How to Sell on Walmart: An Easy-to-Follow Guide (2024)
Walmart offers a fantastic profit opportunity for sellers just starting out in eCommerce and those with an already established online store. Learning how to sell on Walmart Marketplace effectively is essential to growing your business.
This article will help you understand the platform’s requirements and see if it’s the best option for you. You’ll find everything you need to know about how to sell on Walmart Marketplace, including their prerequisites and setting up your catalog.
What Is Walmart Marketplace?
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer by revenue, generating almost $568b in global sales in 2022.
In 2000, Walmart expanded and launched an online store that is now a third-party marketplace. It connects buyers to third-party sellers in an integrated system with storefronts, payment gateways, and fulfillment processes.
Walmart Marketplace sellers have access to a growing market in the United States and worldwide.
Why Sell on Walmart Marketplace
Becoming a seller on Walmart Marketplace is a multi-step process but has many rewards. We’ve selected the most compelling reasons to become one of their third-party sellers.
- 70% of customers shop in third-party marketplaces due to the ample product selection, competitive prices, and speedy delivery giving Walmart sellers an advantage from the start.
- Walmart is the second-largest online market in the US.
- The online marketplace doesn’t charge monthly subscriptions – only a referral fee.
- Walmart has high customer trust and offers sellers and buyers a comprehensive structure, including security systems and Walmart Seller Support.
- Walmart sellers can access steady traffic and tools to profit from it, including insightful analytics.
- Enhanced advertisement in retail stores and benefits like the Walmart Buy Box program.
“I chose to sell on Walmart among numerous online selling platforms because Walmart is globally recognized as a retail giant with an extensive customer base. This presents an opportunity for me to reach a wide audience and grow my business. Additionally, Walmart is known for its stringent standards regarding product quality, aligning with the standards I aim to achieve for my products. Partnering with Walmart allows me to establish my own brand and benefit from the credibility associated with such a well-known platform.”
Ta Ngoc Canh
Walmart Marketplace Requirements and Eligibility
- Costs
The Walmart referral fee averages out at 15% of each sale, though it varies according to the primary product category. - Approval process
Walmart has a more demanding process than marketplaces like Etsy or eBay – Walmart requires sellers to have a proven history of eCommerce success.
If you’re just starting, it might be best to gain experience in a less demanding marketplace like Etsy – but don’t let this discourage you. The rewards are worth the effort. - Product information
A Walmart Marketplace seller must provide detailed information, including their catalog size, primary product categories, and integration method – such as bulk upload, API, or a solution provider.
Products must comply with Walmart’s product policy and have GTIN/UPC GS1 company prefix numbers.
US Residents
US residents are classified as W-9 and must provide a US business tax ID or a business license number and corporate address. If you need a license, check out our article on how to get a business license.
- Prospective sellers must provide supporting documents validating IDs and business addresses, like a verification letter of an employment identification number. Apply for an EIN with the IRS if necessary.
International Sellers
Walmart is available to sellers from Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.
International sellers who have an EIN and are incorporated inside the US are classified as W-8ECI. Sellers without an EIN and incorporated outside the US are W-8BEN-E.
All international sellers must provide proof of incorporation and confirmation of the business address.
Check Walmart seller help for detailed local requirements.
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How to Start Selling on Walmart Marketplace in 5 Steps
From registration to marketing, let’s look at how to start a Walmart online store.
1. Register and Verify
Before applying to sell on Walmart Marketplace, you must gather the required documents and information.
If so, head to Walmart Marketplace and click on Join Marketplace.
Fill in your basic information, including your legal business name, email, and phone number, and click on Create my account.
You’ll receive a confirmation email. Click on Verify my account to access the Walmart Seller Center.
Once you log in, take three steps to complete verification – Business verification, Payments, and Shipping.
Click on Get verified to enter detailed information, including your tax ID, business address and phone number, website, yearly gross merchandise, and highest-performing category.
Also, enter your display name and contact details for your customers, then click Submit for review. This is a crucial step for getting your application approved, and it may take some days until you get an answer from Walmart.
After your application is approved, it’s time to set up your payment methods. Choose between Payoneer, Hyperwallet, or PingPong.
2. Set Up Fulfillment and Shipping Options
Click on Start shipping to set up your preferred shipping profile, return labels, and address.
Walmart provides a standard return label – you must accept specific terms of service to use them. Still, you can choose a return address other than your business one, which helps send products directly to a fulfillment center instead of an office location.
Walmart Marketplace uses these four shipping methods.
