Master the Walmart Marketplace

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Master the Walmart Marketplace

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TABLE OF CONTENTS1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Introduction 3

5

7

11

14

17

19

Getting Started

Know the Rules

The Differentiator

Walmart Marketplace Integrations

Best Practices

Conclusion

The Walmart Marketplace is quickly establishing itself as the hottestnew platform for online sellers to make big money.

It’s not hard to see why. Building a solid brand reputation online can take years, but when you hitch your wagon to Walmart.com, you get theadvantage of Walmart’s brand recognition to help drive sales.

In addition, Walmart offers simple onboarding, helpful seller support,and facilitates relationship management. Up to 100 million* visitors per month

who shop on Walmart.com

Monthly active users of theWalmart mobile app

Items offered on Walmart.com

Why You Should Expand to the Walmart Marketplace

INTRODUCTION

BY THE NUMBERS

100 million

26 million

67 millionNow is the time to join the Walmart Marketplaceand claim your piece of the pie.

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*Source: comScore, Inc.; 2017

*

Why put all your eggs in one basket by selling on only one platform? You’ll always be one rule change or fee increase away from having your business majorly impacted.

You need to put your products where the customers are to scale your business in a meaningful way. That means listingon several major marketplaces, your own website, andniche-specific marketplaces.

More traffic = more opportunities for customers. Adding additional selling platforms is essential to significantly increasing sales and scaling your business.

Diversify your brand.

Expand your reach.

Increase your profits.

MULTICHANNEL IS THEMOST PROFITABLE WAY TO SELL

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The application process for the Walmart Marketplace is intended to ensure that the quality of the marketplace is maintained. This creates a better atmosphere for everyone involved. But don’t despair! Getting approved for the Walmart Marketplace is easier than some sellers might think. Here’s how to do it.

A three-step process to access millions of monthly shoppers? Sounds good to me.The entire process from applying, verifying, and onboarding generally takes just 3-6 weeks.

How to Get Approved to Sell on Walmart.com

GETTING STARTED

AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE WALMART MARKETPLACE APPLICATION PROCESS

Fill out your applicationto the Walmart Marketplace here

1.

Walmart will ask about your revenue, your ecommerce experience, your operations, and other info. This ensures a high-quality marketplace that users can trust. More salesfor everyone!

Setup Support2. There is a Walmart team of onboarding specialists who are available to answer questions and assist during the application process. Additional support is offered through the Seller Center Messaging System.

Begin onboarding3. Onboarding on the Walmart Marketplace is 99% self-service. Sellers spend an average of six days setting up their products.

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WHAT TYPE OF SELLER IS WALMARTLOOKING FOR?

RETAILERS HOPING TO SELL ON WALMART.COM SHOULD AIM FOR:

WHAT MAKES A PERFECTWALMART MARKETPLACE CANDIDATE?

“We are looking for relationships with reputable retailers and brands that provide first-class customer service, a compelling product assortment, competitive pricing and fast, reliable fulfillment.”

Walmart Marketplace FAQ

Competitive prices Fast shipping

Diverse, unique productsLow defect rates

High seller feedback

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Regulation & Restrictions on the Walmart Marketplace

KNOW THE RULES

We’ve talked about the high standard Walmart sets for its third-party sellers, but let’s get specific. We’ll take an in-depth look at Walmart Marketplace’s policies, regulations, and restrictions.

Product NameProduct ID Type (The Walmart Marketplace accepts UPC, GTIN, ISBN, ISSN, & EAN)Product IDSKUBrand

REQUIREMENTS FOR LISTING ON WALMART MARKETPLACE

1. Fill out your product attributes. Required attributes include:

Long description (up to 4000 characters)Short description (up to 1000 characters) Shelf description (this appears in the search box, buy box, and category listing page)

2. Fill out your item descriptions

PRO-TIP: Keep all yourSKUs uniform across your channels for faster expansion of your business.

PRO-TIP: Research relevant keywords and use them in both your descriptions.

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Main image URL (must end in .jpg, .png or .gif)

Currency

The Walmart Marketplace offers 5 shipping methods to Sellers: Value, Standard, Expedited, Next Day, and Freight

Alt text for the main image. This appears if, for some reason, your image can’t load.

