In a novel move to boost its marketplace business ahead of the holiday season, Walmart announced that it will offer marketplace sellers its services to handle the transportation of their goods from Asia directly to its United States-based warehouses, as well as fulfil orders and manage returns from any e-commerce website.
Walmart’s marketplace division has grown to be a significant source of income as it tries to catch up to Amazon in managing sales of third parties. The announcements from the biggest retailer in the world come after it sold its interest in Chinese e-commerce company JD.com.
Walmart appears to be trying to manage a larger portion of its third-party business internally based on its efforts. In addition, the venture will waive peak-season storage fees for third-party sellers who send their inventory to its fulfilment centres by September 30 and provide cash advances to qualified sellers.
These programs are intended to help sellers meet the demand for holiday shopping and get ready for Walmart sales events. They were unveiled during Walmart’s annual Marketplace Seller Summit. In the past, these occasions have always fallen on October 1, which is Amazon Prime Day.
Walmart has aggressively added sellers, primarily from China, to its Walmart.com marketplace over the past year. In order to fulfil orders and promote their products on Walmart.com, the retailer incentivizes these sellers, who are typically independent stores or small businesses, to use its delivery network or Walmart Fulfillment Services.
Walmart reported that sales through its marketplace have climbed by more than 30% in each of the last four quarters. This has helped the company’s global e-commerce sales surpass USD 100 billion in sales last year.
As per Marketplace Pulse, a research firm, Walmart boasts of over 100,000 active sellers and over 420 million products on its marketplace, with over 33% of these sellers based in China. Nevertheless, it still lags behind Amazon, which has over two million active sellers.
Additionally, Walmart declared that vendors could use its fulfilment service to ship orders to customers at an average of 15% less expensive than rivals, though it did not specify which rivals. It also provided a service to manage the direct shipment of goods from Asian ports of origin to its United States-based warehouses for third-party sellers.