- Value
Free shipping to US Walmart shoppers and a 3-7 business-day delivery. It’s not possible to turn off this option in the Seller Center, although some items can be excluded from it. - Standard
Requires defining shipping rules for specific regions and states, including delivery time of 3-5 days and rates for shipping and handling. - Expedited
Recommended to increase competitiveness and boost visibility on Walmart’s search engine – we’ll cover more on this topic later in the article. - Freight
This applies to items too large to be transported by regular ground or air carriers.
Value and Standard shipping are available before your shop is onboarded. After that, add Expedited and Freight shipping and subscribe to Walmart Fulfillment Services. WFS assists sellers with fulfillment, shipping, and even customer support – we’ll also cover more on this shortly.
Click on Advanced setup to tweak your shipping options, like time zones and the Shipping Rate Model, either by weight or price of the order, and specify rules for each method.
Create shipping templates, add Expedited shipping, and subscribe to WFS after completing your shop’s onboarding in the Shipping Profile menu. Access this by clicking Settings in the top menu.
Expedited Shipping
There are two types of Expedited shipping – two and three-day. They’re offered with specific products, variants, or regions by using Shipping Templates.
Sellers opting for Expedited delivery must decide if they will fulfill the orders themselves or by signing up to WFS.
Shops managing their own fulfillment and warehouses can set up three-day shipping soon after onboarding.
However, sellers willing to offer two-day shipping and take care of fulfillment must meet the following requirements:
- Offer free returns.
- Selling on Walmart Marketplace for at least 90 days or fulfilling over 100 orders.
- Have shipping, delivery, and valid tracking rates of over 95%.
- Have a cancellation rate below 1.5%.
Sellers must request two-day shipping in Settings under Seller fulfillment, located under Premium Program Participation.
Walmart Fulfillment Services
WFS is a convenient service that improves inventory management and the general flow of an online shop by handling order fulfillment and customer support.
Applying to the program is simple. Provide your business details, a return address, and a billing method on the WFS website, and convert your product listings to WFS-fulfilled products.
These are the main benefits of subscribing to the program:
- WFS subscribers can store products in Walmart Fulfillment Centers. The marketplace picks orders from the sellers’ facilities, then packs and ships them to customers.
- Walmart takes care of customer support and returns, along with the benefits of the free and easy returns program.
- WFS sellers have automatic access to two-day shipping. Their products receive a two-day shipping tag and a boost on Walmart’s search engine.
- Optional inventory outsourcing with prep services.
WFS charges a fixed monthly storage fee plus a fulfillment cost based on the item weight.
However, apparel, hazardous materials, retail products sold at low prices, and oversize items receive additional fees. These are the base WFS fees.
- Weight
$3.45-$17.45, with increments of $0.40 per additional pound according to the tier. - Storage
$0.75-$7.50 per cubic foot per month – varies accordingly to time and month. - Apparel and hazmat
Additional $0.50. - Products cheaper than $10
$1 - Oversize items
$3-$25 - Returning Shipping
$4.70-$17.55, with increments of $0.40 per additional weight and tier. - Disposal and removal
This applies when an item is disposed of or removed from inventory. It’s $0.35, plus $0.20 increments for disposal, plus $0.40 per pound for removal.
Check specifics about WFS fees and tiers on the Walmart website.
3. Prepare and Optimize Your Products
It’s time to organize your Walmart product catalog. Create a spreadsheet and start from scratch or adapt your previous online store’s catalog.
Follow the Walmart Marketplace QuickStart guide to format product categories and descriptions, and upload your items in bulk.
Add items to your catalog and manage them by clicking Items in the left-hand menu. Select Update items in bulk from the upper-right corner or upload single products.
Add a single product by clicking Add items, also located in the upper-right corner. Then, simply follow the instructions for selecting the product category, descriptions, and prices.
You should optimize your products for your catalog’s competitiveness and visibility. Apply general search engine optimization (SEO) rules but focus on Walmart’s own recommendations, summarized below.
Optimize the following three fields: product name, description, and key features. Additionally, Walmart recommends that you shouldn’t add to any field. Let’s check everything in detail.
Product name
- Keep the name within 50-75 characters.
- Use keywords with vital product attributes, but do not overuse them repetitively and unnaturally.
- Use the following structure to create clear and specific product names:
< Brand + Item Name + Model Name (if applicable) + Style (if applicable) + Key Attribute + Pack Count (if applicable) + Size (if applicable)>
(Source: Copy Standards, Walmart Knowledge Base, Q2 2023)
- Titles for products in a variant group should include specifications like colors or sizes. However, do not include all variants in the title.
- Similarly, include the product color if your customers usually look for this specific attribute.
- Do not include company and retailer-specific information like promotional deals in product names.
Product descriptions
- Include product name, brand, and keywords describing main features and benefits.
