We are selling vinyl records (buying wholesale, all new and licensed) —mostly limited and exclusive stock—across multiple platforms including Amazon FBA and Shopify (with MCF integration). Due to the nature of our product, it’s not profitable for us to ship everything directly from prep center, nor can we evenly split the limited stock across platforms.
Our current strategy involves shipping all our stock to Amazon FBA, then fulfilling a small percentage (roughly 10-20% of our sales) from other platforms via MCF. This works well for Shopify. However, when it comes to Walmart, we’re facing a major integration issue.
Even if we block Amazon Logistics from handling MCF orders, our USPS tracking information still displays Amazon as the shipping partner. This discrepancy is causing issues with Walmart, and we’re concerned about the potential risk of account termination.
Has anyone found a reliable solution to ship out Walmart orders via MCF without the shipping integration conflicts we’re currently experiencing? Any advice, alternative workflows, or tools that might help us seamlessly manage Walmart orders would be greatly appreciated.
Have you looked into Veeqo? It’s owned by Amazon but is kind of a stand alone setup that can integrate other selling platforms with self fulfillment (buy labels from Amazon) or MCF. It can also track your inventory across multiple selling platforms based on your FBA inventory.
I can’t 100% tell you that it will solve your problems as things may have changed but it did work when I was using Veeqo with Walmart a few years ago.
Yes, tried this integration and the problem is exactly the same as shipping directly through MCF. Amazon is listed as a “Shipping Partner” in the USPS tracking information and Walmart really doesn’t like that.
The fundamental issue is that with MCF, Amazon is shipping your stuff. No matter what interface you use to create the order, its still going to be an order from Amazon. You would need to change what shows on the USPS tracking information, and that doesn’t sound like something that can be done using a different integration solution.
Of course, I completely understand this, which is why I decided to post on the forum, because searching on my own has hit a dead end.
Given the complexity of the issue, I’m not asking for a recommendation for an integration platform, but rather strategies and workarounds that may have helped. I’ve remotely heard something like entering a transit tracking number into Walmart’s system rather than the actual tracking number, but I’m not entirely sure how that’s supposed to work.
Do Walmart orders shipped via Amazon MCF, ship in Amazon-branded shipping packaging?
Walmart is cracking down on post-order online arbitrage (OA) dropshipping from Amazon, so it might be that any previous workarounds no longer work when customers report their Walmart orders arriving in Amazon packages–no matter what shipping/tracking shows.
Plus, Walmart wants you to use WFS instead of Amazon MCF, of course.
So smart! Then yes, in your case it comes down to Walmart being unable to differentiate–perhaps because Amazon does not–what items are shipped via FBA MCF and as FBA orders.
And I personally don’t have a solution, but I hope a fellow Walmart Seller offers one soon.
You’re not a Seller who is trying to dupe a Walmart customer; you are a business using a non-prohibited service provider to improve delivery times and your business’s efficiency.
MCF offers the option of fulfilling orders (for a fee) in non-branded boxes, so you can fill orders from other channels with them. It generally works pretty well for your own website, but as @profugocreator has mentioned, the tracking is still an Amazon tracking number and this annoys Walmart.
There is no way to get Amazon to use a different tracking format that doesn’t come up as Amazon tracking. The only option I can think of is to obfuscate the tracking somehow, and I have no idea how to do that, much less do it without violating Walmart’s policies.
Are you saying that the USPS or UPS tracking numbers “show” they were created by Amazon? Or are you saying that Amazon is using Amazon-dudes to deliver MCF?
Last time I looked, we could choose (for an extra fee) non-Amazon carrier.
As shown in the screenshot, Walmart (or the customer) received USPS tracking numbers as the carrier for these orders. USPS was the shipping partner we selected for these shipments through Amazon MCF. However, Amazon is still listed as the shipping partner, which has caused frustration with Walmart.
Any reference to “Amazon” in the tracking updates likely reflects Amazon’s internal operations when transferring stock to USPS for final delivery. This does not involve Amazon Logistics (TBA tracking). The final-mile delivery was completed by USPS. However, despite this, our disputes have been unsuccessful.
Interestingly, I just read through all the terms of Walmart marketplace sellers (yes it took more than a day) and as I read the terms, you just can’t have an Amazon van pulling up to someone’s house to deliver.
Rarely does Amazon use UPS anymore for MCF but UPSs tracking does not show the origin facility by name. Here’s an example of one we have in process now.
I wonder if this is because Amazon only uses USPS for the last mile? I don’t think FBM tracking numbers show “Shipping Partner: Amazon” At least they didn’t last time I looked, but that may have changed.
Do Walmart orders shipped via Amazon MCF, ship in Amazon-branded shipping packaging?
