How To Sell On Walmart

by Brandon | Last Updated: September 24, 2021

Overview

Figuring out how to sell on Walmart in 2021 is not hard at all. Not like it once was anyway.

You see, Walmart Seller Marketplace started in just 2016 as a “beta” program.

I signed up back then and it took nearly a year to be approved.

Turns out it was well worth it, I made a lot of money on Walmart before selling my business.

But, my non compete has expired and now I want to show you how to sell on Walmart because it is a great source of income.

I will say that you’re going to want to have experience under your belt selling somewhere else before you attempt to sign up here.

Selling on Amazon is more friendly for beginners. If you’d like to learn more, learn more here.

Walmart Marketplace Application

The first step to becoming a Walmart seller is to apply to sell on Walmart. You can start that process by clicking here.

It’s probably a little hard to read but you need to have a few things handy before continuing on:

• US Business Tax ID (IE your FEIN number, they will not accept your SSN)
• W9 or W8 and FEIN paper from Uncle Sam
• Address or place of physical operations (I used my UPS box with no issues.)
• Planned integration method for getting your products on their site (just choose Bulk Upload unless you know you’re going to use something different)
• Primary product categories, catalog size (total SKUs you want to sell.)

Don’t overthink any of this. You should have all of this. If not, I’m guessing you’re lacking the first or second.

If you’re missing an FEIN number and don’t have a business setup yet, I wrote an article on creating a business name using AI that will help you out.

If you already registered your business but don’t yet have an FEIN, just go here to register with IRS.gov.

As for a W9, Walmart will give you one to download and fill out during the application. Basically it is a withholding form that you put your business name on with your FEIN and sign it.

Moving on:

The above is all standard affair information, should be self explanatory.

Next up:

What should you put for Average Online Revenue?

I’m really not sure if they look at this or not but I’d put something like $150,000.

Catalog Size – This is how many SKUs they’re going to expect you to put on their site. I don’t think they strictly enforce it, but put whatever you’re comfortable with…50, 100, 500, etc.

You’ll see down at the bottom they do want a link to other places you’re selling, such as your Amazon store. I believe they do check this. One store is enough.

On to page 4 (this literally could have just been a one page application Walmart!):

Here you have to select your current shipping methods, such as UPS, Fedex, USPS, DHL, FBA or Other.

And then write a little blurb about why you would be a good fit for Walmart Marketplace.

I’d write something along the lines of:

“As a seasoned e-commerce seller I/we’d like to leverage my/our years of experience to integrate our catalog of products with the Walmart.com store interface. I/we look forward to helping Walmart customers find great products for great prices.”

Something like that, they love to see stuff like that…just don’t copypasta it, ok? Change it up a little.

You get the idea though.

And FINALLY:

YO!

We made it to the end, that wasn’t so bad, was it?

After you hopefully get approved, you’ll have to go through the onboarding process. Luckily account approval should not take that long and the process is no where near as cumbersome as getting started on Amazon.

Walmart Seller Central

Yes, it is really called that.

Login To Walmart Seller Central here.

Once you are logged into Walmart Seller Central you will have to setup your account.

A lot of this is boiler plate stuff. Setting up your addresses, setting up a payment account (I’d suggest going with Payoneer when the option comes up) and some tax info.

Then you need to actually add an item before you can complete the setup process and go live.

Adding an item is, unfortunately, not as simple as it is on Amazon. If you’ve gotten used to just being able to search for an item, add it, enter your price and quantity and be on your way…well that’s going to change.

Start here:

You now have to enter either a UPC code, GTIN code or ISBN number (if the product already exists on Walmart.com)

Note: If nothing populates, you either have the wrong UPC code and/or the product does not exist for sale on Walmart.com

You will want to make sure you click the Offer tab and fill out a few things.

You’ll want to change the price, add a shipping weight (just guess on this if nothing else) and change the Site End Date – if you don’t change this, your item will barely be active on the site. Set it way far out…years out.

After you’re done here, go ahead and hit submit at the bottom.

Now…where did it go?

Well, there will be a bit of a delay.

Hopefully soon it will show up when you click Manage Items over on the left panel.

If not, click on Feed Status and see if it is listed in there.

If you see the Items from the “feed” as they call it, marked with a number under the Processed heading that means it was successful.

Now, if it’s under Pending, that could be ok, just check back later.

If you see the column under Errors populated then that is bad. To the right you’ll see Download Errors that you can click. An CSV (you can open in Excel) file will download and you can see what the errors were.

Walmart says it could take up to 4 hours for your items to show in Manage Inventory. Yes, you read that correctly.

For me, it was much longer than 4 hours. I even started a support chat.

For what it’s worth, I did get an American English speaking support rep so that was refreshing to see.

