How to Create a Great Walmart Item Listing: New Secrets Found

Walmart Listing optimization is the one big key that you own. You, as a seller, can use it and boost your sales straightaway. 

The time of “All that Glitters is not Gold” is over for all intents and purposes. On the other hand, what sells now is the Whole Shabang. In other words, this means, the louder you create a show the more it is going to gather attraction. 

The Secret to retain is to Deliver. Period.

People will fall for your promises in the Listing of Walmart once, maybe twice, if you are lucky. But unless you deliver what you promise, people will not give you another shot in the long run.

Even though you create a big enough attraction through Walmart Product Listing, the challenge is to actually retain this attraction. And that is not just it. But transforming it into a big sales campaign and to keep expanding is more difficult than expected.

Thus, there are two types of Walmart Listings that you can learn about in the sections that follow:

1. Create a Walmart Product Listing: For new Listers.
2. Walmart Listing Optimization: For existing sellers looking to Boost sales on Walmart.

How to Create Walmart Item Listing?

1. How do you list a Product on Walmart?
2. List of the possible Rankings and Badges your Walmart listings can win.
3. What is Walmart Search Engine?
4. Six pointers to create Awesome Walmart Product Listing.
5. Questions you Should Ask: Bonus

Moreover, each section explains a unique secret for new listers and existing sellers. 

How do you list a Product on Walmart?

In case you are a new seller who is not yet an approved Walmart Seller, go through this section. Else you can skip to the “List of the possible Rankings and Tags your Walmart listings can win” section.

Firstly, creating Listing for Walmart is possible in the following two ways:

1. Directly by the sellers through Bulk Update
2. Through Third-Party Integration Partner: Automated Walmart Listing

Secondly, the process of creating a listing for Walmart involves the following steps:

1. Decide upon the method of Listing for Walmart you want to go with.
2. Create a complete Catalog.
3. Initially, Apply to become a seller on Walmart after which you get access to Walmart Seller Center.
4. After this, Log in to Walmart Seller Center.
5. Thereafter, fill out the Complete Item Specs sheet or let your Solution Partner manage your listing for Walmart.
6. At last, create SEO rich listings. To be specific, Create a crisp, attractive, Keyword rich description.

List of the possible Rankings and Badges your Walmart listings can win.

Just like any Marketplace, Walmart also has a method of Ranking and thus Promoting its sellers and their listings. 

Some of the known Badges that sellers can earn either directly or through Walmart’s Search Engine Algorithm are:

1. Clearance: When you want to clear out the inventory and bring in the fresh items through reduced price impromptu sale.
2. Roll Back: Sellers can lower or discount the price to encourage sales.
3. Reduced: When Sellers reduce the price just like they do in Clearance sales.
4. Base: It is quite a unique promotion technique. Here you can at first hide the cost of the said product. And then reveal it lastly at the time of cart checkout.
5. Special Buy: Use this badge to signify that customers can get this product at this rate only from Walmart.com. And nowhere else.

Apart from this, Walmart also distinguishes sellers depending upon their performance as:

1. Bestseller
2. New
3. Highest Rating
4. Sponsored Products (CPC ADs)
5. Only on Walmart
6. Price Shown at Cart
7. Price at Checkout
8. As Advertised

Adding to this, your listings stand out with these badges anyways. But under the category Big Savings, the customers can reach them without distractions.

What is Walmart Search Engine?

Walmart Search Engine a.k.a. Polaris is a search algorithm that Walmart engages to create a unique world-class customer experience. 

Like any other search engine (yes, it’s Google equivalent for Walmart), the algorithm brings exactly the item customer is looking for, to the top. 

But, the question is, if that is all Mr. Polaris can do?

Well of course not. In addition to bringing the right match, it brings the best match listing to the top.

It is extremely intelligent and employs a technology called Kosmix’s Semantics Technology. Further, the algorithm is called “Social Genome”.

It basically collects information on social activities pertaining to the particular item and consequently ranks them.

The Curious Case of Mr. John and Miss. Doe.

Thus, when a customer, let’s say, Doe, searches for a listing of “earrings” she gets a result sort on the basis of “Best Match”.

