5% for the portion above $250
- Kitchen – 15%
- Luggage & Travel Accessories – 15%
- Major Appliances – 8%
- Music – 15%
- Musical Instruments – 12%
- Office Products – 15%
- Outdoors – 15%
- Personal Computers – 6%
- Pet Supplies – 15%
- Plumbing Heating Cooling & Ventilation – 10%
- Shoes, Handbags & Sunglasses – 15%
- Software & Computer Video Games – 15%
- Sporting Goods – 15%
- Tires & Wheels – 10%
- Tools & Home Improvement – 15%
- Toys & Games – 15%
- Video & DVD – 15%
- Video Game Consoles – 8%
- Video Games – 15%
- Watches – 15% for the portion of the sales price up to $1,500; 3% for the portion above $1,500
- Everything else – 15%
- It has been 70 days since you shipped your first order
- You have sold $2,500 (GMV) worth of merchandise
- Walmart Price Parity: This rule automatically unpublishes items from Walmart.com when it has been determined that the same seller is offering the same item for a lower price on another website
- Walmart Reasonable Price Not Satisfied: This rule automatically unpublishes items from Walmart.com when it has been found that the seller is charging a “drastically higher” price than a seller or sellers on competing websites
- Free Value Shipping: This option is available for all sellers in Seller Center, and is an ideal choice for buyers who don’t need their items in a hurry, and are willing to wait longer for their purchase to reach them, in exchange for free shipping. While this option can’t be disabled in Seller Center, sellers are given the option to create Shipping Overrides that exclude specific items
- Standard Shipping: Optional; can be enabled or disabled for any region. Shipping time of 2-5 business days to 48 states
- ThreeDay Shipping: Optional; can be enabled or disabled for any region. Shipping time of 2-3 business days to 48 states
- TwoDay Shipping: This shipping option is available to all Marketplace sellers. Like other shipping methods, it can also be managed through Seller Center, but requires that sellers first apply for Walmart’s free TwoDay Delivery program. Walmart offers sellers two opt-in methods for the program—Seller-Managed or Third-Party-Managed—which are largely based on how they’re handling fulfillment
- Next Day Shipping: Optional; can be enabled or disabled for any region. Shipping time of 0-1 business days to 48 states
- Freight Shipping: This option only applies to sellers offering oversized items that aren’t available for basic ground or air carrier shipment, and isn’t set as an available option in Seller Center. If an item you are selling requires freight shipment, you can configure a Shipping Override for that item. When enabled, this replaces all other shipping methods for the particular item. This can be enabled or disabled for any region, with a preconfigured transit time of 5-10 business days
- The ability to offer 2-day shipping nationwide (regardless of where your personally operated warehouses are located). Sellers send their inventory to Walmart fulfillment centers, and Walmart stores and prepares your items for shipment when an order comes through
- In addition to handling shipping, WFS also manages returns and customer service
- With Walmart TwoDay tags on your listings, you’ll gain increased visibility in the search rankings
- Increased control over item page content
- Enhanced seller support from a dedicated WFS call center team
- Maintaining a current, and accurate, customer service and customer service escalation email address in Seller Center
- Maintaining a current, and accurate, customer service phone number in Seller Center. If a live agent is not available to handle incoming calls, voicemail must be available
- Customers must receive a greeting upon calling before they are placed in queue to speak with a representative. This greeting, and the aforementioned voicemail message, cannot include advertisements
- Responding to all customer, and Walmart Customer Care, inquiries with a high-quality response (not automated), within 48 hours
- Sellers are not to initiate correspondence with a customer regarding the status of their order, or additional information about the product(s) they have purchased. Automatic emails are generated by Walmart’s system as their order moves through each stage of fulfillment
- Sellers are also not permitted to contact sellers with any other unsolicited emails or phone calls
- Sellers must regularly monitor all email addresses tied to their account to ensure they are aware of any communication sent by Walmart
- If Better Business Bureau (BBB) or Attorney General Complaints are received, sellers are required to send a thorough, “high-quality” response within the first hour of receipt
- Customer support is still required during Additional Days Off; these are only designed to apply to order processing exceptions, and do not relieve sellers of their customer service duties
- All customer support, including phone and email support, must be provided in English
- Sellers are required to behave professionally, and courteously, with customers, Walmart, and other sellers; there is a zero tolerance policy for abusive or threatening language
- Sellers are required to have a minimum return period window of 30 days for most items, with the option to extend this window beyond the 30-day period if they choose to
- The 30-day window begins 7 days after an item has shipped
- There are some exceptions to this minimum requirement; for certain electronics items, outlined here, sellers can shorten the return window to 15 days after the item has been delivered. Certain luxury items may also be set-up with return windows of 14 days, or shorter, following item receipt. One example of items that may qualify for this shorter window are precious metals, whose value fluctuates often
- Freight shipments, or other shipments that are unable to be handled via ground shipment
- Shipments that are classified as Hazmat
- Non-returnable items (ie. perishable food items)
- Tires
- Shipments that are unable to be returned in a single box
- Luxury items (ie. high-end jewelry and watches)
- Prepaid mobile phone cards
- The discounted rates available through RSS are only for Walmart Marketplace returns; sellers cannot take advantage of these rates for items not sold on Walmart Marketplace
- Items that are returned to a physical Walmart store will have RSS applied automatically
- RSS rates are confidential; sellers cannot disclose or otherwise distribute the rates they are receiving, per the Walmart Retailer Agreement
- Order Cancellation Rate: < 2% in a 14-day period
- On-Time Delivery Rate (OTD): > 95% in a 14-day period
- Valid Tracking Rate (VTR): > 99% in a 14-day period
- Return Rate: < 6% in a 90-day period
- Increased visibility and discoverability through advertising assists with an organic presence on Walmart.com
- New sellers and products can drive sales through advertising
- Struggling or low performing SKUs can improve visibility
- Seasonal products can take advantage of seasonality spikes, faster
- Improve seller’s share of voice
- Higher conversion rates
- Increased revenue
- Improved discoverability
- Higher external search rankings
- Be concise
- Tell the value proposition of your products to make them stand out
- Utilize and repeat relevant keywords, but do not use the same keyword more than three times
- Use an active voice
- Include images that show your product in use
- Add video if your product category allows it
- Don’t forget to add product attributes, tagging, and backend keywords via Walmart Seller Center
- As of May 2021, Tinuiti is 1 of 8 Walmart Advertising API partners. This privilege enables us to offer unique benefits to our clients, including increased efficiencies in campaign management, advanced escalation resources should they be required, enhanced training and enablement, and exclusive access to exciting beta opportunities
- Tinuiti also has API connections with Amazon, Amazon DSP, Instacart, and Criteo. Stuart Clay, Associate Director, Marketplace Strategic Services at Tinuiti, explains:
– Santiago Rocha, Brand Services Specialist at Tinuiti
- Marketplace advertising expertise and experience. Tinuiti has a long history of adopting and growing clients with advertising on marketplace channels. Our Marketplace Team was founded in 2007, and boasts a 97% customer retention rate. They have navigated every change and update big and small for 14 years and counting
- Tinuiti has a proven methodology of campaign structure, keyword optimization, and product promotion in marketplace advertising and developing a unique to Walmart approach
- Tinuiti is working directly with Walmart as a partner in product development and business development to improve functionality, features, and scalability of its products to drive results for sellers and advertisers
What Does it Cost to Sell on the Walmart Marketplace?
– Stuart Clay, Associate Director of Strategic Marketplace Services at Tinuiti
Seller payment frequencies are determined once your account is approved, and are typically set for bi-weekly payment. There is a temporary payment hold period for new partners; while sellers are still within this time frame, “orders will be eligible for payments 14 days after orders are shipped.” This payment hold period expires once both of the following conditions have been met:
Advertisers are charged only when a user clicks on the ad and is forwarded to the ad’s landing page.
