Getting started with Walmart

Selling on other Platforms Walmart
1

Hello experienced Walmart sellers.

I’m trying to get started, but…

Re: Verification
During the business verification step, they’re asking for a customer service telephone number. Is this required? Do you all have Walmart customers calling you on the phone? I’m thinking of creating a Google Voice number, as I do not want people calling me for any reason. Any concerns with that? I’ve never used Google Voice, and hope to go with the free personal number. Is voice mail included in that, or will customers just get a ‘sorry, we’re closed’ message?

Also during the verification step, they ask for a website. Does every third party who sells on Walmart have their own website? How do the Chinese manage that?

What information is public to buyers? Specifically -

  • Do buyers see your phone number? (Yes)
  • Do buyers see your email address? It appears no… they can only send a message. I’m trying to figure out if I need to set up a specific customer service email address too?
  • Do buyers see your website? Or is this strictly for Walmart verification purposes?

Re: Listing
I have some products that seem suited to variations. Because my business isn’t verified yet, I can only create listings manually, which is fine.

It appears that, to create a variation family, I first have to create each individual listing as a standalone, and then ‘group’ them together? Is that right? You can’t create the whole family from scratch all at once?

I also read that, once created, you can’t add new children to your family? I’m a little confused by that, as this seems like a standard function. Is it true you can’t add new children? Or would you simply have to ungroup the variation family, then regroup it with the new children added in?

Also, regarding variations, I have a potential variation that varies by text saying. Think of coffee mugs with funny sayings. When looking at variations on Walmart, this doesn’t seem like a good fit, as Walmart creates small round circle swatches to show the other colors/or designs. So if your variations change based on the text that’s on them, that wouldn’t look very good.

Do I have that right? In the coffee mug example, would these be better as individual listings?

2

Yes, required. Not as much anymore, but pre-Covid they were some older people or non-smart phone users. Usually were nice and actually saved us some return label charges.

I’ll send you a non censored screenshot via PM. PII and all.

Yes, one at a time and there is an option to create a group, but it gives an error message. Something like, use a template this isn’t ready yet. And honestly a template is the best way to go. Also, you pick a “child” to be the main variant, you don’t create a parent.

You’d need to use a template to re group or add to a group.

Yeah, probably better individually. There might be some keyword thing or something that would suggest the other ones, but that’s above my skill level.

Others may have more or better knowledge, but this is from my experience.

3

I think it is required, but I’m not 100% sure, it has been a while.
Walmart customers do call on occasion, I answer when I am at my desk in the office. Otherwise, nobody else picks up the phone. While I’m sure this has not helped the customer get any customer service, it did not impact our account or storefront, since all claims etc still have to go through Walmart, so the process is exactly the same as if they had never tried to call me.
A google voice or other voip number should be fine. I have no idea what services like voicemail are offered with any specific service, but that should be straightforward enough to figure out.

I don’t believe this is required. We certainly never gave them our website information when we onboarded.

I have a very few items which are suited to variations, and none of them are currently listed on Walmart. I don’t know anything useful about those at all.

4

We have a freedom voice phone number that’s on our labels. That’s a legal thing. That’s the number we used.

If you call it, you get my voice directing you to 3 different voice mail boxes. I get a text and an email when there’s a message.

It’s $9.99 a month.

As for the website, I think that’s only required if you register a brand but I could be wrong.

I had a REALLY hard time setting up just 4 listings. There are some weird things for my category that made it harder.

You should be assigned an incubation manager that will have calls with you once a week for 3 months to help. I have to say, my guy was awesome and he told me I can contact him at any time if I needed help in the future. Imagine Amazon doing that? LOL When your time is up with Amazon, they gently extend their middle finger and move on. He was in India and a little hard to understand but my partner and his entire operation is Indian so I’m well versed in that accent.

I’m kicking myself swiftly in the balls and head over not getting on Walmart years ago. Walmart is ~18% of my Amazon sales 5 weeks in with 2 reviews (1 rating / 1 written review) on a single listing.

Just signed up with Bazaarvoice to get reviews through the program they run for Walmart. It’s not cheap - $30 a review plus the cost of the product + fees but whatever. It’s worth it.

The best part is you can go get more reviews whenever, forever. So we are going to get 40 now (10 per listing) and see how it goes. It should go well providing they come back positive.

Then invest in 20 more for each. You can pay for 1,000,000 reviews if you wanted to.

Pay to play. Is what it is. Nothing new in life.

Good Luck on Walmart!!! Welcome to the other side. LOL

I hate Amazon. I hope things go great on Walmart. Would love to leave Amazon ASAP for greener pastures that don’t include all the ■■■■■■■■ that Amazon does. No inventory limits at Walmart. Fees are cheaper for WFS. No monthly fee. PPC is much much cheaper. Love it…

5

How is this anything but sketchy? I assume the reviews are guaranteed 5 stars, or what would be the point.

6

There’s no guarantee. Its just like Amazon Vine / Early reviewer program.

Vine / ERP always came back 5 stars though but that’s because our products are exceptional.

What’s better - getting your friends to get you reviews? This is a program sanctioned by Walmart.

What’s better than that - importing reviews from your website (that are fake) because Walmart allows that too for certain platforms such as shopify.

7

Thanks for the clarification. I hadn’t heard of this program.

