How did you get to sell on Walmart? i applied multiple times and never get an answer
sorry i know this is off topic
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For us, we reached out to @doilyboutique444 and asked about it. She shared the path she took and that helped us quite a bit.
We then applied. They were interested only since we had our own brand websites, owned our own UPC’s (yes that is a thing), and had over 10 years on Amazon with a good reputation.
They did an onboarding phone call, the key takeaway from that was they wanted to know how our brand websites were doing, how our Amazon sales were doing, and again asked about us having UPC’s. They would have been happy with rented UPC’s but wanted to make sure we had them.
They also wanted to know the quantity of products (SKU’s) we would be listing. For us it was over 1K, they were happy with that.
Accepted in about one week after application.
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We were recruited in Nov of 2022. Signed up in Jan of 23. One of their business development managers found us on Amazon and reached out through our company website.
The recruiter was persistent so we took a chance. Was worth it.
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I was just gonna say that ASV seems to really have a handle on all things Walmart so much more than I do.
I stumbled along a few years ago and got accepted.
And I still feel like I stumble through Walmart.
But there are sales and it’s not as strong as Amazon, but I get sales.
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We’re at 11% Walmart : Amazon in 2023. Not as strong is right. Slightly above our expectations and we really didn’t get going on Amazon until Aprilish 2023 so annual numbers aren’t a fair comparison. The real “lately” trend is somewhere ~14%.
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so that made me look.
I’m at 35%… If Amazon is $100K, Walmart is $35K.
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That’s a strong percentage. That’s WAY above the avg.
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Is that how you’re doing the math too to get to your percentage?
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I don’t think there’s any other way to do it. 
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@Thethe it was a little off topic for @ASV_Vites topic but such a good question that you get your own topic! Thank you 
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I started just after they took over the jet.com platform. I can’t remember the exact time, but they eventually opened up applications instead of doing invite only like they did with Jet. I can’t say how it is now, but they certainly asked for a lot more documentation than all the other platforms.
Did you submit all the required documents including a D&B number? Not having a D&B number was an automatic disqualifier when I got started.
Good Luck,
TJB
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Good point, I forgot abut that, they did require that when we applied.
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I heard a rumor back in 2022 that they were letting handmade sellers in. I did get approved but without a upc I can’t list things individually on the website. I do have some sort of waiver that will let me upload provided I do it by a spreadsheet. I don’t really want to learn something new.
Every so often they email me offering to show me how to import everything from Etsy using spreadsheets and I explain to them I don’t want to do it like that because everything on Etsy is made when ordered and I’d prefer till I get the hang of things to only offer already made items on Walmart.
So I just don’t sell on Walmart. Every once in awhile they email me asking when I will start listing items and I respond back that as soon as you can make it where I can list an item without a spreadsheet I will upload items and I get no response.
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You’re not kidding… Literally took 6 weeks to list our items and that was with a lot of help from the very helpful “Incubator” manager that they provided.
I couldn’t list another item on there if I tried right now and the incubator has hatched, flown the coop, and moved onto other accounts…
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Just curious, do other sellers not have the ability to do the “add items” option which is pretty similar to Amazon where you can just plug in your information into their template to create the listing? I’ve never used the spreadsheet method on Walmart but given the rest of their interface I can imagine how difficult it would be to work with.
TJB
So they gave you a fish instead of teaching you how to fish eh?
Or is it really just that unmanageable without a 3P solution?
Yes, Walmart has a simple listing creation process like Amazon does. The problem in my case is the category we sell in.
They have image hosting requirements for the supplement fact / nutrition fact / drug fact panels.
Their own hosting site failed and I couldn’t get anything to work from the other options. Tried every day for more than 6 weeks while going back and forth with the incubator.
What ended up happening is the incubator just did it somehow. Came to find out now that he did this by linking to our Amazon image which is pretty funny.
That’s something I assume I could do if we were to add new listings to Walmart. It’s just silly how they do some things there. Very old fashioned.
It was with your encouragement that I learned more.
Spreadsheets…you have to have a more recent version of Excell. Mine is 2019. Google Sheets and older versions won’t work.
Image hosting…I use Imgur. They provide external links for different purposes. ONE of those works. I always have to look at an old spreadsheet to see which version, or I have to try a few times before I remember which one it is. I only use that for the main image – which can be ANY image. Once the listing is created, I go back and add the rest and move them around.
When I got started, I hit a brick wall and could not figure out how to get going either. It ended up being something about a shipping template being assigned to the account. So I hired “Co-Merchant” for their smallest package deal for a year. By the end of that year, I had fumbled and stumbled around enough on Walmart to basically feel comfortable discontinuing their services.
In the mean time, Walmart did improve as well AND I learned to navigate around better, and got a faster computer and the right software.
UPC Codes…all of my handcrafted items have UPC Codes assigned. @Image gave me a good source and I’m hoping that they all stand the test of time. I’m getting to the end of those and will need to buy more soon…so a certificate of authenticity is what I’ll be looking for or I’ll have to break down and buy directly from GS1.
One thing I noticed in that first year is that Walmart uses the UPC codes to check pricing over at Walmart. There’s one report that I could download and it gives the link to the “comparable item” for pricing and that’s always an Amazon link. Oh yea, I don’t recommend using an Amazon item for reference…try to keep them separated.
So NOW…and I have been told this is not legal…I assign one set of UPC codes to Amazon, and a different set to Walmart listings HOPING that the computer doesn’t compare the two.
I got suspended by Walmart when I shut down too much because I was recovering from COVID. (They said duplicate tracking numbers and then invalid tracking numbers then silence, so there was no real answer) Had to hire someone to get my account back. We talked alot about Amazon, Walmart etc…and he said that it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to change a UPC Code on an item once the listing is created (at Walmart), but it is possible.
There is an option to “add item” – but if you have a waiver for a part of it (like UPC Code), then you probably HAVE to do a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are not extremely hard but they are a learning curve.
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Why would this not be legal? Brand owners can assign whatever owned UPC they want to their product. The products sold at costco have UPCs on them that aren’t used anywhere else because those are costco specific UPCs/bundles that the manufacturer assigned just for that purpose.
Have you tried using Libre Office? I’ve used it for uploads on Amazon without issues. It’s free, pretty close to Excel and you can set the default save format (xlsm I believe they require). I bought MS office and found I preferred Libre Office.
Good Luck,
TJB
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