Are you an established dropshipper with some experience under your belt? If so, you’re eligible to expand your dropshipping business to new online marketplaces.
As long as you have a proven track record as a dropshipper, Walmart Marketplace provides a massive opportunity for you to reach a new audience with your dropshipping products.
Dropshipping Walmart products is an excellent option for your eCommerce business if you want to boost your sales and make a good profit. In fact, over one-third of Walmart sellers have earned between 50,000 and one million dollars on the platform.
However, dropshipping on online marketplaces can be challenging. You have to choose the right platform, compete with other sellers, and ensure you have an effective pricing strategy.
That’s why we’ve put together this guide. We’ll help you decide if Walmart Marketplace is the right option for you, and we’ll provide some expert tips on how to stand out from the competition and make more sales.
What Is Walmart Dropshipping?
Dropshipping on Walmart Marketplace is the process of selling products from third-party suppliers on Walmart.com.
When you make a sale, a third-party supplier fulfills the order. You can do this as long as you meet Walmart’s supplier requirements, which we will discuss later in this article.
Why Dropship on Walmart’s Marketplace?
Selling your products on an online marketplace platform might sound complex, but with the right selling tools, Walmart dropshipping is a great option.
More dropshippers are selling on the Walmart Marketplace for the following reasons:
✅ There’s less competition from other sellers
Unlike Amazon or eBay, Walmart is selective about who qualifies as a drop-ship vendor. The application process to become a Walmart Marketplace seller is more complex, but it also means you won’t have to compete with nearly as many sellers as you would on other online marketplaces.
✅ It integrates with nearly everything
Selling products manually can be challenging, which is why so many Walmart dropshipping companies use third-party tools like Spark Shipping to manage their eCommerce businesses.
Walmart is a great choice for dropshippers because it easily integrates with tools to streamline listings, orders, pricing, and store inventory.
✅ Plenty of people shop on Walmart.com
If you aren’t already selling your products on Walmart Marketplace, you’re missing out on a big opportunity, as it has more than 120 million monthly visitors looking for products like yours.
Additionally, Walmart now offers two-day shipping, so as long as you can meet the platform’s delivery and pricing rules, you’ll attract more shoppers eager for a good alternative to Amazon Prime.
✅ Shoppers trust the platform
Shoppers are becoming more wary of platforms like Amazon and eBay. But, because Walmart is so careful about its vendor selections, shoppers tend to trust this platform more, which means they trust your dropshipping products, too.
✅ Walmart dropshipping has a simple fee structure
Unlike other dropshipping platforms, Walmart Marketplace’s fee structure is straightforward.
You only pay a referral fee based on product categories (unless you pay for fulfillment, which we’ll cover in a bit).
How Walmart Dropshipping Works
Walmart only wants to work with established dropshippers who have a solid reputation, so you can only drop ship from Walmart if you've been dropshipping for some time.
If you’re accepted as a seller on Walmart’s platform, they will display your products alongside its products in relevant searches.
When shoppers purchase items from your store, you route that order either through Walmart (if you’re using Walmart Fulfillment Services) or a third-party fulfillment company to handle the drop shipping.
In exchange for using the platform, Walmart will charge you a single fee. The referral fees cover all costs associated with the Walmart drop ship program, minus Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) fees if you use Walmart for fulfillment.
The fee is percentage-based per order, simplifying Walmart dropshipping fees.
However, these referral fees differ by product category and can be pricey. For example, jewelry has a 20% fee, while video games have a 15% fee.
Although these might seem more expensive than other platforms, Walmart doesn’t have hidden fees, which keeps things simple and straightforward for sellers.
Walmart will pay you every two weeks, although your first payment will take longer to clear as Walmart vets you first.
Walmart will continue monitoring your performance metrics through a Seller Scorecard, which assesses your quality in terms of reviews, returns, and other metrics.
If the platform notices a dip in your quality, it could revoke your selling privileges. If this does happen, the Walmart seller dashboard will tell you exactly what you need to do to fix the situation.
How To Become a Walmart Dropshipping Vendor
One of the biggest hurdles to Walmart dropshipping is becoming an approved vendor. Remember, Walmart is highly selective about who sells on its platform, so not just any dropshipper can join.
There are three main steps you’d need to follow to become a Walmart Marketplace seller:
1. Verify your business
First, set up a Seller Profile and add your business details. You’ll manage your Partner Account within the Walmart Seller Center.
Walmart will need a lot of information for this, so we recommend gathering all your details before applying as a seller.
To sell products on Walmart, you’ll need:
- Your legal business name.