- Add synonyms for the main keyword in the description to avoid repetition and broaden the reach.
- Follow the recommended word count – at least one paragraph should contain 150 words, but that varies per product category.
- Demonstrate expertise, knowledge, and confidence with clear and relevant descriptions, including facts and tips, wherever possible.
- Descriptions should inform and not try to sell. Use a straightforward tone to reflect this.
- Products with variants should include all possible variants, separate from product names.
Key features
- Use 3-10 bullet points with phrases and keywords featuring vital product details.
- Place the most relevant attributes first.
- Every bullet point allows a maximum of 80 characters, including spaces.
General rules
Avoid including these details on product names, features, or descriptions.
- Special characters.
- Any mention of other online marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay.
- Vague and marketing-style phrasing.
- Sales information, such as shipping rates and product costs. This information will be available in the appropriate fields, with automatic fee calculations.
- Offensive language.
4. Market Your Walmart Store
You’ve made it this far and have become a Walmart Marketplace seller. Now, let’s review some marketing tips specific to Walmart to expand your online presence and make your shop profitable.
- Perfect your Walmart Marketplace SEO
Use tools like Ahrefs and Google Trends to research keywords, check their performance, and closely follow Walmart’s recommendations on optimizing product listings. - Implement an omnichannel marketing strategy
Invest in multiple channels, like social networks, your own website, and Walmart’s tools, to offer a seamless experience for your customers. Use Walmart’s resources dedicated to omnichannel, like the free and easy returns. - Use Walmart paid advertising
To promote products, especially within categories with fierce competition. - Leverage the power of Walmart’s name
Millions of people trust Walmart’s brand. Capitalize on that to increase trust in your own brand through several channels. - Use Walmart’s exclusive offers
Walmart’s retailer promos attract many people to online shops and considerably boost traffic. Use Walmart Connect to capitalize on these promos – more on this below.
Check out further marketing hints and tricks on our blog.
5. Focus on Customers and Stick to Policies
Building a customer-centric business is key to success, but offering stellar customer support can be challenging when dealing with fulfillment.
Subscribing to WFS is the most effective way to improve your customer service, as it means Walmart will manage it, freeing you to dedicate time to enhancing the product.
In addition, nurture relationships in other channels, especially social media. Create polls, surveys, and post engagement. Interact with Walmart customers and use the channels to know what they need or want.
Take your time to carefully read Walmart’s policies and the Walmart Retailer Agreement – every seller must agree and comply with them to start selling on Walmart Marketplace.
There are detailed policies regarding Walmart listings, competitive pricing, shipping speed, fulfillment, returns, and refunds, to mention a few. Violating them may lead to canceling your Walmart Seller Account.
Sell on Walmart Marketplace With Printify!
Connect your Printify store with Walmart and sell products to a vast market. Check our Help Center guide for detailed information.
Level up Your Walmart Marketplace Game
Walmart provides many tools to manage products and catalogs and track performance. We’ve already learned about WFS and Expedited shipping. Now let’s check other tools sellers commonly use to improve their Walmart stores’ performance and profitability.
Walmart Connect
Walmart Connect manages advertising on the Walmart Marketplace. Similarly to other platforms, sellers pay for increased visibility of the promoted product listings.
Connect works on a pay-per-click basis, but the platform offers custom solutions and alternative advertising, such as displaying on-screen promotions inside Walmart’s physical stores.
To apply, you must provide your business data and tax ID, then wait for approval.
Walmart Brand Portal
The Walmart Brand Portal is a resource to protect sellers’ intellectual property in the marketplace. The tool offers IP claim management to track possible copyright violations.
Owners of registered trademarks and authorized parts, such as legal representatives, can hire the service.
The validation process requires email verification, company information, and the trademark registration number.
Walmart Dashboard
Walmart Assortment Growth Dashboard manages products and monitors sales by gathering customer demand signals and category data from your seller center.
This resource assesses Walmart Marketplace listing qualities and improves engagement, offering insight into market trends by analyzing prices on other platforms.
When a listing is unpublished by Walmart, the dashboard helps to correct any issues and improves it to meet Walmart’s standards.
Access the dashboard in your Walmart Marketplace account by clicking on Analytics, Growth Opportunities, then Assortment Growth.
To Summarize
You’ve learned how to sell on Walmart Marketplace and can make an informed decision about whether the platform’s the best choice for your business.
Now, it’s your turn to prepare your application, optimize your product catalog, start selling on Walmart, and make money on the lucrative online marketplace.
We wish you the best on your eCommerce journey!
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Written by
Andris Mucenieks
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2 comments
Thanks very much for nice post on how to sell on walmart
Hi there,
We are glad to hear it was useful.:)