Walmart Operation Guidelines and Notes [2019]

In addition to Amazon, Walmart is also an e-commerce sales platform.

Since Marc Lore took over as CEO of Walmart, Walmart has successfully transformed into a comprehensive platform with all categories, and almost all products can be found on the Walmart platform.

After Walmart opened its third-party platform, sellers can sell products in more than 35 categories on the website.

In addition, Walmart has also undergone the following changes:

• The webpage has been redesigned to be more user-friendly;

• Free shipping for every order over $35, which encourages consumers to buy more goods and thus increase AOV;

• Provide online purchase and offline pickup service to save budget.

But why are there these changes? It has to do with millennial buying behavior.

Millennials are the driving force behind change for traditional brands

Millennials total 83.1 million people, making up a quarter of the U.S. population. 88% of millennials live in cities.

More than 40% of them are parents, so they tend to spend more on daily necessities.

60% of millennials prefer buying generic brands over name brands.

At the end of 2018, Walmart surpassed Apple to become the third largest online retailer in the United States, with total revenue of US$128.03 billion.

As Amazon's arch-rival, Walmart does not seem to have directly copied Amazon's successful model and encouraged the development of its own brands, but instead developed value-added services for its third-party sellers.

Walmart's platform mechanism has gradually matured. Now is the right time for users who want to try Walmart's platform. Next, let's take a look at how to operate the Walmart platform and what to pay attention to.

Pros and Cons of Opening a Store on Walmart

Advantages of Selling on Walmart

Different platforms have different charging methods, such as Sears and Amazon charging a monthly fee, or Etsy charging a listing fee per item, or some platforms charging a combination of fees.

The only thing Walmart charges is the sales commission for each category.

61% of marketers said that attracting relevant traffic is still the biggest challenge. If you open a store on Walmart, you will have an audience base of more than 440 million, which is difficult to achieve on other platforms.

Although Walmart's platform is growing rapidly, it is not as good as Amazon's more than 2 million sellers. However, because Walmart has fewer sellers, its platform has less competition, and it is much easier to gain a place in the market than on Amazon or Ebay.

When you open a store on Walmart, you can not only list your products on Walmart, but also on its affiliate websites. For example:

• Jet.com

• Shoes.com

• Moosejaw.com

USPS and comScore jointly found that 97% of customers browse products on shopping websites before making a final decision to buy. First-time buyers prefer to buy on well-known websites such as Walmart rather than new websites.

25% of US customers abandon their shopping carts because the platform doesn’t support their preferred payment method.

Walmart ensures that consumers can pay smoothly. The platform supports all preferred payment methods such as credit cards, gift cards, Paypal, Visa checkout, cash, Chase Pay, Amex Pay, etc.

Walmart not only provides convenience to consumers, but also to sellers. They cooperate with Payoneer to settle accounts with merchants once a week.

Walmart has optimized its mobile site to make shopping more convenient for consumers, and potential customers can search for sellers' products from their mobile phones or tablets.

In addition to the above advantages, some sellers said that their website traffic has also increased significantly because their products appear under the Walmart brand.

Disadvantages of selling on Walmart

Walmart is always committed to helping customers save money.

If there are several sellers competing for similar products, the category commission will go up, and your profits will decrease.

When opening a store on the Walmart platform, sellers need to provide after-sales service, delivery, handle customer complaints, and provide returns and exchanges, etc.

Walmart does not allow sellers to use FBA dropshipping.

In addition, sellers are prohibited from using branded wrapping paper when packaging products, and are not allowed to include any brand-related promotional products in the packaging.

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Potential Listing Issues

When multiple sellers sell the same product at the same price, Walmart will automatically recommend the listing that was published first.

For example, as shown in the figure below, Nike Air Huarache men’s black/white shoes, assuming that JMS published this product first, it would be ranked higher, while other sellers published it later, ranking lower, and the product would have lower exposure.

At this point, the only way to beat the first seller is to lower your product price.

As mentioned earlier, Walmart is committed to saving consumers money, and it wants your products to be listed at the best prices on its platform.

If it finds that the seller is selling the same product at a lower price elsewhere, it will remove your product listing.

Walmart platform store opening threshold

Walmart is an invitation-based platform. First, you need to understand how to apply to open a store on the Walmart platform.

Now, even non-US sellers can apply to sell on Walmart, largely depending on the following three factors:

Sellers must have a US business account and a US shipping address.

Sellers outside the United States need to have a DUNS number, which is a unique 9-digit global code that is equivalent to a company's identification code. For more details about the DUNS number, please click:

https://www.dnb.co.uk/duns-number.html

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Category requirements

You can select products from niche markets to meet the needs of niche consumers; or any category provided by the Walmart platform.

