If you own a multichannel ecommerce business, Walmart Marketplace is likely already on your radar. While Walmart Marketplace has historically exercised immense caution when it came to allowing third-party sellers, the online marketplace is now actively recruiting brands to expand. This is a huge opportunity for you to grow your multichannel ecommerce business, without facing the notoriously difficult process of breaking into Walmart stores. Plus, as Walmart Marketplace continues to compete with ecommerce giants, like Amazon, it’s becoming critical to learn how to sell on Walmart Marketplace.
If you’re looking to capitalize on this opportunity to grow your multichannel business and take advantage of all the incentives for new Walmart sellers, it’s time to get started. In this blog we’ve outlined exactly why this is the perfect opportunity to scale your success with new potential customers, as well as put together step-by-step instructions for how to sell on Walmart.
What is Walmart Marketplace?
Walmart Marketplace is an ecommerce marketplace where third-party sellers can list their products right beside Walmart’s own. Unlike other major ecommerce platforms, like Amazon or eBay, that remain primarily online, the Walmart Marketplace is secondary to the brick-and-mortar retail giant. However, in recent years Walmart has made a significant push to become a notable competitor for ecommerce marketplace sellers.
Benefits of Selling on Walmart Marketplace
By expanding your multichannel business to sell on Walmart Marketplace you stand to reap a number of benefits, including:
Access to More Customers
Walmart’s long history as a major retail player, both in brick-and-mortar stores and as an online marketplace, attracting over 255 million customers each week. If your multichannel business can start selling on Walmart Marketplace, you’ll have access to more customers than ever before with unparalleled exposure for your products. Plus, you can take advantage of this massive customer base without needing to invest heavily in external marketing.
Cost-Effective Expansion
While many other online marketplaces charge a monthly fee based on your product catalog size to start selling, Walmart marketplace takes a different approach. To start selling on Walmart Marketplace you won’t need to pay any hidden fees, however there is a reasonable referral fee for each completed purchase. For most items, the referral fees range between 5%-15% of the total sale price.
This referral fee model helps to reduce upfront costs and financial risk for sellers just starting to sell on Walmart, leaving you more capital to invest in inventory, marketing efforts, and ensuring ecommerce success. Plus, it allows you to expand your multichannel business to Walmart Marketplace with almost zero cost or risk.
Less Competition
Although the retailer is notorious for providing highly competitive pricing to Walmart shoppers, behind the scenes Walmart Marketplace offers reduced pressure for Walmart sellers. Unlike other ecommerce platforms, Walmart’s strict application process results in less other sellers in each product category, which is a huge advantage when it comes to winning the Buy Box.
Pro Tip: Reduced competition for sales also means less competition for sponsored brands, sponsored products ads, or sponsored search advertising. By taking advantage of Walmart Connect, which offers services like Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Products ads, you can drastically increase your brand visibility at low prices.
Improved Customer Satisfaction
Walmart Marketplace sellers also benefit from Walmart’s stellar reputation. Walmart stores aren’t just known for their low prices and vast selection of product listings, their online offshoot has also developed a reputation of quick shipping with Walmart fulfillment and seamless returns. While this type of reputation requires marketplace sellers to live up to a high standard, it also benefits credible sellers by improving consumer confidence.
Seamless Integration
As a leader in innovative solutions for retail and ecommerce services, Walmart Marketplace offers seamless integration with other online marketplaces and leading solution providers. These easy integrations allows you to sell on Walmart with streamlined multichannel order management, fulfillment services, and more.
Pro Tip: Take advantage of full-service multichannel management tools, like Base, to make your Walmart Marketplace sales channel even more effective. Expand technical capabilities through automations like bulk uploads and price automation.
Requirements for Walmart Marketplace Sellers
Although Walmart Marketplace is actively trying to expand its network of ecommerce sellers contributing to its online marketplace, the retailer still takes serious measures to protect its brand reputation. To help ensure continued ecommerce success, Walmart maintains strict standards for recruiting professional sellers.
Before you can begin your application for Walmart Marketplace, make sure that you meet the minimum qualifications to become a Walmart seller:
- Business Tax ID(s) or Business License Number.
- Supporting documents that verify business name and business details.
