Selling on Walmart Marketplace: Requirements, Approval and Integration Options

Walmart Marketplace lets third-party sellers list products on Walmart.com alongside Walmart's own inventory. Unlike some marketplaces, it doesn't accept everyone: you apply, Walmart reviews your business, and only then can you set up your catalog. Knowing what Walmart looks for, and how you'll connect your store to it, saves weeks of back-and-forth.

Everything below comes from Walmart's own seller pages at the time of writing. Walmart updates its rules regularly, so check the linked pages before you apply.

Is Walmart a good fit for your products?

Before gathering documents, take an honest look at whether the channel suits you. Walmart shoppers are often price-conscious, so the questions worth answering first are practical ones:

• Can you compete on price after fees? Work out your margin per product with the referral fee and shipping included.
• Can you ship fast and reliably? Walmart measures delivery speed and tracking closely. If your warehouse can't ship on time today, fix that first or consider WFS.
• Is your product data in good shape? Clean titles, images, attributes and GTINs make setup far easier.
• Do you have stock to spare? Overselling across channels is the fastest way to hurt your cancellation rate.

What Walmart requires before you apply

Walmart's “Before you start selling” guide lists what you'll need:

• A copy of a personal ID for the person applying.
• A business tax ID or business license number. A Social Security Number is not accepted.
• Your business entity classification (for example, LLC or corporation).
• Documents verifying your business name and address.
• A history of marketplace or e-commerce selling. Walmart wants to see that you already sell online successfully.
• GTINs/UPCs from GS1 for your products, with a GS1 Company Prefix.
• A catalog that follows Walmart's Prohibited Products Policy.
• Fulfillment that meets Walmart's standards: either a U.S. B2C warehouse that can handle returns, or enrollment in Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS).

Make sure the business name and address on your application match your tax and registration documents exactly. Walmart's guide notes that tax ID validation errors are usually solved by entering details exactly as they appear on your documents.

A note on product IDs

Walmart asks for GS1 identifiers. If you've been buying cheap UPC codes from resellers, or selling private-label products without barcodes, sort that out before applying. Getting a GS1 Company Prefix and assigning proper GTINs is the clean fix.

What it costs

Walmart's pricing page says there are no setup, monthly or hidden fees for Marketplace or WFS. Instead, Walmart takes a referral fee on each completed sale:

• The rate depends on the product category, and some categories are tiered by price.
• The fee schedule ranges from 3% to 20%; many categories, including Home, Kitchen, Decor & Garden and “Everything Else,” are 15%.
• The fee applies to the total sale price, which includes shipping and other charges the customer pays.

If you use WFS, you also pay fulfillment fees (based mostly on weight) and monthly storage fees, which rise for items stored longer and during the fourth-quarter peak. Walmart publishes a WFS cost estimator. Run your top products through it before deciding between WFS and shipping yourself.

The approval process, step by step

1. Apply through Walmart Seller Center with your business details and documents.
2. Wait for review. Walmart doesn't publish a fixed timeline. Complete, consistent applications move faster.
3. Finish onboarding once approved: business verification, tax documentation, payment setup and fulfillment settings such as shipping methods and regions.
4. Add your items (see the integration options below) and fix any errors Seller Center reports.
5. Launch, then watch your performance dashboard closely during the first weeks.

Optional steps after setup include registering your brand in the Walmart Brand Portal (if you own registered trademarks), enrolling in WFS, advertising, and expanding to Walmart's Canada, Mexico or Chile marketplaces.

The performance standards you'll be held to

Approval is only the start. Walmart measures sellers against performance standards, generally evaluated over the last 30 or 60 days. At the time of writing, the targets are:

Metric	Target
Cancellation rate	2% or below
On-time delivery rate	90% or above
Valid tracking rate	99% or above
Seller response rate (customer messages)	95% or above
Late shipment rate	5% or below
Negative feedback rate	2% or below
Return rate	6% or below (9% for resold inventory)
Item not received rate	2% or below

Missing these targets can lead to warnings and, eventually, suspension. The most common causes are mundane: stock that runs out on Walmart but not in your other channels, tracking numbers that don't upload, and messages nobody checks on weekends. Good integration solves most of them.

Integration options

How you connect your products, inventory and orders to Walmart matters more than anything else for keeping those metrics healthy. There are three main routes.

1. Seller Center spreadsheets

You can create items in bulk by uploading a spreadsheet, including an existing listing report from another marketplace, and update prices and inventory the same way. This works for a small, stable catalog. It gets risky as soon as stock moves quickly, because Walmart only knows what you last uploaded.

2. A solution provider

Walmart approves third-party tools that connect your store or warehouse system to Seller Center. You can browse them in the Solution Provider Hub and connect approved ones from the Apps section of Seller Center. Many sellers already use a multichannel tool for other marketplaces; check whether yours is approved for Walmart before looking elsewhere.

3. A direct API integration

Walmart's Marketplace APIs let your own systems manage items, prices, inventory and orders directly. This is the most work to build, but it makes sense when you have an ERP, a custom order system or unusual rules that off-the-shelf tools can't handle.

Option	Best for	Watch out for
Spreadsheets	Small catalogs, slow-moving stock, testing the channel	Overselling, manual work, delayed tracking
Solution provider	Most growing sellers, especially multichannel	Monthly fees, how well it maps your product data
Direct API	ERP or custom systems, high volume, special rules	Development and ongoing maintenance

Pre-launch checklist

• Business documents, tax ID and address all match exactly
• GS1 GTINs assigned to every product
• Catalog checked against the Prohibited Products Policy
• Fulfillment decided: your own warehouse or WFS, with a returns process
• Inventory sync in place so Walmart stock updates automatically
• Tracking numbers upload automatically with a valid carrier
• Someone assigned to answer customer messages within Walmart's response window, every day
• Margins checked against the referral fee for each category (and WFS fees, if used)

Need a hand connecting the pieces?

Right On Tech connects online stores with marketplaces, from product feeds and inventory sync to order and tracking automation. If you're preparing a Walmart application or need your systems to keep up with Walmart's standards, let's talk.