Walmart Fulfillment Services = A Game Changer

Walmart will be opening four new state-of-the-art fulfillment centers over the next three years. Combined with its existing 210 distribution centers and 4,700 brick-and-mortar stores, Walmart will now be able to reach 95% of the U.S. population with next-day or two-day shipping and offer same-day delivery to 80% of the U.S. population.

Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) offer free two-day shipping on orders over $35 without a yearly membership fee. Imagine Amazon without Prime. With the new fulfillment centers coming online over the next three years, Walmart is positioning itself to better compete with the successful Fulfillment by Amazon service.

Independently handling order fulfillment and inventory management is challenging for most eCommerce sellers due to the need for warehouse space and personnel. This is especially true for smaller and international sellers for whom managing warehouse space prices them out of the market. These sellers have been successful with Fulfillment by Amazon and now have another marketplace option. Walmart is also more attractive to high volume, direct sourcing, experienced sellers with these changes. As Walmart scales to handle the capacity from the new sellers entering their marketplace, they will likely double if not triple in size.

Walmart shoppers will soon have access to an increase in products and brands available on the marketplace with faster delivery and lower shipping costs. Ultimately this will be good for brands that can now reach more customers cost-effectively.

However, as more third-party sellers enter the Walmart marketplace, brand management will become increasingly important on that platform. At POTOO Solutions, our eCommerce experts understand brand management on all the major eCommerce marketplaces worldwide and are ready for the influx of sellers coming to Walmart.