Walmart Marketplace - Everything You Need To Know (About Product Uploading & Account Setup)

If you were invited to Walmart Marketplace and have decided to get your account setup, then your probably here because you've realized Walmart Marketplace is a nightmare. But that is why we've helped so many companies over the years get past the problematic onboarding process and straight to selling on the platform.

I'm going to go over different challenges our several hundred clients have all faced during the onboarding process. This should clear your mind of any doubt as to how things work, how things don't work, and what the solutions are to getting all your products on the platform so you can start receiving orders.

The Most Common Questions

1. How do I complete the Go-Live Checklist?
2. How do I get inventory levels added to my products?
3. How can I provide access so you can manage my account?
4. How do I run an Amazon "Open Listings" report?
5. What are my options if my products don't have UPCs?

These are the most common questions we hear daily for our Walmart projects. Our process addresses every one of these problems, and we have reliable solutions for them all.

Go-Live Checklist

When you first open your account with Walmart, they are going to require that you complete their Go-Live Checklist. This checklist consists of adding information to your account about your business like return policy, bank account information for deposits, shipping settings, tax information, etc.

You will also be required to complete a test order. Keep in mind that you will need at least 1 item added to your account to be able to complete a test order.

Fresh Inventory Report - To Go Live

Once Walmart has accepted all of your products through the validation process, we'll add inventory in bulk to each of your SKUs. We upload products with 0 inventory, so we have control over when they go live. Typically we'll run a new inventory report from your Amazon account or website's database, and then bulk match the latest inventory levels and upload. This is something that happens at the very end of the project.

Providing Access To Walmart

You can provide limited access to a contracted company from your Seller Center account. For instructions on how you can provide access, please read our Providing Access To Walmart Seller Center blog post we created with everything you need to know.

Providing an Open Listing Report

There are a few reports from Amazon that we may request from you depending on if your products are FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) or if they are FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) or both. Either way, please read our How To Run An Amazon Open Listing Report blog post we created with everything you need to know.

UPC Codes or GTIN Exemption

If you're bringing your product data from Amazon to Walmart, then there is a chance not all products will have UPCs. We can pull the UPCs out of Amazon's system only if they were provided to Amazon at some point. Some reasons UPCs are not provided to Amazon:

1. The Brand Owner uploaded the item with their "Brand Registry" account, which comes with a UPC exemption.
2. The marketplace retailer has a UPC exemption from Amazon.
3. The product pre-dates the UPC requirements (8-10+ Years).

You have a few options to keep moving your products to Walmart if the product does not have a UPC. These solutions are:

1. If your the brand owner, you can become a member of GS1.org and create your UPCs with your registered company prefix. This is the right way to register for UPCs.
2. Apply for a UPC exemption with Walmart. We typically don't see many of these approved. Amazon approves much easier than Walmart Marketplace.
3. Buy third party UPCs and upload using these codes. There are many services out there that offer UPCs (GS1.org registered codes). Keep in mind that if you buy them, then your not the membership holder, so the brand/company prefix is not yours. Many of our clients use an inexpensive service called (wesellbarcodes) dot com.

Duplicate UPC and SKU

If your data is coming from Amazon’s catalog, then sometimes there are duplicate SKUs and or products with the same UPC. In this case, we will need you to provide us with a new SKU and UPC for that uploaded item. This is just a limitation with Walmart’s system, not allowing us to re-upload the data after it is fixed.

Restricted Items

Walmart has a list of restricted items that you cannot sell. Pelican Commerce does not review these guidelines or your products to verify if you can or cannot sell them. So this means we complete a project for you, and the items are uploaded, then Walmart decides to restrict the items from being sold on Walmart.com, there is nothing we can do about it. So please review their restricted products article, Prohibited Products Policy, and Product Limitations for Marketplace Sellers.

Product Images

If your migrating product data from your Amazon account, then 99% of the time, there are no image issues when onboarding the products to Walmart Marketplace. However, if you’re moving product data from your Shopping Cart (Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.) and your product images are less than 500X500, then Walmart will not accept our file for validation.

Walmart makes it reasonably clear. Images must be at lease 500X500, have an all-white background, OR be a lifestyle image, and the product must take up at least 80% of the white space. There cannot be any logos, watermarks, and text in the images.

If your images are hosted on Dropbox or another file storage service, you will not be able to pass validation. The image link provided to Walmart must be a direct media asset to pass validation.

Read Walmart’s Product Content Policy

If you need help getting your product data bulk uploaded to Walmart Marketplace, then check out our Walmart Marketplace Setup Service and reach out to us today!