Amazon sellers are navigating an increasingly complex landscape as the marketplace continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. With escalating competition, a more congested marketplace, rising fees, and more stringent policies, it’s becoming a tougher arena. Moreover, as Seller Support grapples with these expanding challenges, maintaining a thriving business on this ecommerce giant, while still promising, is progressively demanding.
At the same time Walmart Marketplace has been on the rise, quietly becoming the biggest threat to Amazon with speedily scaling sales and revenue numbers. It’s enough to make any ecommerce seller turn their head. As a result, the number of Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace has seen a steady uptick, as business owners hope to diversify their sales channels, reach new customers, and drive greater profits.
While expanding your business onto a new platform might be daunting, now is the right time to join other Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace if you’re hoping to get ahead of the competition. In this blog, we’ll give an overview of why Amazon sellers should seek to expand onto Walmart Marketplace, what makes the growing platform unique, and how to easily get started.
The importance of selling on multiple ecommerce platforms
In the past few years, ecommerce has seen immense growth across all platforms. While this unprecedented growth has proved beneficial in driving sales for many Amazon sellers, it has also generated immense competition in the marketplace. In order to remain competitive and continue growing their business in an increasingly saturated marketplace, Amazon sellers are looking for unique ways to increase sales and profit margins. As Walmart Marketplace continues to grow in traction, it has become a natural next step for successful sellers looking for new avenues to increase sales.
Diversifying your ecommerce sales channels with multi-marketplaces selling is often the easiest strategy for growing your business without internal changes. While financial growth often depends on expediting your cash conversion cycle, Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace are opening their businesses up to an entirely new potential customer base. At the same time, you’ll be improving your financial agility by diversifying streams of income. Multi-marketplace sales helps to ensure that you always have a cash flow buffer against potential disruptions on any single platform–which is especially critical due to the rising number of Amazon seller account suspensions. Even as one account faces challenges, another marketplace is likely to remain up and running, inevitably helping to mitigate the impact on your revenue.
Advantages for Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace
Although Amazon’s marketplace is well-known and comfortable, Walmart Marketplace offers many unique and different advantages to sellers. Since the marketplace is still seeking to establish itself as a competitor to Amazon, Walmart Marketplace is continuously evolving with features and perks to draw sellers, including:
No Fees
One of the most attractive features of Walmart Marketplace for Amazon sellers looking to expand into new marketplaces is that it has no selling fees. While there are still fees associated with services on the platform (including referral and fulfillment fees), there is no “Pro-Seller” fee, unlike Amazon. This provides a welcome change for Amazon sellers used to monthly subscription fees that cut into profits.
Reach More Customers
Did you know that Walmart Marketplace is the second largest marketplace for ecommerce sellers? According to Walmart, in 2021 they had 120 million unique monthly visitors to their ecommerce website, compared to Amazon’s 200 million. That’s a lot of potential for you to reach new customers and drive greater sales, especially because many of these shoppers may be looking for alternatives to Amazon. This means that you’ll be putting your products in front of an entirely new audience with almost nothing to lose. Plus, with the growing Walmart+ subscription for shoppers, they can benefit from the same 2-day shipping and discounted prices as Amazon Prime members.
Less Competition
While Amazon may continue to outrank Walmart Marketplace in terms of unique monthly visitors, Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace are facing significantly less competition. Compared to Amazon’s 1.9 million sellers, Walmart Marketplace has just over 100 thousand, meaning higher average page views for your products and better chances at converting.
This lack of competition is due, in part, to Walmart Marketplace’s comparatively new presence in the ecommerce landscape–meaning that if you hope to take advantage of it, there is no better time to expand than right now. However, competition on the marketplace is also influenced by seller eligibility. While anyone can sell on Amazon, regardless of experience, Walmart Marketplace has an application based system that takes into consideration your location, sales history, and success. Overall, if you’re able to sell on Walmart Marketplace you’ll be able to experience the perks of being a big fish in a little pond.
Experience and expertise
Although Walmart Marketplace has several key differences from Amazon, there are many similarities, especially when it comes to product listings. Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace have the advantages of experience and expertise in building product listings, advertisement campaigns, and generating reviews. While you may have to adjust to the nuances of Walmart Marketplace, seasoned sellers have the ability to quickly imitate their Amazon product listings–meaning that you can be up and running on the new platform quickly.
Potential for products in brick and mortar stores
Since Walmart has such a well-established retail presence, it’s very likely that standout sellers who begin sales on Walmart Marketplace will eventually be invited to have a place in brick and mortar stores. While ecommerce is becoming more and more popular with consumers, in-person stores continue to rake in over 75% of retail sales in the United States.
Although Walmart has yet to announce this, experts say that there is very real potential for this sort of expansion–especially as Walmart Marketplace sellers gain traction and establish solid reputations. Long time retail competitor, Target, has even begun to do this with Shopify merchants well-established on their own ecommerce marketplace. This would open up an entirely new market for ecommerce sellers, exposing your products to a new audience, and establishing even greater brand recognition and trust with consumers.
Customer Service
Since Walmart is one of the largest retailers in the world, with one of the best reputations, Walmart Marketplace has already established incredible infrastructure in the online world. As part of that infrastructure, the marketplace offers excellent support to sellers and customers, alike. From tracking tax collections for sellers to managing your inventory in-app, Walmart Marketplace offers active customer support service. 24/7.
Although Amazon sellers have learned to deal with the challenges of Seller Support, that doesn’t mean it’s a pleasant experience. If you’re looking for a marketplace expansion that doesn’t come with the same unresponsiveness as Amazon, Walmart Marketplace is a solid choice.
How to apply to sell: Amazon sellers on Walmart Marketplace
Although expanding onto Walmart Marketplace may seem intimidating at first, it’s a very simple process. Start by creating your account in Walmart’s Seller center and applying to sell on the platform.
From there you’ll need to complete the 3-step setup to begin onboarding and receive approval for Walmart Marketplace.
- Business Verification – Submit the necessary business details to Walmart in order to complete your Seller Profile.
- Payments – Securely share banking information with Walmart so they know where to send your payments. No setup, subscription, or monthly fees.
- Shipping – Configure your shipping methods and costs. Select your preferred returns method and carriers for your budget, even if you’ll be utilizing Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS).
On average it takes sellers about five minutes for sellers to complete their Walmart Marketplace application and Seller Profile.
Requirements
Before you begin your application for Walmart Marketplace, make sure that you meet the minimum qualifications to join:
- Business Tax Id(s) or Business License Number
- Supporting documents that verify your business name and address
- History of marketplace or ecommerce success (ie, proof of your Amazon business sales)
- Products that have GTIN/UPC GS1 Company Prefix Numbers
- A catalog that complies with Walmart’s Prohibited Products Policy
- Fulfillment through Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) or another B2C U.S. warehouse with returns capabilities
Affording Expansion: Amazon Sellers on Walmart Marketplace
In 2021, Walmart Marketplace’s income nearly doubled, reaching $43 billion in US Sales. In the following years, the new ecommerce marketplace’s sales have only grown, ensuring that there is immense opportunity for sellers who are willing to forge ahead with expansion. The key is finding the capital to take advantage of all the potential. That’s where Viably comes in.
Viably is the predictive banking platform built for ecommerce sellers. By connecting your commerce and banking data, Viably helps sellers gain fast access to capital, see their money movement and financial health in real time, while forecasting ahead to help map goals for growth.
