Walmart provides discount plan, pricing tool to third-party sellers

Walmart is offering more incentives to retailers participating in its third-party seller platform.

The discount giant is launching a program on Walmart Marketplace called New-Seller Savings. The limited-time offer grants new sellers based in the U.S. up to a 25% commission rate reduction for 90 days when trying Walmart Marketplace’s tools and services including up to 25% off referral fees.

The program also offers up to a 25% commission rate reduction for 90 days when trying features such as Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), a fee-based program provides a wide array of services, including storing, picking, packing and shipping, along with the handling of returns and customer service. Reduced commissions are also available for sponsored search ads delivered through the Walmart Connect retail media platform. 

In addition, New-Seller Savings offers limited-time lower commission rates for Walmart Marketplace Repricer, a tool that helps sellers automatically manage and adjust their pricing in response to price activity both on Walmart and on other e-commerce sites. The company also says it is speeding up the onboarding process for sellers.

In Walmart’s third quarter fiscal 2023 earnings report issued in November 2022, the retailer announced that its Marketplace SKU inventory had increased by 50% to 370 million SKUs, with more being added each day. According to Walmart, it onboarded 8,000 new sellers in the third quarter, and is actively recruiting more sellers to fulfill orders from the 118 million customers on average who visit the Walmart.com e-commerce site each month. Walmart data indicates that 73% of its customers prefer shopping through multiple channels.

[Read more: Walmart Q3 smashes estimates fueled by strong grocery sales; lifts outlook]

Walmart is giving third-party retailers more reasons to participate in Walmart Marketplace as chief rival Amazon actively assists third-party retailers (primarily small-to-medium-sized businesses) to sell on its Amazon Marketplace e-commerce platform with at least 150 tools and services. 

“Our New Year’s resolution is simple: To be our customers’ number-one shopping destination and the preferred easy-to-use, low cost and profitable platform for sellers of all sizes,” said Manish Joneja, senior VP, Walmart U.S. Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Services, in a corporate blog post. “That’s why we’re giving new sellers an extra boost to get their products in front of our customers. Our New-Seller Savings offer is packed with incentives and benefits to support new sellers based in the U.S. as they launch on Marketplace – and help them achieve their own New Year’s goals in the process.

Based in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart operates more than 10,500 stores and clubs under 46 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites.