Revised and Updated for 2021
How Can I Successfully Sell on the Walmart Marketplace?
You know the phrase “Never put all of your eggs in one basket?” It’s an important adage to remember when you start an ecommerce business. With the never-ending growth and popularity of Amazon, it’s easy to view the behemoth as the optimal choice for sellers. However, many underestimate the power and value of selling on Walmart.
After doing your research on which selling platforms provide the best opportunities, you hopefully have realized the opportunities awaiting you on Walmart.com. Perhaps you’ve already decided that your brand is ready to make the leap from Amazon or Etsy and start integrating onto Walmart’s platform. The good news is that you are probably ahead of many of your competitors, as Walmart is still an untapped resource among many sellers, which puts you ahead of the game.
But there’s a lot to learn. There are many details that go into running a successful business on Walmart seller center, and those details don’t always call for the same tactics as other platforms.
To help, we pooled together a list of some of the best and most useful resources to get your business onto Walmart’s marketplace, along with tools to help optimize your Walmart.com operations. In summary, you are getting answers on how to sell on Walmart.com marketplace without having to peruse through thousands of Google articles.
To make it even easier, we’ve broken the list into seven segments:
- Signing up to sell on Walmart
- Common setup questions
- Walmart programs
- Walmart tools
- Ways to garner reviews
- Options to handle order fulfillment
- Resources to optimize your advertising
We’ve included links to our free ebooks that delve into the multitude of reasons why selling on Walmart is a great business decision, how to get started, understanding Walmart category list and our own advertising strategies. If all this is a brand new endeavor for you, you might want to download the Getting Started ebook and start there.
Without further ado, here are the top 22 links, resources, and programs you need to know to supercharge your Walmart.com business.
Signing Up To Sell On Walmart
- Get Registered on the Walmart Platform
The first thing you need to do is to start an application. Use this link to get your application submitted. It won’t be saved if you need to take a break, so gather the information in advance — you’ll need details about your U.S. business tax ID, chosen method of integration with Walmart, and your product catalog.
- Shopify Walmart Integration
If you’re already using Shopify for your ecommerce business, you can make use of Walmart Shopify integration program in order to streamline the setup process. Add the Walmart marketplace as a channel on Shopify and you’ll be able to sync data between your D2C site and Walmart.
- BigCommerce Walmart Integration
Likewise, if you sell through BigCommerce you can connect your BigCommerce account to the Walmart Marketplace within Channel Manager. From there, apply to be a Walmart Marketplace seller. Sellers who connect to Walmart through BigCommerce also gain access to a network of partners including Teikametrics.
- A Quickstart Guide for Setting Up on Walmart.com
There will inevitably be a million questions you have as you navigate your way through the set-up process for your Walmart business. These bite-sized guides from Walmart can be helpful to address particular logistical issues as you’re getting started. There are user-friendly guides on topics ranging from tax configuration, to API integration, to free two-day delivery.
If you need a more thorough understanding of how things operate on Walmart before you invest time setting up specific solutions, our Getting Started On The Walmart Marketplace Management ebook will orient you with the bonuses of selling on Walmart, the opportunities it presents, what you’ll need to do to start selling there, and how to use ads to achieve profitability.
Common Setup Questions
These Quickstart Guides are great but, if you are in need of something more comprehensive you can turn to Walmart’s more traditional FAQ for sellers, covering the majority of questions a seller might have about selling a product on Walmart.
If you can’t find the answers you need in any of the guides, and you have a log-in, you can access Walmart Seller Central Support for live answers to your unique questions. This handy sheet explains how live chat support works.
- What is SellerHub for Walmart?
SellerHub is Walmart’s new learning portal within Seller Center. It’s a one-stop-shop for multiple forms of information, including Quickstart guides, videos, and newsletters. Again, you need a log in to access this resource.
What kind of programs does Walmart fulfillment services offer?
Walmart offers several valuable programs that can be the difference between plateauing your business and growing and scaling it significantly. Get detailed information here about Walmart Fulfillment Services that are analogous to Amazon’s FBA program, including Free Two-Day Delivery and Walmart Sponsored Products.
Walmart’s new customer loyalty program, which has often been compared to Amazon Prime, offers shoppers free shipping, discount fuel prices, and in-store scan and checkout for contactless shopping.
Walmart offers curbside pickup and delivery from the shopper’s local Walmart store for groceries and other in-store items. The Pick Up & Delivery program is only available to 1P vendors.
The Pro Seller Badge is awarded by Walmart to indicate quality products and service in order to boost customer confidence in purchasing. To earn the badge, sellers must hit a predefined set of performance criteria.
Walmart marketplace sellers can apply for a line of credit from Marcus by Goldman Sachs to pursue opportunities like acquiring inventory or boosting investment in advertising.
Shoppers expect fast delivery of their online purchases – particularly when they are used to getting practically overnight service on other shopping platforms. This means that fast delivery tags increase conversions. Walmart offers a suite of expedited shipping options – from seller-fulfilled expedited delivery to fulfillment services to ensure fast delivery.
The Walmart Money Center offers an array of financial services, including credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and much more.
The Walmart Rewards Card is a credit card from Capital One that gives shoppers 5% cashback on Walmart.com purchases and 2% cashback on in-store Walmart purchases.
Shoppers can securely pay in-store at Walmart with Walmart Pay within the Walmart app on their phones. Walmart Pay stores your card information within the app and payment is made when a shopper uses the app to scan a QR code at checkout.
Find a complete list of Walmart services including many more than those listed above. Categories include payment methods, product warranties, gift registries, health services, and much more
Walmart helps you find preferred solution providers for all your Walmart.com business needs, including inventory management, order management, shipping & fulfillment, payments, and ad optimization. Jump directly to Full-Service Solution Providers, Speciality Solutions Providers, or Content Solution Providers.
What Tools Does Walmart Offer To Make Ranking, Shipping and Tracking Easier?
Listing Quality Dashboard
Just as the case with Amazon, Walmart listing optimization is one of the most important things after you get your product on Walmart. Once you’re up and running, you’ll need to ensure that your Walmart product contents are as impactful and compelling as they can be. Use the Listing Quality Dashboard within Walmart Seller Center to identify opportunities to optimize various aspects of product listings – including pricing, shipping, and customer service.
Item Spec 4.0
The Item Spec 4.0 tool streamlines set-up of items for discoverability and conversion. You can also use it to maintain items to ensure high listing quality and appropriate categorization.
Shipping Templates
Use Walmart Marketplace Shipping Templates to optimize your shipping settings and increase conversions. Shipping Templates enable you to customize your inventory based on fulfillment network, shipping carriers, and more, making it easier to participate in fast shipping programs and streamlining supply-chain.
How Can I Get Reviews on Walmart.com?
Bazaarvoice
Investing in reviews influences sales performance and is a prerequisite for advertising success. Use Bazaarvoice’s Spark Review program for Walmart marketplace reviews to collect customer testimonials and ratings to display on your Walmart product listings.
PowerReviews
This is another option to garner more quality, user-generated content across social platforms and marketplaces, including Walmart.
Home Tester Club
A third option for review generation is Home Tester Club. We’re including multiple partners for review generation in this list because reviews are so pivotal to your success on Walmart, and we want you to be able to select the partner that’s right for your business.
Walmart Review Syndication
If you’re already collecting reviews via another platform, you can apply to syndicate your reviews to Walmart marketplace and make use of the work you’ve already done with review solution providers like BazaarVoice or Power Reviews.
How To Handle Order Fulfillment Through Walmart
Expedited Shipping
In today’s world, shoppers expect to receive their purchases quickly and will use shipping times as a decision factor in what they end up choosing. You can utilize fast delivery tags to improve your business performance and identify the best fulfillment partners to work with. Understand Walmart’s offerings by clicking the link above.
Walmart Fulfillment Services
As one strategy for order fulfillment, consider working with Walmart Fulfillment Services to complete your buyers’ orders, if you qualify. Make sure you understand Walmart Fulfillment Services Fees & Pricing.
Deliverr
Another great option to help expedite shipping is Deliverr. The advantage of using Deliverr is that Walmart Fulfillment Services aren’t available to all Walmart marketplace sellers. Deliverr is a multi channel solution across Amazon, Walmart, and other sites so their services can be significantly helpful if you need to fulfill across multiple marketplaces.
Advertising Optimizations for Walmart
Walmart Connect
Walmart Connect (previously known as Walmart Media Group) offers search and display solutions with rich data and an ad tech platform to help customers discover your products throughout Walmart’s omnichannel system.
Walmart Sponsored Products
Great products, with listings that make them shine, are a must. But that’s not enough if customers can’t find the products themselves, and that’s where advertising comes in. When you’re ready to start advertising your products on Walmart, here’s where to sign up for the Sponsored Products program.
Conclusion
In order to get more “bang for your buck” through Walmart advertising, you’’ want to use the most efficient implementations out there. With Teikametrics, you can fully utilize advertising through our Walmart API Integration tool. At Teikametrics, we have a vast knowledge on optimizing ads across marketplaces and we’re thrilled to be one of Walmart.com’s first ads API partners. Work with us to optimize your ads on Walmart.com and achieve your business goals.
For a more enhanced guide to Walmart Advertising, download the free ebook that teaches you how to supercharge your Walmart business with the right advertising strategy.
Good luck with your Walmart.com business! We think it’s a fantastic opportunity and we’re excited to see how your business grows. We’re here rooting for you all the way.
