E-commerce during Covid: Why selling on Walmart is a great idea!

The short version: With significantly low competition and the attraction of reaching over 130 million monthly users, sellers around the globe should be looking to sell on Walmart, especially now. Owing to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, retail businesses accounted for more than 14.34 billion global visits in March 2020. As people are restricted to their homes, shifting to online channels is no longer an option for retailers.

Walmart, a leading e-commerce giant globally, comes to the forefront as one of the biggest online retail platforms in the U.S. & Canada. Since the onset of the pandemic and its recent partnership with Shopify, Walmart has also been inviting global retailers and accepting more seller applications. Here, we’ll shed more light on the reasons why you need to start selling on Walmart during covid, as well as the benefits of selling on the Walmart marketplace as a whole.

Convinced already? Take a look at these integration and migration solutions by CedCommerce- an official Walmart solution provider.

E-Commerce and the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic

Saying that the pandemic has changed the way we buy and sell things would be the understatement of the decade. Covid-19 and its outbreak have changed how we look at everything, from health, luxury to shopping behaviors, and buying patterns.

The shift has been so drastic that experts believe there is no coming back from it. While brick-and-mortar shops worldwide struggle to survive, the pandemic has proved to be a blessing for the e-commerce industry.

If you take a closer look at the way Covid-19 has spiked online retail, digital transaction, and no-contact delivery, you’ll realize that e-retail has become a phenomenon that is here to stay.

In the months the pandemic has progressed, retail platforms have seen a 6% increase in traffic and an 8% increase in conversion rates! These digits alone are enough to establish online retails as a lifeboat, which can take businesses across the choppy waters of the pandemic.

Why should you think about selling on Walmart during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

If you’re still wondering as to why we suggest you take your business online and start selling on Walmart, take a look at these stats:

• Visits to online retail websites grew by 1.53 billion in just three months, i.e., January 2020 to March 2020, and 23% of U.S. respondents said that they are making online purchases more frequently than ever before!
• According to a recent report by Forbes, U.S. retailer’s online year-over-year revenue growth is up by 68% as of mid-April. Also, e-commerce orders in the U.S. and Canada observed a 129% spike while all online orders spiked 146%.
  While, in one of their reports, Statista- the statistics and global business platform, mentions- “It is likely that this (e-commerce) sector will see further increases due to COVID-19, as many people choose to stay at home and amend their daily routines to avoid catching the airborne virus.”
• Right now, every business wants to get online, and those that are already online- want to get on the most successful channels out there. For the U.S.- this means Amazon and Walmart, the two biggest online marketplaces who enjoy millions and millions of virtual footfall each month.
• Although, Amazon has the highest average of monthly visitors-206 million per month, almost 1.5 times more than Walmart’s 132 million. However, the selection process and the significantly lesser competition make Walmart a lucrative platform, which, in several aspects, is much more reliable than Amazon. Not just that, in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2020, Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce sales grew by 35 percent!

All of these are tell-tale signs that sellers need to start thinking about including Walmart in their multi-channel approach or making a complete transition from a brick-and-mortar store to selling on Walmart.

Why should you sell on Walmart Marketplace?

Choosing the right marketplace to sell your product can make or break your business, hence going with a reliable marketplace is essential.

So if you’re asking yourself- Why Walmart? and wondering- What exactly are the reasons to sell on Walmart online? Take a look at these:

1. Selective and Exclusive Competition
2. Commission Model of Payment
3. Availability of Automation and Integrations (Third-Party Solution Providers)
4. Control over Policy and Pricing
5. Little to no requirement of individual efforts towards branding
6. Easy to win Buy Box
7. Intelligent Search Engine
8. Receive Insights based on your performance
9. Numerous Tags and Badges to improve visibility and trust factor
10. Quick Delivery and Pickup programs to promote sales
11. Sponsored campaigns can be used to gain inorganic traffic
12. Promotions drive traffic and are easy to set-up

Reason 1: Selective and Exclusive Competition

Unlike other marketplaces, Walmart takes the selection of its sellers exceptionally seriously. The application and vetting process required to become a Walmart seller is comprehensive.

The stringent selection process and the acceptance criteria ensure that only the most deserving sellers can gain membership to the platform.

The process narrows down the competition significantly from other marketplaces such as Amazon. Thus ensuring that the buyer isn’t overwhelmed with options before taking a glance at your product.

Another benefit of this practice is that Walmart ensures fair trade practices, healthy circuit competition, and Marketplace Integrity protection.

Reason 2: Commission Model of Payment

People often assume that the fees for selling on Walmart would be sky high and cost them a leg and an arm. However, unlike other popular marketplaces, Walmart does not charge a monthly subscription or has a fixed per product payment mode.