Businesses conducted on other platforms need to have good ratings and be trustworthy to consumers.

Walmart store registration process

Submit your application online at Walmart’s official platform website: https://marketplace.walmart.com . It is recommended to use Google Chrome browser to open it.

Next, follow the five steps shown in the figure and fill in the form step by step:

To help sellers fill in the form, Walmart also provides an official tutorial. You can see the guide by pulling down the homepage:

After the application is approved, the official will send you an email to inform you that your account application has been approved. You can click the address in the email to enter the seller center. The email is as shown below:

The sooner you upload your products, the faster you can get traffic and improve your conversion rate. To speed up product uploads, you need to :

Filling out the partner profile consists of two parts: registration information and seller information , the purpose of which is to make consumers familiar with the seller's business.

The content includes:

• Company information;

• Customer service;

• Logistics and transportation;

• return policy;

• Privacy Policy;

• Tax information.

Transfer $0.01 from Walmart to the seller's trading account, with the note "WM Marketplace Penny Test" so that the seller can verify whether the account can trade normally. After confirming the payment, click Mark as Done in Launch Checklist.

Note: Small amounts usually take 1-2 business days to arrive, sometimes 4 days. If the seller has not seen the transfer message after 4 days, please go back and check whether the account information, business name, etc. are entered correctly.

Enter product information, such as image, title, description, attributes, etc. The specific steps are as follows:

• Set product categories and subcategories accurately;

• Prepare product image files or image addresses;

• Prepare product source file feed containing all product details;

• Upload product source file feed;

• Preview products on the Walmart website frontend and complete product and order testing

When the seller uploads the product to the backend, it will automatically enter the cached state. Before the product is officially sold on the website, the seller must first test the product and order. The seller can choose to preview the product in the backend and check the product information and pricing. The status of the account being activated is shown in the figure below:

Steps to perform order testing:

First change the product inventory status to 1.

After updating the inventory, click Publish Item

After clicking to publish the product, create a Walmart buyer account

After publishing the product, purchase the product using your buyer account by clicking "Purchase Item".

Note : Avoid adding more than 3 orders to the shopping cart using the same account within one hour. Walmart's anti-fraud system will determine it as an invalid order and cancel it.

In addition, sellers must conduct order cancellation tests, order delivery tests, and order refund tests.

When all items in the Launch Checklist are marked as completed, a pop-up message will appear on the page asking the seller whether to activate the account. After selecting "confirm", Walmart customer service will begin to verify the seller's personal information. If nothing goes wrong, your product will be online within 24 hours.

Expert advice : Choose products that rank in the top 10% of their category.

Create a quality product listing

A great product listing can convert casual web browsers into buyers.

There are two main ways to make your product listing stand out:

• Optimize product titles, descriptions, images, and set appropriate prices . Also, remember to update your product listings regularly.

• Place ads on Walmart to increase product awareness.

The following is a standard product listing template:

Get the product attributes wrong and your product may end up in the wrong place.

Product attributes help define the product category. Only by classifying the product into the right category can you display the product to the right audience.

Note that a high-quality product title should include: brand name, applicable population and materials, etc.

• Product images should be clear, well-lit, with a white background and the product centered.

• It is prohibited to upload accessories that are not related to the product.

• It is prohibited to upload pornographic and obscene product pictures.

• Product images are not allowed to contain watermarks, logos, graphics, illustrations or text.

In addition to attracting millennial consumers, joining Walmart's free two-day delivery program can also attract consumers who procrastinate until the last minute to place orders during the holidays and those who have sudden needs.

Walmart uses the Buy Box advantage to encourage sellers selling the same products to compete.

• After winning the Buy Box, your product will become the consumer’s first choice.

• After winning the Buy Box, your product listing can greatly improve your conversion rate.

Among the same products, only the product with the lowest price has the chance to win the Buy Box, including the delivery fee.

Walmart also offers advertising for sellers, with a variety of options:

Basically, they are all CPC ads, but the advertising goals are different, including increasing brand awareness, gaining product exposure, reaching potential customers, increasing search volume, and improving return on investment.

These are all performance CPC ads , which are ads that can evaluate the cost and effect of acquiring traffic, and only when customers click on the target page will the fee be incurred. These ads generally appear in different locations, including native ad banners, pop-up ads, and search bar ads .

This type of advertising is generally used for brand promotion, etc.

This type of advertising is generally used for brand promotion, etc.

This type of advertising is generally used to increase conversion rates.

Reasons why Walmart account was frozen

The Walmart platform provides sellers with various conveniences and advantages for opening stores, but it also has formulated policies and regulations. If sellers violate the platform regulations, their accounts may be frozen at the very least, and their stores may be closed at the worst.

