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Getting Started on Walmart.com

The Complete Guide

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w w w . g o d a t a f e e d . c o m

Getting Started on Walmart.com

Introduction

Merchants, meet your next big opportunity: Walmart.com. Since Walmart

began welcoming third party sellers in 2016, they’ve shaken up the

ecommerce scene. The site sees 127 million unique visitors per month and is

the second-most visited ecommerce site in the United States.

The good news is getting products listed on Walmart is a lot less complex

than other marketplaces.

Please note that, like all ecommerce channels, Walmart has some hard-stop

requirements you should address before you can begin selling. The main one

is the universally accepted product identifiers requirement. Acceptable

product identifiers include GTIN, UPC, EAN, ISBN and ISSN.

To help you set up shop on the Web’s fastest-growing marketplace, we’ve

put together this guide outlining the steps you need to take to secure your

spot and start building your reputation on Walmart’s marketplace.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

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Table of Contents

Becoming an Approved Seller

Set Up Your Account

Build Your Feed

Product Publishing and Order Testing

Go Live and Start Selling!

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

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Become an Approved Seller

Walmart is not yet open to all merchants, but those who are accepted have a lot to look

forward to. Besides being the fastest growing marketplace, Walmart already has a massive

following. This means more exposure for your products and brand. Not to mention, with the

limited amount of sellers they are allowing in, you will have minimal competition to worry

about.

According to Walmart, they choose sellers based on reputation, sales projections and

alignment with their values. Walmart is known for good prices, so they are looking for

merchants who price their products competitively. Other seller quantities include exceptional

customer service, a unique product assortment, and fast and reliable fulfillment.

If you think that your brand meets these qualifications, then it’s time to apply.

Once you apply, the approval process takes around 1-2 weeks. If approved, Walmart’s on-

boarding team will provide your login to the Walmart.com marketplace seller portal. You will

be expected to complete the on-boarding process in 1-2 weeks.

Walmart.com has over 127 million monthly unique visitors. This makes it the second most popular retail website in the U.S.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Set Up Your Account

Now that you’re an approved seller, it’s time to set up your Walmart account.

We’ll go over the basics of setting up the account, but for additional details check out

Walmart’s Seller Guide.

Additionally, Walmart has an extremely user-friendly and extensive knowledge base.

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When customers visit Walmart.com, they are more likely to be further down the sales funnel and ready to purchase.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Step 1Walmart will email you with access to the Signup Wizard. Step 1 is to complete that process. It will require:

• Company address

• Bank account information (used for payments from Walmart)

• Digital copy of your latest W-9 form. If you don’t have this, you can download a blank W-9 form from the signup wizard.

Within your account, there is a “Launch Checklist.” As you complete the tasks, mark them as done.

Step 2The next step is to complete your Seller Profile, which provides a representation of your company to potential customers shopping on Walmart. This includes:

• Company Info

• Customer service details such as your phone number, email and policy

• Shopping options

• Return policy

• Privacy policy

24 hours after you’ve provided your bank info through the signup wizard, your bank account will receive a deposit of a penny. After you’ve received the penny deposit, mark this as done in your checklist.

Step 3Next up on the checklist is setting up your taxes. This includes:

• Setting up Tax Nexus requirements

• Providing your sales tax codes for each shipping method

• Creating your tax policy in 4,000 characters or less

As mentioned before, if you have any questions regarding account setup, check out Walmart’s knowledge base. If you still are having issues, contact Walmart directly.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

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Build Your Feed

Now we’re on to the fun stuff – and our specialty – building your feed!

Walmart has 3 integration options:

API IntegrationRecommended method if you have a large amount of items. This will require some programming so if you and your team are not technical, this may not

be the best option for you.

• If you are using the API integration method, you will need to retrieve your Consumer ID and Secret Key from your Seller Center account.

1. Log into Seller Center

2. Select General Settings > Consumer IDs & Secret Key

3. You’ll be taken to the API page, where you will generate your credentials for the first time

• If you need to see the secret key again in the future, you can do so by clicking on the “Regenerate Key” button.