- A valid business address.
- A W-8 or W-9.
- Your business tax ID, also known as your Employer Identification Number (EIN).
- Valid contact information, like an email and phone number.
- Documented history of your eCommerce success.
- An existing product catalog (it can’t contain any prohibited items).
After submitting this information, you’ll need to wait for Walmart to verify you. This process could take up to a week, especially during busy times of the year.
2. Add your bank account details
Once Walmart verifies your business details, it will ask you to set up payment and shipping information. Walmart requires you to register with Payoneer to receive payments.
The good news is that Walmart will guide you through the registration process through your Seller Center account, which will take you over to Payoneer.
Registering through your Walmart Marketplace account is important because it exempts you from Payoneer’s $1.50 withdrawal fee.
3. Set up your product catalog and shipping details
Once you’ve set up payments, it’s time to provide Walmart with your:
- Primary product categories: Walmart will ask you to submit your eCommerce product catalog for review.
- Shipping information: Choose between value, standard, next-day, and expedited shipping. You also need to specify which regions you ship to, your shipping cost, and average transit times.
Walmart can take anywhere from three business days to three weeks to review your application.
It isn’t unusual to receive a rejection the first time around, usually for documentation issues. Don’t let this deter you—take Walmart’s feedback, rework your application, and apply again.
As long as you’re a valid business with a proven dropshipping track record, you stand a good chance of dropshipping on Walmart.
Dropshipping On Walmart Marketplace: 9 Tips for Growing Your Business
Selling on Walmart is a great way to boost dropshipping sales, but your business will need constant optimization to succeed. Follow these best practices for competitive, profitable Walmart dropshipping:
1. Use Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS)
WFS is Walmart’s version of Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA). If you don’t already have a dropshipping supplier, this is a great way to save hours every week managing your dropshipping business.
You’ll be paying WFS fees on every transaction, but this cost is worth the quality service and time savings.
With WFS, you ship all of your inventory to the Walmart warehouse. When shoppers order your products, Walmart picks, packs, and ships the order for you. It also offers benefits like:
- Two-day shipping.
- Higher search rankings and Buy Box features, which are when your products are featured on Walmart Marketplace in a special box with a “Buy now” button.
- Daily seller support options.
- Free shipping for shoppers.
WFS pricing depends on your product dimensions and pricing. You can use the WFS fee calculator to get a rough idea of your WFS fees. They generally range from $3.45 to $17.55, although items retailing for over $10 and oversized items have higher fees.
2. Offer fast shipping
41% of global shoppers expect to receive their orders within 24 hours, which means standard shipping isn’t good enough.
To build a following of loyal shoppers, you need to offer affordable, speedy shipping. Signing up for WFS is the best way to do this, but the fees don’t always make sense, especially if your dropshipping business is still small.
Fortunately, you can sign up to offer two-day or three-day shipping through Walmart. Sellers who qualify for these shipping options see as much as a 50% boost in conversions, so it’s definitely worth considering.
You need to meet these rules to qualify for expedited shipping:
- You must be on the platform for 90 days as a seller or have at least 100 fulfilled orders.
- You need a 95% on-time shipping and delivery rate or higher.
- You must have a 95% valid tracking rate or higher.
- You must have a 1.5% cancellation rate or lower.
- You should offer free returns.
3. Use an inventory tracking system
Walmart encourages dropshippers to invest in some kind of inventory management and automation solution. Solutions like Spark Shipping can:
- Give you an accurate view of all inventory levels across Walmart Marketplace, as well as your other selling platforms.
- Bulk-import product catalog details to Walmart Marketplace.
- Forecast Walmart dropshipping demand.
- Sync inventory in real-time.
- Automatically send tracking details to your customers.
Instead of spending hours every day updating inventory figures and tracking numbers—and wondering if the information is correct—automate everything with Spark Shipping. It’s the best way to save time and scale your Walmart dropshipping business with little manual effort.
4. Try the retail arbitrage method
Most sellers source products through manufacturers or dropshipping suppliers. But if you want to get more value out of your margins, consider the retail arbitrage method.
With retail arbitrage, you buy products from another seller or location at the lowest price and then resell them to buyers on platforms like Walmart Marketplace.
This can be challenging as Walmart wants to work with high-volume suppliers. If you’re doing arbitrage, you need a way to source hundreds of low-cost products at once. You won’t find these deals on Facebook Marketplace, and you’ll likely need to import products from overseas.
For example, maybe you realize sneakers are way cheaper in Malaysia than they are in the United States. It might require a bit of a process, but if you can find a way to import plenty of lower-cost sneakers, you can sell them for a good profit on Walmart Marketplace.