How Sellers Get Paid on Walmart.com
There are several minimum requirements for being a 3P seller on the Walmart Marketplace, designed to ensure sellers meet Walmart’s high standards in 3 key areas:
The use of single UPCs can result in some troublesome issues. Here’s one seller’s experience:
You can view the full list of prohibited items on the Walmart site.
If a customer contacts you directly from the Seller Page, or their personal account section on Walmart.com, it is required that you use the Message Center to reply.
Pricing Products on Walmart.com
Ready to explore your options, but aren’t sure where to begin? We’ve created a helpful guide that delves into how to sell on Walmart.com, using Walmart Seller Center, catalog enhancements, and how brands are using Walmart advertising to drive sales.
It can take several months to get approved, and the Walmart team may not be quite as communicative as you’d expect during this process. If you aren’t approved, it’s likely you won’t hear conclusively for several months, so you’ll need to be patient.
The Walmart Seller Approval Process
When setting up a Walmart seller account, one of two payment processor options are selected—Payoneer or Hyperwallet. Your payments are made through whichever option you selected.
Paying Taxes for Products Sold on Walmart.com
Walmart creates a basic framework for listing your products, but if you want to generate more sales, it’s best to go above and beyond the basics.
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Sellers are paid the total amount from sale of products (retail price + shipping costs) minus Walmart’s referral fees. After a customer places an order, Walmart enacts an authorization hold on the order until the seller confirms the product has been shipped. Once this is completed, Walmart.com will debit the customer account. This means sales are reported on the shipping date, not on the order creation date.
Shipping Fulfillment and Customer Service on the Walmart Marketplace
There are several reasons why sellers should advertise on Walmart.com:
Shipping Methods
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Product titles, descriptions, images, variants, and more can all impact conversion rates, revenue, and even your product search rankings.
Walmart Fulfillment Services
Your return policy on Walmart should be as good as the return policy on your website, so make sure it’s up to par.
There are currently six shipping methods available to sellers on Walmart Marketplace. It is required that sellers support at least one of these methods:
We recommend starting with some of your top-selling products, while keeping in mind you’re dealing with customers who will value low prices most.
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Customer Service
If you’d like to go with the fourth option, Tinuiti’s Walmart Marketplace Operation’s team will work to ensure your listings are accurate, and all required information has been input.
— Jaré Buckley-Cox, Vice President, Walmart Fulfillment Services, Walmart eCommerce The spec sheet you will use when creating variant groups will depend on whether your item will be an entirely new product in Walmart.com’s catalog, or a variant of an existing item for sale on Walmart.com. The Full Item Spec sheet is used for new items, while the Item Maintenance Spec sheet is used for existing items.
Cancellations
Walmart uses a unified catalog system that is essentially first-come-first-serve. What this means is that the first seller to list a product on the site is likely to be the home base for other sellers also selling that product.
All featured/sponsored product sections operate on a cost-per-click (CPC) pricing model.
Returns and Refunds
Return Window
Return Eligibility
Sellers can keep tabs on all of the above within the Performance section of Seller Center. Performance is regularly reviewed by Walmart’s Marketplace Performance team, and an email alert will be sent to any sellers whose account does not meet these standards.
Return Labels
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Return Center
If Walmart.com believes an order is fraudulent, it will not be released to the seller and the customer will receive a cancellation email. Cancellations are final. Once an order is canceled–by either party–it cannot be reversed or shipped.
Keep It
Sellers looking to make the most of their Walmart operations shouldn’t have to go it alone—which is why Tinuiti’s marketplace experts are here to help.
Sellers may receive up to two alerts, and will be given “21 days to improve your performance and meet seller standards before facing account suspension.” New sellers may receive additional alerts and time to address issues; up to three alerts, and 28 days, respectively. That said, Walmart relies on the seller to proactively address any performance shortcomings, and continually self-monitor. Here are some best practices for making the most of your Walmart product listing content:
How to Boost Sales on Walmart.com
While items will be automatically unpublished if they have violated the above rules, you will be made aware of their removal through a notification in your Manage Items Report in Seller Center.