Following the search, Doe can now see all earrings available on the Marketplace. There are so many possible options for her to go for, that it is easy for her to miss out on the listing of our seller Mr. John NoLastName.

Even though there is a possibility, that Mr. John did everything right and created awesome listing. Since he satisfied Walmart Search engine Algorithm.

Hence, his listing will appear at the top probably the first. Now, as you have probably caught on the fact that Miss Doe is not a robot and human with likes and dislikes. All of which, together, accounts for her Buyer Persona. 

For instance, She is looking for a simple small golden hoop.

So she went to the “Filters”. As a seller you and our dear friend Mr. John, both know that Filters are a Friend and a Foe in one Package.

While Mr. John is indeed selling the hoops and ranking high enough, he made a mistake. 

He used a title that is not the best match for Golden Hoops, or he just mentioned the brand or he forgot to mention the “Brand” altogether. Additionally, he missed out on a few attributes. 

Whereas, Doe selected filters such as, “Gold Plated”, “Female”, “BrrLini”, “Between $10-$30”, etc.

And funny part or shall we say the sad part is John’s hoops come with all these features and much more, but remember the mistake?

Which evidently pushed out John’s listing from the search result. Or even if it’s not removed, it still lost its place and now appears on the second or third page, making his listing a no go for Doe. 

Score Board

Artificial Intelligence Bot=  01.

Dear Mr. John= 00.

Now, the question arises: How To Create A Great Walmart Item Listing and turn the Table around.

Let us start with an initial analysis of Doe, and John.

Six pointers to create Awesome Walmart Product Listing

So Mr. John found himself in a sour pickle. It was time to make some changes and win the game. 

Consequently, a very Intelligent businessman as he was, Mr. John connected with some experts and revealed the following six awesome pointers with secret tips. 

Thus, you can explore and learn from his experience.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

– Mr. Eleonor Roosevelt.

How To Create A Great Walmart Item Listing?

The process of creating the best listing is pretty simple as long as you cover everything to the best of your understanding. Additionally, keep in mind that listings should be done from both Walmart Search Engine and Customer’s perspective.

Now, without much ado, let us have a walk through the pointers:

1. Category and Sub-Category Mapping
2. Images perfectly complying with the Image Requirements.
3. Filling complete Item Specs with appropriate details.
4. Setting up items in Variant Groups strategically.
5. Aptly listing refurbished items without creating confusion.
6. Following SEO practices to help the Search Engine in helping you better.

What are Categories and Sub-Categories and how to map them better?

Coming back to our John and Doe story, what if  Doe had taken a different approach.

Say, instead of searching for earrings she had selected Jewelry and typed in earrings.

Meanwhile, Mr. John decided to list the Golden Hoops he wants to sell. Hence, the first thing he did was assign a Category to his product. 

So, Mr. John categorized earrings under Beauty to highlight the fact that his product can enhance the wearer’s beauty.

See how he missed Doe as a potential customer?

The Walmart product listings can be categorized by the 24 official categories decided by Walmart. Wherein, “Other” is also a category.

If you see that none of your categories best match the product you can always go for “Other”.

Same goes for a sub-category, for example under Jewelry, decide whether your product is, “Fine Earring”, “Fashion Earring”, “Baby Earring”, “Body Jewelry”, etc.

In summary, you have to choose the most suitable category and sub-category without getting overwhelmed.

Secret Tip

For New Listers, Walmart Product Listing:

Your listings are the first and probably the only way, to communicate with your customers. Thus, imagine you have around one second to best display your message and catch their eyes. 

And undoubtedly, categorizing correctly, itself brings your customers to your Walmart Listings the moment they choose filters.

For Existing Listers, Walmart Listing Optimization:

If any of your product is not selling as much as you expect it to, check out the category you have chosen for the said item. Update it if the need arises.

Remember, for categories, always focus on the Walmart guidelines and follow them to the T, for it is based on the Walmart Search Engine Algorithm.

What role do Images play in the optimization of Walmart Listings and their Sales?