Instead, Walmart runs on a commission basis. Hence, Walmart asks for a minimal share (Depending on the Product Category) of its seller’s sales.

And the best part? You only pay when you make a sale! This sense of security and the “no loss-no gain” principle in action here makes Walmart all the more lucrative.

Reason 3: Availability of Automation and Integrations (Third-Party Solution Providers)

Probably one of the best reasons to sell on Walmart Marketplace online is the easy integration. Walmart has partnered with more than fifty Solution providers to ensure you get the help you need, be it Order Fulfillment, Listing, Content Development, or something else.

For example, you can seek a helping hand from a Listing Solution Provider, who’ll provide you with facilities such as Automated Listing (Bulk Upload) and Multi-Channel eCommerce Store Experience.

They can even help you out with any number of small operations such as keeping track of inventory cross-platform, auto-acknowledgment of orders, delisting when the stock goes below five units, etc.

Reason 4: Control over Policy and Pricing

Another benefit of selling on Walmart is the control you have over your pricing, promotion, visibility, and even policies related to- shipment, return, and refund. Thus providing you with the freedom to build a great business strategy with little effort.

The platform allows you the freedom to reject or accept an order after it is placed, approve or deny return and refund on a particular category and establish policies related to the visibility of sponsored and unsponsored content.

Reason 5: Little to no requirement of individual efforts towards branding

Walmart is a big, well-established brand with a great buyer base and a positive brand image; people don’t think twice before ordering from the marketplace. Hence as a seller on the platform, these benefits extend to you by default.

So no matter what you sell or how old/new your company is, you won’t have to bend over backward to attain consumer loyalty. Good service, quick shipping, and excellent customer handling can help you scale your business to unanticipated heights.

Reason 6: Easy to win Buy Box

Making sales on Walmart is almost synonymous with winning the buy box; both come hand-in-hand. However, winning the buy box on Walmart is no longer a mystery. You can quickly push your product with a few clever yet simple practices.

Opting for an integration solution that comes with an inbuilt repricing tool- like the CedCommerce Integration App, can boost your sales. The repricing tool checks winning Buy Box prices and manipulates your product prices (according to the maximum and minimum price value set by you), helping you win the Buy Box.

Reason 7: Intelligent Search Engine

Polaris, the Walmart Search Engine, is a smart, shrewd tool that you can use for your benefit. The catch is that it requires precise, crisp, and defining details of your product.

The Walmart search tool is a friend for any seller who knows how to create a great listing on Walmart.
Thus, if you keep your listings and SEO-friendly content, nothing can stop your product from ranking high.

Reason 8: Receive Insights based on your performance

With Walmart’s scorecard, you can get deep insights and analysis of your performance on the platform.

The metrics are essential for you to do well on the platform, and once you get the hang of Order Defect Rate and On-Time Shipment Rate, you can significantly improve your performance.

These metrics help in self-analysis and create an enormous scope of improvement that you can track instead of flagging or losing essential badges.

Reason 9: Numerous Tags and Badges to improve visibility and trust factor

Tags are a great feature offered by Walmart, helping any seller enhance their visibility and trust factor.

You can pick many tags from, such as- Clearance, Roll Back, Best Seller, etc.; these make sure that your product stands out from the rest and can even be a deciding factor for the buyer.

Reason 10: Promotions help you gain traffic and are easy to set-up

Setting up a promotional campaign or a slew of promotions can help your products fly off the shelf. Clearance Sales and Roll Backs not only incentivize the buyer but also make your product more visible.

The best part is- Promotions are the easiest thing to set up.

Reason 11: Quick Delivery and Pickup programs to promote sales

Another fantastic aspect of selling on Walmart is that you can use the lucrative delivery, shipping, and pick-up options to attract buyers.

Tags such as 2-Day Shipping, Next Day Shipping, Free Pickup with-and-without Discounts, Within a specific Time Frame, etc. attract more sales and allow buyers a sense of comfort as they can decide what they need quickly.

Reason 12: Sponsored campaigns can be used to gain inorganic traffic

Inorganic is a term people tend to shy away from; however, ‘inorganic’ isn’t always bad.

Investing in inorganic means (while working on getting organic traffic) can be a great option for a seller looking to divert more traffic to his shop/product as inorganic means increase visibility.

Walmart has a complete catalog of sponsored means that can easily help you push your sales. For example- Ads now allow people to buy the product right from the banner image!

What we’re saying is:

With the covid-19 pandemic pushing more and more businesses to go digital, you should seriously consider selling on Walmart. 

Apart from the aforementioned points, there are endless benefits of choosing Walmart over any other marketplace. So if you’ve been considering the digital route, we hope we’ve given you enough reasons to sell on Walmart during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Get in touch, and we’ll make the onboarding process a cakewalk for you.