1. Win the Walmart Marketplace Buy Box
As a Walmart seller, you have an opportunity to optimize product listings and product visuals to create better customer and brand experience on Walmart’s marketplace.
There are also some unique benefits to selling using Walmart’s ecommerce platform, Walmart Seller Center. The clean design and user-friendly features of Seller Center make optimizing and managing your listings and sales straightforward, with easily digestible —and actionable— insights available throughout the platform.
Before you sit down to complete your Walmart Marketplace application, be prepared to provide the below:
International Expansion
Unless sellers are handling order fulfillment through Walmart Fulfillment Services, they are required to handle all customer service needs. In the event Walmart’s Customer Care team is contacted by one of your customers regarding an item purchased from your catalog, they will be provided with your company’s customer service contact information. Each attribute will fall within one of four categories:
Customers will not be aware that the item they have purchased has Keep It rules in place unless a return is initiated through Walmart.com or the Walmart Customer Care team. Returns made in-store will be processed as normal.
We’ve seen Walmart scale product selection and gain access to Millennials and Gen Z-ers with a string of strategic acquisitions of digitally-native brands.
2. Generate Stellar Customer Reviews
Walmart uses Buy Boxes to encourage competition among sellers who are offering the same product. This allows them to offer that product to the customer at a fair price. Walmart has created separate Excel templates for every category on Walmart.com. These templates provide sellers with the opportunity to add item attributes that are uniquely tailored to the category the item they’re selling is part of. For example, you would find a “finish” field in the Excel template for furniture items as many shoppers will be searching using related keywords, however that field wouldn’t apply to most other item types.
There are several factors that could dramatically influence your sales on the Walmart Marketplace. The work that goes into satisfying all of these factors is ongoing, but can be grouped into a few key areas:
3. Meet Seller Requirements for Customer Service and Shipping
If you would prefer to have Walmart Marketplace handle sales tax collection for all items sold regardless of which state the buyer lives in, you can configure your tax settings in Seller Center during your initial integration. Future adjustments can be made if your catalog itself, or other conditions change, after the integration stage.
If you want to learn more about our Walmart services, drop us a line and we’ll be in touch!
Walmart’s goal is to provide shoppers with the best price possible on the items they’re most interested in. One way this is achieved is through automated rules that will remove items that aren’t competitively priced from the Walmart Marketplace. These rules include the Price Parity rule, and the Reasonable Price Not Satisfied rule, both of which compare the same items across multiple websites, including their shipping charges (item cost + shipping):
4. Advertise on Walmart.com
While there are numerous factors that influence Buy Box availability on Amazon, the Walmart.com Buy Box appears to be primarily influenced by price (selling price+shipping).
If available, customer reviews of the product will appear under the price.
While the Buy Box includes the option to compare with other sellers, it’s likely that most shoppers don’t investigate that option, just as they don’t on Amazon.
You can manage content in bulk using Walmart’s Category Templates. Note that Walmart may send written requests for more information about your products, and you must comply. Additionally, there is the caveat that they may change these requirements at will, so be sure to stay on top of your messages from Walmart.com. “Walmart.com has come a long way in a short time in terms of marketplace capabilities; in the types of targeting, ad types, reporting, and the sophistication of the platform overall. Brands looking for ecommerce growth beyond Amazon should consider the opportunity of selling on Walmart’s online marketplace.” While remitting taxation was previously the seller’s responsibility—unless they had set up their account for this to be handled by Walmart—Marketplace now collects sales tax on your behalf, by default, for the majority of items sold. This is due to state changes (in certain states) that “require all marketplace facilitators, including Walmart Marketplace, to collect and remit sales tax directly to the tax authorities.”