Now, Doe, a 22-year-old college-going girl as a customer, would be very careful with her money. Would she spend her precious $20 to buy earrings in Mr. John’s Walmart Listing with an image like the one given below:

Thus, Mr. John made another mistake over here. He clicked a picture too artistically as a result of which, the main product lost the highlight.

Another mistake he made over here, was that he just added one Image and that is it. 

Additionally, for another one of his listing, he uploaded an image like the one below:

In the Image here, Doe would have a hard time understanding whether she gets all these earrings for $20 or just one of these for that amount. 

In order to clear this confusion, she would have to click on the listing or check out the title and description. Thus, not only the image here caused Doe to get confused, but it also reduced the chances that she will actually click on it.

Hence, taking all of this under consideration you need to be mindful of the following rules:

1. Click pictures such that they are well lit. Keep the background white and the item well exposed.
2. Avoid clicking images of extra items apart from the item you intend to self like the way John clicked a picture of all those earrings.
3. You would probably never do this anyway, but never ever upload a socially and legally unacceptable image.
4. Add more than just one Image, with one main image having a frontal view of the product.
5. Try and highlight the features of your product through other images. You can also upload an image of a certificate declaring the authenticity of the material used in the product or size chart. Some sellers also place the item next to a scale to highlight the length.
6. You can also keep the major focus on the item by cropping it aptly.
7. For the technical part image specifications with zoom-in capability involves:
   1. JPEG, PNG or BMP format.
   2. File Size not more than 1 MB.
   3. Images should not be black and white
   4. Square in shape with 1:1 aspect ratio, 300 PPI and 2000×2000 pixels in size.
   5. Don’t add links to images for other websites. Hence, they should end in .jpg, .png, etc.
   6. You can use images with hostings from other sites such as Amazon, Photobucket, etc, as long as they comply with the policies.

Secret Tip:

If you see the example of Mr. John, you will see how an image clicked too artistically made him lose a customer. Similarly, if you overexaggerate a product in the image, you are setting your customers for an unprecedented expectation. 

What they see is what they expect, and sometimes better. Thus, what you must practice is to show good and sell the best.

For New Lister, Walmart Product Listing:

Keep your images closer to what they really are. Do not use lights and special effects to create a cool impact. In case your customers buy things based on the exaggerating images they will be later disappointed.

“Worst Product Ever. Do Not Buy.

I was shopping for earrings with my mother and we saw two earrings. They looked perfect and we settled on it after hours of surfing. Three days later, when the product arrived, we were beyond upset. The earrings were much smaller than the images, and all the stones were coming off even before we got the package to open up. My mother, who has been always sceptical of shopping online now lost all her trust with it. And let us not even mention the verbal lashing I received. “

-Miss. Anonymous Doe, Based on a true review given by a disgruntled customer a world famous Marketplace.

This will reflect in your reviews. Apparently it requires a very great product to gain an excellent review, but very little triggers a customer to give a negative review. Thus you need to work smartly and sell what you have with complete transparency.

For Existing Lister, Walmart Listing Optimization:

If you already have your Walmart listings in place, please check out your customer reviews for all of them and see if customers are complaining about the product looking different in the pictures than what they got. Change images even if the color differs from the image.

Getting too many bad reviews can diminish your sales.

What is Item Spec and how to fill it up?

Item Spec happens to be the sheet that sellers have to fill out. It is mandatory for sellers to fill out each and every field of this very elaborate excel sheet. 

Mr. John has around 130 items in his catalog. Thus, when he decided to sell his products on Walmart he came across this sheet and tried to fill it up.

Since, his first choice, like everyone else, was to do it himself.

Initially, he filled all fields carefully. At first, he finished around 40 items and that is when he realized that it was taking too much time and filling all the fields appropriately no longer remained an option.

So what he did was nothing short of self-harm.

He started leaving fields and filling data without giving attention to detail. 

At last, when his product went live, and Doe searched for her earrings using filters, she could not see Mr. John’s Walmart Product Listing.

The solution to this issue is to let an expert help you out by automating your Walmart Product Listing. With this, not only you save yourself from the hassle of uploading a complete detailed Item spec, but you also get your Online store seamlessly linked to your presence on the Marketplace. 