Bulk UploadThis option is great for those that have a small amount of products that do not change frequently. This involves entering your product data into Excel

spreadsheets and uploading to Walmart.

Integration PartnerWalmart works with multiple different integration partners, including GoDataFeed. Each partner may offer slightly different services in regards to getting

your products listed so do your research when choosing one. Integration partners like GoDataFeed handle most of the dirty work for you, including

building the feed and order integration. This option is good for those merchants short on time and looking for an automated way to keep their feed

updated.

In 2017, Walmart amassed over 481 billion U.S. dollars globally.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Product AttributesIn their knowledge base, Walmart provides a detailed list of common item attributes used in a setup.

While some of them are basic such as “product name,” others like “self description” are unfamiliar

territory for many merchants. We’ve highlighted some of the important aspects below.

• Product Name

• Product ID Type

• Product ID

• SKU

• Brand

• Manufacturer, Manufacturer Part Number and Model Number (optional)

Description Attributes• Long Description: Up to 4,000 characters to display important item features

• Short Description: Up to 1,000 characters to display your key selling points (supports

HTML and plain text).

• Shelf Description: Here you will provide a bulleted list of 2-3 item features. It is

displayed in the search box for the item, the category under the Buy Box. We’ve seen

merchants use the first few bullet points that they send to Amazon for this field.

Image Attributes• Main Image URL

• Main Image Alt Text: Optional, but beneficial for SEO. Use the product name and relevant

keywords.

• Additional Asset URL: Additional images can improve the quality of your listing. Walmart

provides you with 3 additional image fields.

• Additional Asset Text: Use this field to add descriptive terms to describe the image such

as Back View, Top View or Secondary.

Images are important. After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Here are some of

Walmart’s main image recommendations.

• A main image is required for all products

• While not mandatory, the image should be on a white background so it stands

out.

• It is recommended to have a front view of the image, but if the item is in an

appropriate setting or environment, an alternate view is acceptable.

• No watermarks, advertising language, text overlays, coupons or borders

Tax Attribute• Product Tax Code: This is used to identify tax properties of the item and is now required

to publish items. Walmart’s knowledge base offers assistance on identifying the right tax

code.

Price Attributes• Price Currency

• Price Amount

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Shipping Attributes• Shipping Weight-Value

• Shipping Weight-Unit: As of right now, Walmart only accepts the identifier LB. Be

sure to convert your weight values to LBs if necessary. For workarounds such as these,

data feed software comes in handy!

Walmart pre-enables the “Free Value Shipping” method for all marketplace sellers. If

you want to opt-out of this, you will need to create item level shipping overrides

using the following fields. This item level overrides can only be done via a feed or a

bulk upload and not through the shipping settings within your Walmart account.

• Is Shipping Allowed: To enable this method enter “Y,” to disable it “N.”

• Ship Method

• Ship Region

• Ship Price: Use this field if you are enabling a shipping method. This is the

price you will charge for shipping for the specified region and method.

Variant Group-Related AttributesIf you have products with variations, you will need to set the variations up within the feed. Variations

are products that vary by different attributes, such as size and color. Walmart does not want you to

send the parent products, so be sure to leave them out of the feed.

• Variant Group ID: A unique ID that you use for all items in a variant group. This is

essentially your Parent SKU value.

• Variant Attribute Name: This is where you tell Walmart what your product varies by. If

one of your shirts come in small, medium and large, you would use “clothingSize” for

this field. If your product varies by multiple attributes, you would separate the attribute

name with a semicolon. For example, you would write “clothingSize;color.”

• Swatch Variant Attribute: Variations can either display as a drop-down menu or as a

swatch. If your product varies by color or pattern, you may want swatches to appear on the

product page. You would enter the swatch attribute name into this field. For example, if you

are using this field for color, enter the word “color” into this field and provide the image

URL that contains the swatch color in the Swatch Image URL field.

