Over the past couple of years, Walmart has offered services and incentives to support marketplace sellers. It has now re-introduced what the company calls New-Seller Savings, an initiative designed to make launching on Walmart Marketplace easy and rewarding.
A year ago, Walmart offered a similar promotion to potential market sellers. Later in the year, it brought in funding help for those companies operating on the company’s marketplace, intended to help them scale up their businesses faster.
The just-announced program offers end-to-end fulfillment services for Walmart Marketplace sellers of all sizes, high-visibility search ads to help get newly participating brands in front of customers actively searching for products in their market sector and an automated repricer tool that helps sellers compete more effectively.
Joneja maintained that now is the time to join Walmart marketplace, given its rapid growth, citing the company’s third-quarter financial announcement, which reported a platform SKU inventory increase of 50% to 370 million. He pointed out that Walmart marketplace onboarded 8,000 new sellers in the third quarter and is actively recruiting more businesses to help the company address the needs of the 118 million customers on average who visit walmart.com each month.
Joneja noted:
It’s not only our robust product assortment that sets us apart. We know that customers have plenty of options to online shop. In fact, 73% of customers prefer shopping through multiple channels. Our goal is to make Walmart the place they turn to first. And just as we want Walmart to be the first choice for customers, we want to be the top choice for all sellers from small businesses to major brands. As we continue to enhance Walmart.com and the Walmart app, we are also upgrading the seller experience with a faster onboarding process and updated tools and resources. Sellers who choose our marketplace have access to our proprietary solutions and services that help them succeed and grow their businesses. That’s the competitive advantage of selling with the world’s leading retailer.
In specific terms, Joneja added, Walmart Fulfillment Services, helps marketplace operators focus on selling their wares without worrying about logistics, given a simple pricing structure without hidden fees. In addition, he indicated that WFS sellers can offer two-day shipping throughout the contiguous U.S. for free on all eligible orders. Eligible products automatically earn two-day shipping or Fulfilled by Walmart badges as well as free and easy returns in-store and online.
Then, Sponsored Search advertising can help sellers accelerate customer discovery in the growing marketplace, Jonja asserted, with buying suggestions and a search platform that helps customers discover those items that suit their fancies. Relevant Sponsored Search ads reach customers while they’re actively shopping at walmart.com for similar products. Sellers only pay for the service when customers click their ads.
Joneja also pointed to Walmart Connect as a benefit that continues to help sellers of all sizes take advantage of Sponsored Search, including self-service advertising tools available through the Walmart Ad Center. Walmart automatically enrolls new marketplace sellers in the Walmart Ad Center, where they find step-by-step guidance in launching a Sponsored Search, he attested.