“There is no shame in asking for help; it is one the most courageous things you’ll ever do and will lead to greater connection with those around you.”

-Laura Lane

This gives way for a perfect multi-channel store set up with little to no effort on your part.

Secret Tip

For New Listers, Walmart Product Listing:

The best time for Mr. John to take expert advice was at the beginning itself before he spent all that time and energy. All this time he could have focused on the selling and marketing strategies. 

Hence, take a lesson and get in touch with the right solution provider right away!

For Existing Lister, Walmart Listing Optimization:

If you are still doing the manual thing and getting not enough sales, maybe this is the reason behind it. Perhaps your Item Spec is not up to the mark?

Or is your stock running out in reality, meanwhile your listings are still active and not showing out of stock on Marketplaces?

Are you having difficulty in maintaining a seamless online multi-channel store?

If your answer is yes, to any of these, its high time you start letting someone make things easier for you. In the age of smart businessmen, don’t work too hard in the wrong direction.

What are Variants and why should they be a part of your Walmart Product Listing?

Remember how Doe was looking for Golden Hoops? At that time, she also decided to buy a pair of shoes that match the hoops.

Thus, she is now looking for Golden Pumps of a famous brand, of size US6. 

The attributes of the shoe she wants can help her easily the moment she clicks on a shoe of her choice. 

But the issue arises if the size she is looking for is not available in the listing.

She opened the link and three possible scenarios arise:

1. She saw the shoes and bought them. Once the shoes arrived, she realized it is not the best fit and she should have thought of the size (Based on a real incident). She got disappointed and returned the product, affecting Mr. John’s ODR.
2. She clicked on the shoes and saw that size is not mentioned, she will return back to another listing.
3. Or in case, Mr. John listed each size of the same shoe separately, then she sees one and clicks on it. Only to find that the mentioned size in the listing is not for her. She will return back again. Next time when she sees another listing with the same image, there is a high chance that she is going to ignore it, thinking it is the same listing with the wrong size.

These are some deep insights that John missed out on.

Hence, using Variants appropriately is extremely crucial. Do not overlook it. 

Also, just one important tip: Make sure you add pictures for variants of colors or patterns, since, our dear customers are visual loving creatures.

Secret Tip

For New Listers, Walmart Product Listing:

So before you end up with a mess of multiple listings of each and every Variant, make sure you merge them in one group and create just one Variant. Don’t you like to have options? How many times have you heard a customer say, “What other colors can I get this in?”. Well understand customer psychology better and sell better.

“These beauties (referring to Shoes) are to die for. I have been looking for it everywhere. My prom dress is deep green and it has white lace covering it in places. I wish I could these shoes in the right color and for lesser tall heels. What a disappointment.”

-Miss. Another Anonymous Doe, based on a real review for a pair of  to die for stilettos on another world famous Marketplace.

For Existing Lister, Walmart Listing Optimization:

If you have some products listed such that their Variants exist and you have decided to list them separately, club them together right away.

You have to realize that nothing better than a one-stop-shop with a multitude of options. With the given competition, if your listing gets a hit, it is smart to rope all the benefits this opportunity can bring along.

How to list refurbished items on Walmart and target the right audience?

When you see Refurbished items it never means used item. Items should be restored to a new-like condition, as per Walmart Guidelines.

The most important thing to bear in mind is, that you cannot veil the refurbished product by not mentioning that it is Refurbished and selling it as a new item.

The reason behind this is, that the customer will be extremely disappointed if the item bought thinking is a new item later goes out of order sooner than expected. 

That is exactly what happened with Miss. Doe. Really it did happen.

See, she bought, “Apple Beats urBeats3 Matte Silver Wired In-Ear Headphones” from Mr. John’s Listings.

You know how Mr. John can be. He for some reason listed the Headphone without mentioning that it is a Refurbished Product. 

Thus, no declaration of the Refurbished item, made Doe believe that it is new. She bought it and the item went under within 2.5 months.

Extremely angry from this incident, Doe went online and complained about how this feels like cheating. 