5. Offer excellent customer service
Walmart cares about quality, so it’s no surprise that it places a lot of emphasis on the customer experience. If you want to retain your good standing as a seller, you have to provide your customers with excellent service at every point of the selling process.
Additionally, customer service is also a factor in your Seller Scorecard, so this can have a big impact on your ability to drop ship from Walmart.
Follow these basics to offer high-quality customer experiences at scale:
- Set up customer service information in Seller Central. You should provide an email, phone number, escalation email (for Walmart use only), and a 4,000-character customer service policy.
- Communicate clearly and professionally with your customers.
- Respond to shopper questions and negative customer reviews quickly.
- Do whatever you can to stay in stock. Solutions like Spark Shipping help you source inventory from multiple suppliers at the best prices, so you never need to worry about stocking out.
6. Keep an eye on your performance standards
It’s crucial that you maintain high performance standards on Walmart Marketplace if you want to continue to be a seller on the platform. This is how Walmart ensures only the best suppliers sell on its marketplace.
There are five performance metrics that Walmart Marketplace will score you on, so it’s important to monitor these in the Performance section in the Seller Center:
- Cancellation rate: This is the percentage of customer orders that get canceled. This should be less than 2%.
- On-time delivery rate: 95% or more of your orders must meet the estimated delivery time provided to customers.
- Refund rate: This is the rate at which orders are refunded for reasons the seller is responsible for. This amount should be less than 6%.
- Valid tracking rate: 99% or more of your orders should have valid tracking information supplied to the customer.
- Seller response rate: This is where good customer service comes in. You must respond to at least 95% of customer inquiries within 48 hours of receiving them.
7. Create high-quality product listings
Up to 80% of customers do online research before buying a product. For this reason, your product listings need to be excellent if you want to make more sales.
Here are some essentials for creating good product listings on Walmart Marketplace:
- Good visuals: Use high-resolution photographs and visuals to display your product.
- Variation: Display your product from various angles so that customers can understand the complete product.
- Detailed product descriptions: Include as much information as possible in your product descriptions, including all the specifications, sizes, and details.
- Compelling copy: Focus the copy of your product listing on the benefits and features of the product. Speak to what customers will get out of the product and what problems it’ll solve for them.
8. Use Walmart Connect
Instead of running paid adverts on Facebook and Instagram to sell your dropshipping products, you can run ads on Walmart Marketplace. This is done through a feature called Walmart Connect.
Source: Walmart Connect
Walmart Connect lets you advertise your products in places on their website that will attract customers’ attention. This can increase your sales and boost visibility for your dropshipping store.
The feature allows you to choose a schedule, budget, and keywords. These ads are sold on a cost-per-click basis, which means that you only pay for ads that a customer actually clicks on and nothing else.
9. Optimize for Walmart search engine optimization (SEO)
Just like Google and Amazon, Walmart uses an algorithm to suggest products based on shoppers’ search queries. It won’t happen overnight, but making a few changes to your seller account and product listings could help you stand out from the competition in Walmart search.
Follow these quick tips to master Walmart search engine optimization (SEO):
- Sign up for two-day or three-day shipping or WFS. This can significantly increase your chances of winning the featured Buy Box.
- Upload at least four images for all of your products. The more, the better!
- Create a follow-up email campaign asking customers to submit feedback and reviews. Collect as many five-star reviews as you can to see your rankings improve over time.
- Write highly descriptive, helpful product listings. Use lots of bullet points to break up the text and make it easy to read.
Remember, SEO doesn’t get results immediately. You’ll need to work on it regularly to improve your rankings steadily.
Run a Better Walmart Online Store With Spark Shipping
Selling on Walmart Marketplace is challenging. Getting into Walmart’s third-party seller program is the first big hurdle, but remaining a seller is just as hard.
The tips in this guide will boost your reputation on Walmart Marketplace, but this is just the start.
You need help executing all of these big ideas, and that’s where Spark Shipping comes in. We help Walmart dropshippers:
- Integrate vendor inventory information.
- Automatically manage inventory.
- Conduct product management.
- Automate pricing.
- Map products to multiple vendors.
- Port over fitment data.
- Fulfill orders.
- Send tracking updates to shoppers.
Spend your time where it matters most by automating manual tasks to Spark Shipping while you focus on serving customers and growing your Walmart dropshipping business.
Schedule your Spark Shipping demo now to find out how our platform can help you take your Walmart Marketplace dropshipping store to the next level.