Anyway…they basically told me to wait longer lol.

So I just moved on to something else and came back the next day.

Before you can sell on Walmart you need a product to be in Published status before you can unlock the Ready To Launch button which is what I was waiting for.

You may see the item on your Manage Inventory screen, but maybe it says In Progress or missing even. Eventually it will switch to Published and you should be good to go.

When I came back the next day my items were Published, my Item Setup checklist item from above was green and the Ready To Launch button was finally able to be clicked on.

THEN, when you can finally click the Ready To Launch button at the top it could take another 48 hours for your account to be live and ready to sell.

In reality this part only took an hour or two for my account to be switched live.

So yeah, it is a bit of a frustrating and cumbersome experience but it can be VERY worth it.

Here are a few of the pros of being able to sell on Walmart:

• Less competition.
• Still command good ROI on your prices.
• Less restrictions than Amazon. IE no gating or ungating process. (HINT: Looking for a place to sell those restricted LEGO sets other than eBay???)

Some downsides of selling on Walmart:

• Their dashboard and item creation processes are very clunky.
• Order notifications can be delayed (or stop working) so need to check manually.
• Harder to sell some products. IE Amazon Exclusives.

You have to remember though, Walmart is a giant. TONS of people use it for shopping so there is still tons of volume on their site.

Selling On Walmart vs Amazon

How does becoming a Walmart marketplace seller differ from selling on Amazon?

Well, Amazon is probably more beginner friendly as odd as that sounds.

You can get started selling on Amazon with little to no prior experience in e-commerce.

Walmart is a little bit more for the experienced seller, I would say.

When you apply to sell on Walmart they want to see somewhere else that you’re already selling online.

This could be your Amazon store or Website…but they don’t want newbies (yet.)

Selling on Walmart vs Amazon Fulfillment Methods

Most people probably know about Amazon FBA in some sense by now. It really revolutionized fulfillment for 3rd party sellers.

You can send in your items to one fulfillment center (for dirt cheap) and then Amazon does all the work of sending it out to the customers (for dirt cheap.)

Also, you can do this from the first day you have your Amazon account setup.

I should also mention Walmart now has a competing service to Amazon FBA. It’s called Walmart Fulfillment Services, or WFS, and it operates similar to FBA.

Thinking you’ll use it right out of the gate?

Sorry, think again. You’ll need to apply to become a WFS seller AFTER your regular Walmart Seller Marketplace account goes live.

I know WFS is something they’ve been working on for a while and is fairly new, so hopefully this process gets simplified more in the future.

Walmart Selling Fees

If you are fulfilling merchandise yourself, expect to pay 15% of the sale just like you would on Amazon for most things.

WFS vs FBA Fulfillment Fees

Walmart Fulfillment Services fees do vary a little bit from Amazon FBA fees.

While Amazon FBA fees seem to be calculated based on dimensions and weight, Walmart WFS has opted for a complicated fee structure that is either based on straight up weight or dimensional weight, whichever is greater.

Here’s a look at the table I pulled from this article. You have to be logged in to actually see it.

For example, on Amazon I have a Barbie doll that would cost $3.64 in FBA fees to ship to the customer.

That doll weighs 10.6oz and using the WFS fee chart since it is under 1 pound, even with their .25 added, the cost to send it would be $3.45.

OK, cool…so the fees are about the same for that.

Let’s look at a bigger example and see what happens.

How about a Thor Hammer? It’s a pretty big and bulky item, thought it doesn’t weigh much at just 4 pounds, 6 oz.

FBA fees to ship this item would be $13.22

With Walmart we have to now calculate dimensional weight since it is over 1 pound. (22x12x7)/139 = 13.29 lbs…+.25 and we round up…WFS considers this item to be 14 lbs.

So now we need to look at the chart. We have a base fee of $5.75 + $.40 each pound over 4 (10 pounds or $4 more) so $9.75 in total to ship this to the customer.

Despite Walmart’s crazy shipping formula it’s starting to look like WFS is actually cheaper to ship with than FBA.

I did not think that was going to be the case at all.

Final Thoughts

There are definitely pros and cons to becoming a seller on Walmart.

You basically need to have some prior e-commerce experience to get an account on Walmart.

With that being said, if you’ve already navigated the rollercoaster that is selling on Amazon, then learning how to sell on Walmart should be a piece of cake.

I’m really interested to see how the WFS program works out and I’m thinking of sending in a shipment for the lolz and, of course, I will report my experience.

If you feel like I left anything out or still have some questions, I’d love to hear from you. Hit me up on Twitter and I’ll try to respond!

And don’t forget to check out my other 70 side hustle ideas to jump start multiple income streams!