- History of marketplace or ecommerce success (ie, proof of business sales on Amazon, eBay, or another reputable marketplace).
- Products that have GTIN/UPC codes.
- A product catalog that aligns with Walmart’s Prohibited Products Policy.
- Shipping methods and fulfillment through Walmart Fulfillment Services or another B2C United States warehouse with return capabilities.
In order for Walmart to maintain their top-tier reputation, Walmart marketplace only accepts established and credible sellers. If you can meet these requirements though, you can submit your application to start selling.
How to Sell on Walmart Marketplace
While opening up your Walmart Marketplace account might seem daunting, the approval process is incredibly easy. To start selling on Walmart marketplace you’ll need to first create a Walmart seller account in Walmart’s Seller center and apply to set up your multichannel business on the platform. Next, you’ll need to complete the 3-step setup to begin onboarding and eventually be approved.
- Business Verification – Submit the necessary business details to Walmart in order to complete your Seller Profile.
- Payments – Securely share banking information with Walmart Marketplace so they know where to send payments once you start selling. No setup, subscription, or hidden fees.
- Shipping – Configure your shipping and fulfillment methods and cost calculations. Select your preferred returns method and carriers, even if you’ll be utilizing Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS).
The entire application to sell on Walmart Marketplace takes about five minutes to complete. Once finished, you’ll be reviewed for a seller profile. The review process for your Walmart seller application can take as little as 24 hours, but sometimes can take up to 4 weeks.
Pro Tip: To ensure that you get approved to be a Walmart Marketplace seller as fast as possible, make sure that your business name, business verification, and other details are accurate and up to date.
Walmart Seller Center
Once you’re approved to sell on Walmart, you’ll receive an email providing you with further instructions on what to do next. The next step is to create a Seller Center account:
- In the email, there should be a link that says Register as a seller. Click this to be redirected to the first page of your Seller Center registration which will be Account Creation.
- Enter the email address or username that you provided in your initial application and create a password. You’ll also be asked to choose some security questions and provide answers before clicking Create Account.
- Next you’ll be redirected to the Walmart Marketplace Program agreement page. Make sure that you read all their terms and services before agreeing.
- You’ll now need to complete your Company Registration with Walmart Marketplace. This mostly entails collecting information about your business managers and their address history.
- After your company registration is completed, the next step is Taxes (W-9) where Walmart collects your business tax information, including your business tax ID. This ensures that you’ll be able to comply with all IRS regulations for ecommerce marketplace sellers.
- Finally, you’ll be able to enter payment and shipping information. Make sure to enter all the necessary information including how long it will take for an order to be processed and shipped.
Walmart Brand Portal
If your multichannel business has it’s own brand (or multiple brands) that you intend to sell on Walmart, you’ll want to get signed up for Walmart Brand Portal. Not only does Walmart Brand Portal allow you to manage multiple brands on the online marketplace, it also allows marketplace brand owners to verify authenticity.
Marketplace brand owners registered with the Walmart Brand Portal can benefit from premium placements for Sponsored Brand ads, enhancing their product visibility. By assigning a seller to be the single acting brand owner to represent your brand’s content, approved seller content will be prioritized over other sellers on Walmart Marketplace. This helps to ensure that high quality images and media are available for marketing, driving customer clicks.
Infringement Claims
Perhaps the biggest benefit of registering with Walmart Brand Portal when you sell on Walmart is that they can help ensure intellectual property infringement is taken seriously. According to the Brand Portal website, you can submit any legitimate claims of intellectual property infringement on Walmart Marketplace for review.
Managing Your Multichannel Business on Walmart Marketplace
As you begin to take full advantage of Walmart Marketplace for your multichannel ecommerce business, it’s important that you have the technical capabilities you need to continue scaling to marketplace or ecommerce success. That’s where an integrated solution for Walmart Marketplace and your other channels can come into play. You can connect your Walmart account to Base within seconds to take advantage of all the advanced automation functionalities.
Managing a multichannel ecommerce brand can be a difficult and overwhelming task without the right tools to support your business growth. That’s why Base offers sellers a fully integrated solution for multichannel ecommerce management, including order, shipping, product, and marketplace management, among a variety of other tools. You can get started today with Base’s 14 day free trial here.
