I came from the Amazon world where PPC is a must or nobody would ever see your listings. However Walmart is different. I’ve been selling on Walmart for a few years. I never touched Walmart PPC and my items still sells, even though at the much slower pace than Amazon for similar items at the rate of around 20 to 1 (for every 20 units sold on Amazon, Walmart would sell 1). Frankly even with the much lower sales on Walmart, I’m happier to sell there because without PPC the profit is very predictable. On Amazon, the profit is hardly predictable due to the wild fluctuation of PPC costs.
On Walmart, I also sell items that got liquidated from somewhere else. So, I have a limited amount of inventory e.g. 100 units. Once I’m sold out, it’s done. My thought is that it’s not worth it to do PPC on Walmart for listings that have the limited amount of inventory. Am I right?
Please share your thoughts/experiences. I still consider myself new on Walmart platform and would love to hear from you guys. Thanks.
We spend about $40K year on PPC at Walmart and I would certainly recommend it, even for 1 off, low inventory items. CPC is a lot lower over there and very consistent. Makes it worth it even more to increase volume.
I would absolutely give it a test to see if it helps.
From what I can tell, sales on Walmart are really hit or miss largely depending on what you sell. I’ve been on Walmart.com for years and get just enough in sales to make it worth doing but not enough that I spend a lot of time on it. I don’t spend money on PPC ads. I’ve tried it several times over the years and got nothing from it so why spend the money?
I have friends that do 8 figures on Target.com and barely do 7 on Walmart.com. They too stopped doing PPC on Walmart as they got very little return for their spend. They spend heavily on Amazon.com PPC but they get returns on it.
I haven’t “cracked the code” on Walmart so I’m certainly not an expert but what I see from people that I talk to it really depends what you sell. I think the Walmart.com customer is different from other online shoppers. Good business if it’s the right product but kind of a desolate desert for others.
Thanks for confirming this. Wow! $40K a year on PPC! You must have sold a ton at Walmart. Congrats! In Amazon, we do PPC to gain rank and later make sales after/if the rank is good enough. Does it work like that in Walmart as well? Or more like advertise and sell without climbing BSR rank?
Thanks for this info. I vaguely remember that I tried Walmart PPC couple years ago and it didn’t generate any return. So I stopped. Like you said, I think Walmart is really a hit or miss.
8 figures on Target is massive! I keep hearing about Target. Have they started fulfillment by Target (like FBA or WFS)?
Target is invite only, meaning you don’t decide if you sell there, they do. You can request to sell and they’ll ask for a lot of information about your company and what you sell. At least that was their process a couple years ago. They didn’t invite me to sell, so I really don’t know what services they currently offer. My friend that does well on Target.com does self fulfill only, so they didn’t know anything about FBA type program for Target.
I should add to this something very specific in our business.
Our hero item is the same on both marketplaces.
The difference is autofill search. This particular item is a specific potency and it’s high up in Amazon’s autofill search when you start searching the first few letters of the product.
On both marketplaces, we have the #1 organic rank but it’s harder to get to on Walmart because this particular potency is not an autofill result.
Never underestimate the power of consumer laziness. If you have something priced right, that’s high on autofill search, you will win.
It’s not as easy as it sounds though. We’ve tried to hit this jackpot many many times. Only hit it once and lost plenty of $ trying on others.
I should also state the obvious. Walmart has a lot more sponsored spots than Amazon does so #1 rank means a lot less on Walmart than it does on Amazon.
Amazon has been adding more sponsored placements which has driven our organic sales down 9% YOY. A number that had always increased YOY due to the huge number of reorders.
So very true and the point behind the social trust indicators like “best seller” tags, search autofill, influencer product picks, and sales rank (for better or for worse)–on all platforms.
and the point behind the social trust indicators like “best seller” tags, search autofill,