Why Sell on Walmart Marketplace?
Infinity Blue Marketplaces is excited to have officially partnered with Walmart Marketplace. This provides an exciting opportunity to expand and accelerate our client’s points of sale. If you are keen to get started or find out more, simply reach out to your account specialist and we’ll guide you through the step-by-step process, or click here to get in touch.
To delve into Walmart Marketplace, we spoke to Charles Kochel, our North American MD to get a gauge on the opportunity.
Charles, could you give a brief overview of Walmart and why should brands consider selling on the Walmart marketplace?
For those outside of the US, Walmart is a household, high street and online name in the US so it is a huge opportunity for sales and brand visibility. Walmart Marketplace is one of the fastest-growing ecommerce platforms in the US providing you with the opportunity to reach c.120 million unique Walmart.com visitors each month and to get access to innovative solutions that simplify the selling experience and help deliver growth at scale.
As a Marketplace seller, you will have control over your business including inventory, retail pricing, fulfilment and customer care. This is an opportunity to create incremental value for your brand and place your products with the largest and one of the most trusted retailers in the world.
Walmart is looking to create new relationships with reputable retailers and brands that provide first-class customer service, a compelling product assortment, competitive pricing and fast, reliable fulfilment. This fits with our brand growth ethos at Infinity Blue so we have officially partnered with them to ensure brands and retailers can add Walmart as a large part of their sales platform portfolio that is productively managed.
What are the best performing categories on Walmart and are there any that have large growth potential or in the US as a whole?
I think both the platform and US in general can be covered in one. Walmart is a full multi- category site, so the ideal assortment is premium products, premium brands and items not currently selling on Walmart.com. Usually listing bestselling items is an excellent starting point, and being competitively priced. If brands get in touch with us, we can research potential for them and their products to develop a strategy to take advantage of the Walmart audience.
What are the commercial arrangements for brands with the marketplace?
Walmart has a very competitive referral fees (commissions) that vary by category. There are no setup, subscription, or monthly fees. Walmart simply deducts the fee once a sale occurs on their site. Walmart Fulfilment fees and Walmart Connect cost-per-click advertising fees will apply if you select to leverage these solutions.
What about inventory requirements?
There are currently no inventory requirements or minimum sku numbers required. Walmart recommends that you set up at least 50 items with continual inventory replenishment to see the full value and GMV growth they hope to build with you. It may also be worth
checking that your catalogue complies with Walmart’s Prohibited Products Policy. At IBG we manage brand stock carefully to ensure that customer demand is always met.
You mentioned Walmart Connect cost-per-click advertising fees before, could you let us know a little more about that?
Sure. Perhaps first I need to emphasise the need for high-quality item page content to accelerate revenue. This is our first step working in close partnership with brands when setting up on Walmart.
Sponsored Search can help you increase visibility and sales of your products by displaying ads when customers are looking for products like yours. There are no monthly fees; you only pay when customers click your ad, which takes them to the product detail page where your offer is listed. We have experience and expertise with this on Walmart and this is something that Infinity Blue supports to drive sales with an eye on margins at the same time.
There are two types of sponsored placements:
You can be a Sponsored Brand – this gives Premium Placement which puts your brand and products to the top of relevant search results.
And you can use Sponsored Products with three options:
Search In-grid: this showcases your products on the first page of relevant search results.
Product Carousel: This highlights your product within relevant search results and on the item pages of similar products.
Buy Box: allows you to capture Walmart customers as they make their final purchase decision.
We use our expertise at IBG to optimise this for brands, their product types, what the competition is doing and so on.
Another you mentioned was Walmart Fulfilment….
As it sounds, WFS is a marketplace managed fulfilment service. It is second to none and allows sellers to store their inventory at Walmart fulfilment centres. When a customer places an order on Walmart.com, they pick, pack, and ship the item(s) to the customer on your behalf. Walmart ships in standard Walmart packaging and only fulfils items sold on Walmart.com. An added selling benefit is the brands using this will have items displayed with 2-Day Shipping and Fulfilled by Walmart tags which increases product visibility, thus helping conversion.
WFS also handles all customer support and returns for these orders with their Free & Easy Returns program. This allows brands to spend more time focusing on increasing sales, while having confidence that orders will be delivered quickly and with outstanding customer support. It is a great solution in-country and for those companies selling from abroad.
What requirements are there for selling on Walmart marketplace?
It is quite straightforward. For those brands from overseas, Tax ID and stock in-country may be new and Infinity Blue can support with cost-effective solutions and management of this. As a basic outline:
Business Tax ID(s) (SSN not accepted) or Business License Number
Supporting documents that verify your Business Name and Address
History of marketplace or eCommerce success
Products that have GTIN/UPC GS1 Company Prefix Numbers
Fulfillment through Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) or another B2C US warehouse with returns capability
Is there anything else that brands ought to know?
The best thing is to get in touch with us to discuss the platform and our recommendations for them.
The partnership between Infinity Blue Marketplaces and Walmart Marketplace is in place to allow brands to generate revenue with little to no worry about creating a team to implement the process. Infinity Blue can take care of it all by offering an end-to-end solution and exertise for all Walmart Marketplace management.