Thus never ever pass your item as a new one. There are a few guidelines you need to follow;

1. Just go ahead and write refurbished in the title and description, preferably at the beginning itself to get that out of the way.
2. Do not use the UPC and GTIN number, Model Number, and SKU for your products the same as the one for new items. Modify them with “R ” or “RB” to indicate that these are refurbished items. The reason behind this is clear. If you use the same identifiers then Walmart might link them to new items listings rather than Refurbished items’. then your Customers will end up like Doe.

Secret Tip

For New Listers, Walmart Product Listing:

If you have Refurbished items in your catalog, be transparent about it. It is a myth that new products have a higher chance than refurbished items. 

Lots of customers look for refurbished products, especially if the electronics are too expensive to buy in new condition and very popular to pass.

Just follow the right listing guidelines and save yourself from this kind of reviews:

“Do Not Purchase these Headphones from Mr. John

I saw the low price John had on these Jaybird X2 Headphones and knew it was too good to be true. Before purchasing I contacted him to make sure the item was not refurbished or used. He notified me that they do not sell items that are used or refurbished. Upon receiving the item they are definitely used/refurbished headphones. They came without the original packaging, missing eartips and earfins, no product manual/information and the two set of eartips that were included had earwax in them. Buyers stay away!”

– Miss. Yet Anonymous Doe, again based on a real review on a very real Marketplace.

Once your listing gets one or two of these, the item loses sales by almost 75% anyways.

For Existing Lister, Walmart Listing Optimization:

If you are doing what Mr. John is doing, it is better to modify your listing right away. The aware consumerism trend of the current times is not going to let your listing run safely.

What are the SEO considerations for Item Setup on Walmart?

If you remember the little piece about Walmart Search Engine in the section above this one, then this is where you learn about how to crack the SEO code. 

This is more of a conclusion of all that you have already gone through in the above parts.

Your listing needs to have the following conditions:

1. Images
   1. Always add more than one image. Take them from different angles. You can also add a background image where you show the item being used by a person or dummy.
   2. Zoom enabled images are extremely helpful. They give a better idea to customers and sets realistic expectations.
   3. Try to show extra through images. Such as, upload a size chart or a certificate to show your product’s authenticity, etc.
2. Product Name
   1. Mention the product name clearly.
   2. Do not use marketing words anywhere in the title.
   3. Keep the length between 50 to 75.
   4. Make sure you mention the most prominent highlights of the product such as brand, size, color or any other USP right here, to aid the Search engine Algorithm.
   5. Use Keywords.
3. Key Features
   1. Highlight around 3-10 key features clearly.
4. Description
   1. Use keywords properly in the description.
   2. Write a Precise and clear description, that would attract customers. Don’t get into the long story of your company and brand. Focus on the product.
5. Attributes
   1. Do not, under any circumstances, forgo the attributes. These make the difference between the sale and no sale. The moment a customer hits the filters, you lose listing position if you miss out on all relevant attributes.

Bonus: Questions you should ask!

What happened to Mr. John?

Well, Mr. John took all the necessary steps right away and improved his listings the best he could. He improved his sales by 9% and reported to have very remarkable and excellent comments from his customers.

What happened to Doe?

Doe bought all the things she was looking for and was happier than ever. She even recommended Mr. John’s listing to her college friends. They all left very happy remarks on Mr. John’s Listings. Many of them also re-purchased the items a few times. Now, when they go on Walmart and use filters, they choose Mr. John’s name in the lsit of sellers before trying other sellers.

If you also want to enjoy this kind of loyal customer base, start practicing the above tips immediately. If you need help to save time and focus on the business side of the sales, let the experts handle all the involved technicalities.

What is the score now?

Score Board

Artificial Intelligence Bot=  01.

Dear Mr. John= 01.

It looks like a Win-Win situation.

For more on how to sell on Walmart check out:

1. If you are interested then find out, “How to sell on Walmart Marketplace: A Complete Guide”
2. How to build a successful eCommerce business on Walmart Canada?
3. How to advertise on Walmart[Sponsored Ads]: Get Targeted Traffic?