Amount

Sellers must support a minimum of 1 shipping methodFor more information, see Walmart Shipping Standards

Shelf description (this appears in search box, buy box, and category listing page)Additional image URLsAdditional images alt text

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Add your images and image-related attributes

Tax attributes

Price details

Shipping details

Variation attributes

Compliance attributes

Category-specific attributes

PRO-TIP: Use your SEO keywords in the alt text andfile names.

PRO-TIP: The Walmart Marketplace is only availableto U.S. based sellers atthe moment.

PRO-TIP: Price as lowas possible on the WalmartMarketplace! Competitivepricing is a major initiativefor Walmart.

8

For help identifying the Product Tax Code, see Current Tax Codes For The Walmart MarketplaceFor information on Shipping Sales Tax Codes, see Shipping Sales Tax Codes

To learn how to set up a variant group, see here

These attributes specify important details relating to legal requirements, warranties and warnings

These attributes specify more information about your item to help customers identify the product best suited to their needs

WHAT CAN’T YOU SELL ONTHE WALMART MARKETPLACE?

Walmart prohibits certain items from being sold on their store. It’s pretty standard fare for marketplaces. Highlights include: no live animals, no products lacking required FDA compliance, no drug paraphernalia,no items that are obscene or offensive, no digital goods, and all weapons are banned.

Find a full list of prohibited items here.*All digital products, including, but not limited to, currency, eBooks, games, movies, songs.

Alcohol Digital Products*Drugs & MedicalProducts

Tobacco

AnimalsHazardous Items Weapons Artifacts

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WHAT WARRANTS PUNISHMENTON THE WALMART MARKETPLACE?

WALMART RESERVES THE RIGHT TO UNPUBLISH ONE OR ALLOF YOUR LISTINGS FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:

PRO-TIP: Use an automated inventory management system to ensure your stock is always accurate.

Backorders and oversells ruin customer experience. Low Inventory Levels

Walmart’s prohibited item list is ironclad!Restricted Product

The customer’s experience is extremely importantto the Walmart Marketplace. If a seller receivesconsistent negative feedback and low seller ratings, Walmart reserves the right to unpublish their listing(s).

Low Seller Ratings

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Walmart is dedicated to helping their customers save money so they can live better. With that in mind, they’ve established rules that identify and remove items with highly uncompetitive prices. They will unpublish itemsif a customer would save by purchasing the same item on a competing website, regardless of the seller. These pricing rules include cost of shipping.

Highly Uncompetitive Prices

What Makes the Walmart Marketplace Special?

THE DIFFERENTIATOR

Walmart has done a great job so far at differentiating themselves from other marketplaces. Traditionally, most marketplaces are either customer-centered or seller-centered. The more focus placed on customer experience,the more difficult things become for sellers, and vice versa.

The Walmart Marketplace has found a way to strike a satisfying balance between these ideas, making it a greatplatform to sell and to buy. Here are two major aspects of that balance sellers will find particularly attractive.

The Walmart Marketplace wants products to be competitively priced. To help you pull this off, they’ve eliminated many entry costs. Additionally, they don’t charge setup fees, annual fees, or listing fees. Sellers are charged a referral fee based on the category only when an item sells. Check out the commission rates here.

Walmart keeps the customer experience stellarby allowing sellers to pause and resume sellingwith no cost. They’d rather a seller take a breakthan continue selling through difficulties with backorders or overselling. Removing any financial penalty to pausing your store protects both shoppers and sellers. Please note that if an account remains inactive for an extended period of time, Walmart reserves the right to suspend the account.

Fee Structure Helps You Price Lower Pause and Start at Your Convenience

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THE WALMART MARKETPLACESELLER PORTAL

The front of the Walmart Marketplace seller portal will show the status of your items. It’s a simple, modern screen that cuts down on the amount of clicks you need to do within the portal.

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The Walmart Marketplace provides some essential analytics within the seller portal. Daily performance, key performers, your conversion funnel, and payment history are all included.

PRO-TIP: Use Google Analytics in conjunction with Walmart Marketplace to ensure your data is on point.

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Third-Party Apps and Tools

WALMART MARKETPLACE INTEGRATIONS

Many popular ecommerce software platforms have created built-in apps and extensions to help you expand tothe Walmart Marketplace. They can also manage day-to-day ecommerce operations to make selling on the platforma breeze. Here’s an overview of what third-party Walmart Marketplace apps can do.

Inventory Management Inventory management software handles everything dealing with keeping your inventory accurate across your sales channels. This is especially important on Walmart since backorders and overselling can get your listings unpublished.