5. Optimize Your Walmart Product Listing Page Content
Shoppers can then refine their results by selecting the desired fields in the left navigation. These fields will vary depending on the item you searched, and how specific you were in your initial search (ie. whether you simply searched “swimsuits for women,” or followed the suggested prompt and searched “swimsuits for women in Clothing,” which would serve more refined results within that department.) It is required that sellers configure a minimum of 1 return center for orders, though the option for multiple return centers is available. When multiple return centers are provided, items will be returned to the center that is closest to the origin of the returned item to secure the best shipping rates. If there are certain items that you would like returned to a specific return center, this can be set at the item-level. Walmart Product Listing Content Details
How to Optimize Your Walmart Product Listings
“As we’ve been building our marketplace service and relationship with sellers, many have asked if they can leverage our eCommerce fulfillment network to fulfill orders quickly and efficiently for their items. We’re excited to introduce Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), a service where select sellers can leverage our world-class supply chain capabilities – from storing, picking, packing and shipping items to handling of returns and customer service.”
Because multiple users may be adding content for the same product, Walmart uses algorithms to determine which provided content will display on a given item page. Each item attribute is considered separately to aid in crafting the most helpful, informative descriptions for shoppers. Rules governing these decisions include:
Walmart has stated in their FAQs that investing in sponsored products can increase organic ranking.
Variant Groups
According to some sellers, brand owners may find their Universal Product Code (UPCs) or Global Trade Item Number (GTINs) are already listed on product pages and may have little control over listing alterations. Those products with the same UPC are presented together on the site. Have certain items up for sale for which the overall costs/profit don’t justify paying for a shipped return? Walmart allows for “Keep It” rules to be applied “at a particular price threshold for every product category.” These are items for which the customer will receive a refund, but don’t have to ship the item back and can simply “keep it.”
While listing all variants of a given item within one listing results in a more streamlined user experience, there is a potential downside to consider when adding existing listings to variant groups: potential lost reviews. Walmart notes that they “may remove existing reviews when a variant group is created because our systems may recognize the SKU as a “new” item.”
While Walmart has made great strides as a platform, there are still some challenges that sellers may face when transitioning to Walmart’s marketplace.
The Challenges of Selling on the Walmart Marketplace
Items can be uploaded in four different ways:
Potentially Lower Margins
Walmart notes that there may be other factors that can affect your payment schedule, including “high return or chargeback rates and selling counterfeit or illegal items.”
Potential Walmart Marketplace Listing Issues
If you want to learn more about how you can drive ecommerce growth through Walmart’s expanding advertising platform, check out our Advertising on Walmart Marketplace: Updated Guide for 2021.
Another way to potentially influence your Buy Box wins? Make your products available for Walmart’s expedited shipping programs, ThreeDay and TwoDay. If you do manage to win the Buy Box, you may be able to offset your lower price with more sales for that item.
After a query is entered, the search results page will display the marketplace’s listings for products displayed on the standard result page.
Stringent Pricing Requirements
When two users that fall within the same hierarchical level make a content update, preference is given to the first update provided. Walmart.com will use the PCP’s content and imagery for the product listing, even if your product wins the buy box.
How Tinuiti Helps Brands Sell on Walmart
Customers are able to easily return items to Walmart.com or a physical Walmart store as long as all conditions outlined in the seller’s policy are satisfied. If sellers are offering items for which the circumstances of returning are more complex, they can request an exception to the standard return process. Some of these circumstances include:
You may see lower margins on the Walmart Marketplace than you would on Amazon or via your ecommerce site.
“High quality and captivating item page content is imperative for a product’s success on Walmart Marketplace. Optimizing a listing’s content will result in a significant increase in traffic & conversions, ultimately resulting in long term sales growth for a product.”
“Walmart bears all settlement costs for USD to US bank ACH payments made through payment processors and sellers will receive 100% of the funds they are owed.”
Walmart has recently expanded the marketplace to include international sellers, however this guide is focused on requirements and recommendations for US sellers. Early announcements regarding the expansion note that some rules for Chinese sellers include: Here are a few tips to keep in mind when developing your listings and climbing your way to the top of the Walmart search results.