The following are some possible reasons why your account may be frozen:

• Poor seller performance indicators

• Violation of the platform sales agreement

• Violation of Seller Code of Conduct

• Violation of trust and safety guidelines

Walmart refers to sellers’ performance indicators to measure store opening standards, and if the performance indicators are poor, the store may be closed.

Among them, the ODR indicator (order defect rate), that is, the percentage of all orders with defects within a 90-day period to the total number of orders, is the main reference standard for store closures.

The order defect rate is calculated by examining the number of customer order cancellations, number of returns, logistics services, and customer complaints.

Notice:

Multiple defects in one order are considered as one defect. If the ODR index is between 2%-6%, your store will be at risk of being blocked, so you must do your best to solve the problem. Once the ODR index is higher than 6%, your store will be blocked.

Walmart sellers must sign an agreement before opening a store and comply with the rules and policies of the Walmart platform. Violating any of these policies may result in the account being frozen. The main provisions are:

• Sellers should follow local laws;

• The products offered can only be sold in the continental United States;

• Sellers should have the legal right to sell products;

• The sale of counterfeit and inferior products is prohibited;

• The sale of prohibited items is prohibited;

• Selling restricted products is prohibited without Walmart's permission.

To learn more about Walmart platform policies and regulations, click https://marketplace-apply.walmart.com/resource/1454541787000/SellerAgreementDoc

Walmart sellers are required to maintain a code of selling conduct, on-time shipping, timely arrival, and excellent customer service.

Among them, Walmart refers to the following indicators of seller behavior :

• Logistics information tracking accuracy > 95%;

• Top Sellers ship within 5 business days;

• On-time delivery rate > 99%.

Seller accounts may also be terminated/suspended if the Walmart platform's Credit and Security Agreement is not followed.

In addition to suspending seller accounts, Walmart reserves the right to remove listings that violate its guidelines.

Currently, the platform has two rules for seller pricing:

parity:

If a customer is found to purchase the same product from the same seller at a lower price (including shipping costs) on other platforms or websites, this rule will automatically take effect and the product will be automatically removed from the shelves.

Unreasonable price:

If a customer is found to be purchasing the same product from the same seller at a very low price (including shipping costs) on other platforms or websites, this rule will automatically take effect and the product will be automatically removed from the shelves.

Given that Walmart’s business philosophy is to attract consumers with low prices, sellers must pay close attention to product prices on the Walmart platform when selling, and should not set prices higher than those on other platforms.

Therefore, sellers need to pay attention to all these factors to continue selling on Walmart Marketplace.

However, there are other factors that may prevent a product from being listed on the website.

If you have followed all policies and regulations, and your pricing is perfect, but you still can’t sell your products on Walmart, it could be because your product information is missing or incorrectly filled out.

• Titles or product names contain: ™, ½, @, ^, *, and shapes;

• Or marketing words like New, Original, Authentic, 100% cashback, etc.

Walmart Canada is blessed with unique advantages

Did you know that US sellers can list products on Walmart Canada?

Walmart Canada is one of the top ten most influential platforms in Canada, making it very advantageous for sellers to sell on the Canadian site.

US third-party sellers can also list their products on the Canadian site , but the prerequisite is that the seller must pass the Customs Self-Assessment (CSA) and obtain customs clearance approval in advance.

Sellers who want to list products on Walmart Canada must meet the following conditions to apply for CSA:

• Must have a positive import record for at least 90 days prior to application;

• be a resident of Canada or the United States;

• No history of smuggling or major commercial violations;

• Be prepared to invest in business systems;

• Empower senior management to review records, commercial business processes, customs interfaces and internal control consoles.

Customers can return items at more than 400 local Walmart stores in Canada, or return them directly to the seller.

Request sellers to provide:

• Return Address

• Contact Details

• Agree to return

• Preferred courier

• Customs Broker (only required for cross-border trade)

• Return Authorization Number

Required product information must include:

• Country of origin

• HS Code

• Prohibited Items Warning

In addition, Walmart covers consumer payment processing fees and fraud verification fees.

Walmart MasterCard members will receive a 1.25% bonus on purchases made on the site.

Sellers who want to list products on the Canadian site should pay attention to the following when targeting their audience:

• 56% of consumers are new fathers or mothers who want to buy some items for their homes.

• Lately, the fastest-growing customer segment has been recent graduates and Canadians about to get married.

The survey shows that households with higher average incomes are more familiar with Walmart's website. Walmart's e-commerce platform is gradually entering the high-income population, and sellers have the opportunity to develop a blue ocean market in Canada through the Walmart platform.