• Is Primary Variant: While optional, this field allows you to choose which item image will

appear in both search and first on the item page for the variant group. If you want your

purple shirt to be your primary variant, you would add a “Y” to this field for this SKU. By

leaving the field blank, the first SKU in that variant group will become the Primary Variant.

Other attributes depend on the category of your products. Walmart has 24 universal categories that are

outlined in their Categorization Guide. Within each category, there are also sub-categories. After you’ve

selected the accurate category, you can either use the relevant Excel template or the XSD (if you’re

using the API), to determine the required and recommended attributes. For example, if you are selling

dress shirts, you would want to include “dressShirtSize” and possibly the “collarType.”

Additional attributes that rely on category selection are compliance attributes. If you are selling food, you

can utilize the “Has GMOs” field along with the “GMO-Free Claim” field.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Product Publishing and Order Testing

Now that your attributes are all set, let’s talk about submitting your product feed to Walmart.

Before you submit your entire feed, Walmart suggests that you either send a test batch with

10% of your total SKUs or 1,000 SKUs total. To narrow the SKU count down, try submitting

only certain brands to start. Don’t worry though, you can send the rest of your products after

Walmart reviews your account.

After you’ve chosen which products to send, go ahead and submit according to your integration

method. You’ll be able to check product specific errors in the “Feed Status” tab of your Seller

Center account.

While these uploaded products will still be in Stage (not live) status, you’ll be able to preview

what the prices and content look like. To do so, click on the Preview Item link under Item

Details.

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75% of Walmart.com sales come from non-store inventory.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

Order FulfillmentThe merchant is responsible for handling shipping, exchanges, returns and customer service. With that being said, you must

determine how you plan on fulfilling your orders on Walmart.

• Manually through the Seller Center UI: If you aren’t selling a lot of products and have the time to fulfill orders

manually, you can do so by visiting the Order Management page and following Walmart’s instructions.

• Bulk Upload through Excel: This method requires an itemized list of orders with corresponding shipping details.

Visit Walmart’s knowledge base for instructions.

• Integration Partner: If you are using an integration partner, they may offer services that assist with order

fulfillment.

• GoDataFeed offers a GoOrderSync module that automatically updates your shopping cart platform and

Walmart seller account with order status, inventory updates, shipping/tracking information and cancellations.

After you’ve determined your method, you will need to proceed with testing your orders.

1. In Seller Center, choose 2-3 items that you want to test order fulfillment on.

2. Update the test product’s price and inventory. Walmart says to add a price that is less than $20 and set inventory

to 1.

3. Under the Actions column, select Publish Item. It’s important to note that when these items are published, they

become available on Walmart’s marketplace.

4. After your item is live, click Purchase Item under the Actions column

5. You will be taken to your item page, where you need to purchase the item.

Once purchased, you will need to test the following scenarios:

• Order cancellation

• Order shipping

• When you test shipping, you don’t have to actually ship the item

but you need to provide a valid tracking number.

• Order refund

• Refund the order (in full; partial refunds don’t count in testing)

that you previously updated to shipping.

Learn how GoDataFeed can help you sync orders and manage refunds.

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Getting Started on Walmart.com

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Go Live and Start Selling!

Now that you’ve completed your item and order testing, mark it as done in your checklist. Then, a pop up

seeking confirmation will appear. Click yes.

The Walmart integration team will review your account and make your listings live. Just like that, you’re a

Walmart seller!

As with any channel, it is important to continuously monitor your account. Use the Manage Item page to

see your published items, items with errors and to see if you won the buy box.

Walmart has the potential to help your products reach millions of new customers, but only if you go

through with the approval process. Lucky for you, we’re here to help. If you have any questions on how to

get your products listed – not just on Walmart, but on any marketplace – don’t hesitate to reach out to our

ecommerce experts.

Ease the burden of multichannel marketing.Overcome your ecommerce challenges and go to market faster. GoDataFeed is the powerful shopping feed management platform that simplifies your product marketing.

We're here to help.Our team of US-based experts are a click or call away. Check out a hassle-free demo today to see why thousands of retailers trust us.

Your Products. Everywhere.

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