Ecommerce

Is the Walmart Marketplace Right for You? | The Complete Guide

By Tinuiti Team

The Walmart Marketplace offers third-party sellers serious potential for revenues and exposure.

As the second-most popular online retailer in the world, Walmart.com brings in a whopping 127 million unique visitors every month – inching out sites like eBay, Target, Kohl’s, Best Buy, Etsy and more.

And though it doesn’t surpass Amazon in terms of reach, the lower levels of competition, smaller product selections and an easier buy box scenario just may make it a more lucrative opportunity for many sellers.

walmart vs. amazon apparel sales overall

Are you considering selling on the Walmart Marketplace? Not sure if you should dive in just yet? Let’s look at the platform in depth.

Why Sell on the Walmart Marketplace?

The biggest reason to sell on the Walmart Marketplace is the lack of competition.

While Amazon claims a shocking 2 million third-party sellers and growing, Walmart’s platform only has about 1,000. This alone makes standing out (and winning those sales) easier.

Benefits of selling on the Walmart Marketplace:

It has a smaller product selection – Don’t get me wrong; Walmart sells a lot of products. The site has over 10 million unique SKUs and counting, but compared to Amazon’s near 300 million? It’s a mere blip on the radar. Walmart’s Marketplace has tons of room to grow in terms of product inventory, meaning there’s plenty of opportunity for hungry sellers.

Fulfillment services are available – Much like Amazon, Walmart also offers a fulfillment option for its third-party sellers. The retailer leverages its various stores, distribution centers, fulfillment centers and transportation partners across the globe to ship online orders on behalf of its sellers. The downside? It’s not two-day free Prime shipping, like Amazon offers, and may not be as appealing to customers.

Securing the buy box is easy – Unlike Amazon, which weighs seller performance, price, sales volume, defect rate and more to choose who wins its buy boxes, Walmart’s formula is simple. The lowest price gets the spot. Want to move inventory fast? Lower your price and claim the buy box. It’s that easy.

walmart marketplace home page

As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to getting on the Walmart Marketplace – but compared to Amazon’s ecommerce operations, they’re still lagging.

“Walmart already has a massive retail scale in terms of distribution and brick and mortar ownership, but they’re behind Amazon on ecommerce,” says Nii Ahene, COO of CPC Strategy.

nii ahene coo and co founder cpc strategyBLOG POST: “Walmart vs. Amazon: The Race for Ecommerce Apparel Sales

It’s important to note though, Walmart is invite-only. You’ll need to apply to be considered, and only a small portion of applicants can expect an invite. They tend to focus on sellers with already proven ecommerce sales and a strong presence online or in other marketplaces (like eBay or Amazon.)

amazon vs walmart apparel

Other big differences between the two platforms? Walmart’s selling fees are lower and it doesn’t have restrictions on categories or product types.

Still, because it’s newer than Amazon, many common seller tools and apps don’t integrate with Walmart just yet. This is likely to change as the platform expands.

How to Sell on the Walmart Marketplace

If you decide selling on the Walmart Marketplace is the route to go, your first step is to fill out the Marketplace Application, which takes about 15 minutes to complete. You’ll need to provide basic information about yourself, your business and the products you sell, and send it all off to Walmart’s team to evaluate.

If you’re accepted, you’ll receive an invite via email with the subject “Your account has been created in Walmart Marketplace.”

Inside, you’ll find a link to create your profile and fill out your registration. Go through each step and provide your address, bank information and other requested details.

walmart-marketplace-store
Credit: Walmart Facebook Page

You’ll then be able to log into your Seller Center. When doing so for the first time, you’ll see an onboarding checklist. Walk through these steps and mark each one as complete when it’s finished. Eventually, your “profile readiness for launch” bar will hit 100 percent.

Next, verify your bank account, upload a product and launch your account. The Walmart Marketplace team will review everything from there, and if all looks good, your products will go live within the next 24 hours.

Selling on Walmart Marketplace: Quick Tips

As you go about selling on the Walmart Marketplace, keep in mind your clientele may be different than other platforms you’re used to. Consumers typically visit Walmart.com looking for the lowest possible price, so reserve this marketplace for the products you can go low on.

Not only will this help you win the buy box, but it may mean faster sales, too.

Also, remember that Walmart’s product selection is less varied than other retailers, so use this to your advantage. Have something you can’t get off the shelf? Become the one and only Walmart seller to offer it.

For more information on the Walmart Marketplace, email [email protected].

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