ShippingShipping software systems dramatically speedup fulfillment. Faster shipping = more sales!These software systems will connect to the Walmart Marketplace and automatically pull order information to create and print shipping labels, return labels, pick lists, and SCAN forms.

Product Sourcing and DropshippingProduct sourcing software makes listing and dropshipping easier than ever. Use these services to find products related to your own to help bolster your deals. They allow you to browse products from thousands of suppliers, and in some cases, automatically push those products to your channel.

Customer SupportCustomer support software systems that can connect to your seller platforms are invaluable for keeping your feedback rating high. These platforms will place all your customer inquiries in one place, allowing you to respond faster, have a more streamlined view of your inquiries, and better gather data on your customer support tickets.

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Choose ecomdash for your Walmart Marketplace inventory management.The system scans your storefronts every few minutes looking for sales, and adjusts inventory levels automatically across your connected sales channels. Ecomdash can automatically route orders to suppliers for fulfilment, alert you to low inventory, and even allow you to create a purchase order from your dashboard.

Worried about managing an entirely new channel? Ecomdash removesthe hassle. The proof is in the numbers.

Want to give it a shot?

Month over month growth for Walmart Marketplace sellers who use ecomdash

of Walmart Marketplace sellerswho use ecomdash have experienced increasing profits

441%

81%

BY THE NUMBERS

CONSOLIDATE YOUR WALMART MARKETPLACETOOLS IN ONE SYSTEM WITH ECOMDASH

SOFTWARE HIGHLIGHT

Automate your inventory now

16

“I started selling on the Walmart marketplace in late 2016 and have seen exceptional growth. I integrated to Walmart through ecomdash, who I’ve been using for a few years now to manage my inventory & sales orders across all of my online channels.

Jonathan Magasanik,Partner at ES Distribution, LLC

I’m definitely looking forward to continued growth on Walmart – they’re attracting a ton of traffic to their online marketplace. AndI’d highly recommend ecomdash to anymulti-channel seller.”

How to Maximize Profits on the Walmart Marketplace

BEST PRACTICES

The best practices of selling on the Walmart Marketplace are similar to some things you may already do on other marketplaces. However, expectations are high for Walmart.com sellers, and you’ll need to knock it out of the park. Here’s how.

Competitive Pricing Compelling ContentCustomer Service1. 2. 3. We can’t say this enough. Walmart, as a brand, prides itself on low prices, and its online marketplace will be no different. In order to be successful on Walmart.com, you should consistently be able to price lower than just about anywhere else on the internet. Try Appeagle, a Preferred Walmart Partner, to automate repricing and help you win the Walmart Buy Box.

Content marketing is king right now. Walmart.com shoppers will depend on your descriptions to convince them they’re making the right purchase, while search engines like Google and Bing rely on content to understand how to rank your products in search results. Use popular keywords and evocative language to get the most out of your Walmart.com listings.

Product defects? Backorders? Oversells? The Walmart Marketplace expects you to encounter these issues on a minimal basis, and to resolve them as quickly as possible. Use an inventory management software system to make sure your Walmart Marketplace inventory is rock solid and keeps your customers happy.

ADOPT THE THREE C’S OF WALMART MARKETPLACE SUCCESS!

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USING THE WALMARTMARKETPLACE KNOWLEDGE BASEIt’s impossible to become a Walmart Marketplace expert right out of the gate. You need time, preparation,and research to achieve success and growth on the platform.

In the meantime, we highly recommend you take advantage of the Walmart Marketplace Knowledge Base. It’s full of instructions, tips, and screenshots related to anything and everything dealing with the Walmart Marketplace.

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Your Guide to the Walmart Marketplace

CONCLUSION

There you have it: your guide to the Walmart Marketplace. We recommend it as a lucrative new platform for you to expand your business.

Start your Walmart Marketplace application today

If you’re looking for an easy way to expand to the Walmart Marketplace, or manage your business there, considergiving ecomdash a try. Ecomdash is software for inventory management. We automate order management to dramatically reduce costly errors in your fulfillment process. Consolidating all your favorite ecommerce tools in one place makes your business easier to expand, simpler to run, and more profitable.

Copyright © 2017 Ecomdash. All rights reserved.19

Copyright © 2017 Ecomdash. All rights reserved.

DISCLAIMER: This eBook was created and published by ecomdash. Walmart did not co-author or contribute to this content.