8

It’s very strange how hidden it is. Took me 30 mins to find it after I read something about it.

9

Sorry… Reviews are a sore subject for me. The low lifes we compete with constantly leave fake negative reviews on our listings.

I have to spend 14 hours a week going over each individual order and requesting a review for those that had bought before. Stack the deck in our favor to fight back with a legit Amazon tool.

Got our review rate up from point 4 percent to 4 percent.

Call it sketchy but whatever. These animals will do anything to win with their garbage fake products that don’t pass assay testing. Trust me, we have bought and paid to have them tested - lots of them.

You think Amazon cares that they are selling junk to their precious customers? Spoiler alert - they don’t.

Given up trying to make difference. Now just fighting back.

I’ve presented stacks of verifiable evidence to everyone at Amazon including “Jeff”, our SAS manager, his boss, Escalation teams. They take action on these brands and POOF! they are back in a couple days.

No time for that nonsense. Drove me even crazier.

ETA - Since when is P O O F a bad word @Pepper_Thine_Angus @papy

10

I really want this to be simple. :laughing:

@ASV_Vites , I appreciate the input, but you’re talking way over my head. My operation is about 1/1000 as complex as yours, so I won’t have anyone from Walmart to walk me through this.

For those who have a smaller, simpler operation, what is your recommendation on the payment provider. Payoneer or Hyperwallet?

I finally got ‘verified’ after failing the first time. Funny thing… Walmart says they don’t accept SS numbers, but that’s what I gave them and they approved me on the second try. Ok… ?

The first time, I gave them my DBA, the second time, I gave my real name. I guess they’re just matching your last name/SS # or Business Name/EIN to your tax records.

I created a Google Voice personal account, and the number was rejected as invalid by Walmart the first few times but I guess it took a few minutes to set up. Google insisted I give them my real phone number so they could forward any calls to me (grrrr), but it looks like I can turn that off now that I’m set up.

So now I’m at the enter your payment method step. I figured I’d be giving Walmart a bank account for deposits, but apparently that’s not how it works. So someone just tell me which one to pick. Payoneer or HyperWallet. I don’t care much about the details, I just want the money to go from Walmart to my bank with the least amount of hassle and expense possible. I don’t need it for anything else.

Advice?

11

Is who we chose. You do need to connect your bank account to that.

We didn’t sign up with anything special to get this. I bet you will get assigned someone. Walmart didn’t know if we were selling gold watches or used pencils before they reached out.

They contacted me 3 days after we were verified to begin the program.

12

So did we.

13

@wadeorcas

What is the issue? Are you stuck at the EIN?

I’m not stuck anymore, but yes, apparently it was the EIN that first messed me up because I gave my business name and my SS#, since I don’t have an EIN. Then I got a ‘you didn’t pass’ email, telling me they don’t accept SS #'s, which is just stupid.

Before I saw that email though, I tried again and gave my personal name, but still my SS #, and that worked, despite Walmart saying it wouldn’t. So it appears that, so far, things work just about as well as they do on Amazon. :grin: I was able to create my first product listing though (while I was still unverified) and that seemed to go ok.

:crossed_fingers:

14

Wow. An EIN is a requirement I thought for Walmart. Interesting.

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We didn’t sign up with anything special to get this. I bet you will get assigned someone.

I bet you got one because you chose the really giant, huge number in the - how much do you expect your annual revenue to be - box. :wink:

OK… so Payoneer it is. For you and @TheOrangeCrush , how long does it take until you actually get paid? I don’t mean for the very first time, I mean in general.

Walmart says they pay out every 2 weeks. Once they ‘disburse’ (or whatever their term is), how long until the money is in your bank? It sounds to me (who knows little to nothing about these sorts of things) is that Payoneer is some type of holding entity?

So Walmart sends the money to Payoneer, and then if you want the money in your bank, you have to tell Payoneer to give it up, or pay them (??) to make a transfer, or is it automatic?

How long between when the money leaves Walmart until it reaches your bank?

Thanks to you both!

16

Instantly for us. Their reserve in the beginning is INSANITY!

First payment, they owed us $700 - we got $38.
Second payment, they owed us $2400 - we got $640.
They owe us a lot now. Next payment is next week.

I gotta be honest. I wouldn’t waste a ton of time setting up listings until you are certain you are verified. They are very strict about the EIN. I can’t believe you got all your check marks that you are good to go with a SSN.

17

Does nobody proofread anymore?? :roll_eyes:

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18

Our pay period ends at midnight on Saturday and the money is in our bank account by early Wednesday morning.

19

Weird. The $ is in our account before we get the email.

I know we aren’t special. Wonder why it’s different. It’s the same Payoneer.

I was wrong… They owed us $2400 and we got $268. lol So stupid. Too many numbers floating around in my sleep deprived brain… Went to sleep last night at 9am this morning. :roll_eyes:

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20

OK, 3 green checkmarks. Not sure how or why, since I think I’ve got wrong info entered somewhere but their system won’t let me change it. :laughing:

Now I have to work on shipping templates. Ugg… The help file says I can create up to 60, but the system only gave me the option of one. Their shipping template looks suspiciously like Amazon’s. I wonder which one came first and who copied who? :laughing:

This just came… I bet they wouldn’t want to hear about my experience. :laughing:

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