Walmart Marketplace is the most realistic second channel for a US private-label brand. The traffic is real, competition is thinner than on Amazon, and there is no monthly fee. But unlike Amazon, you can't just sign up and start listing. Walmart reviews every seller first. This guide walks through how to sell on Walmart from the application to your first 90 days, without the fluff.
To sell on Walmart, submit a Walmart seller application with your business details, tax ID, product catalog and marketplace history. Once approved, set up your Walmart seller account in Seller Center, list items with GS1 GTINs, choose Walmart Fulfillment Services or self-fulfillment, then drive traffic with Walmart Connect ads. There is no monthly fee; you pay referral fees per sale.
- Walmart Marketplace is application-based. A complete, verifiable application is the single biggest factor you control.
- There is no subscription or setup fee. Walmart seller fees are mainly category-based referral fees on each sale.
- GS1-issued GTINs (UPCs) are generally required, so buy barcodes registered to your own company.
- Fast, reliable shipping and competitive pricing drive both the Buy Box and the Pro Seller badge.
- Amazon content is a head start, not a copy-paste. Walmart listings need their own mapping and optimization.
What are the Walmart seller requirements?
Walmart wants established, trustworthy businesses, not first-week experiments. The exact criteria change, so treat this as a checklist of what Walmart typically asks for and confirm the current version on Walmart's Marketplace site before you apply.
| Requirement | What Walmart typically looks for | How to get ready |
|---|---|---|
| Registered business | A legal business entity, not just an individual seller. | Have your formation documents and legal business name exactly as registered. |
| Tax ID | A US business tax ID (EIN) and matching tax documentation. | Make sure the name on your EIN letter matches the name on your application. |
| Business address | A verifiable physical business address. | Use an address that appears consistently across your documents. |
| Marketplace or e-commerce history | Evidence you already sell online successfully, such as another marketplace or your own store. | Have your Amazon storefront, Shopify site or other channels ready to reference. |
| Product catalog | What you plan to sell, in which categories, and roughly how many items. | Prepare a short SKU list with categories, price points and GTINs. |
| Product identifiers | Valid GTINs, usually GS1-issued UPCs. | Buy GS1 barcodes in your company's name. Avoid cheap resold UPCs. |
| Fulfillment capability | A credible plan for fast, reliable shipping and returns. | Decide between Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) and your own warehouse or 3PL. |
| Category compliance | Some categories require extra approval or documents. | Check restricted categories and gather certificates, test reports or licenses in advance. |
Walmart has also opened registration to some sellers based outside the US in recent years, with separate requirements. If you don't have a US entity, check current eligibility for your country before you invest time in the application.
How do you become a Walmart seller, step by step?
Here is the full path from zero to live, in the order that actually works.
1. Submit the Walmart seller application
Start from Walmart Marketplace's “sell on Walmart” page. The Walmart seller application asks for your business details, tax ID, address, primary categories, estimated catalog size, marketplace history and fulfillment approach. Fill in every field completely and consistently. Mismatched legal names across documents are one of the most common reasons applications stall.
2. Complete registration in Walmart Seller Center
Once approved, you get access to Walmart Seller Center, the seller back end where you manage items, orders, pricing, inventory, performance and payments. Registration typically covers accepting the Retailer Agreement, confirming company and tax information, adding payment details, and setting your shipping methods, fulfillment centers and return policy. Take your time here: shipping templates and return settings affect your Buy Box eligibility from day one.
3. Set up your items
Walmart supports several ways to add items: one at a time in Seller Center, bulk upload through spreadsheet templates, or through an API or integration partner. If your product already exists in Walmart's catalog, you may be matched to that item page rather than creating a new one. For private-label products you will usually create new items with your own GTINs.
Write for Walmart, not for Amazon. Titles, key features, description, images and attributes all feed Walmart's Listing Quality score in Seller Center, which broadly reflects content, discoverability, ratings and reviews, competitive price and shipping speed. Fill every relevant attribute. Missing attributes hurt filtering and search.
4. Choose WFS or self-fulfillment
Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) is Walmart's answer to FBA: you send inventory to Walmart's fulfillment centers, and Walmart picks, packs, ships and handles returns. WFS items are typically eligible for fast-shipping tags that help conversion. Self-fulfillment gives you more control but puts shipping speed and on-time delivery fully on you. We compare the two in detail in our WFS vs FBA guide.
5. Turn on Walmart Connect ads
Walmart Connect is Walmart's advertising business. For most marketplace sellers the starting point is Sponsored Products, with automatic campaigns to collect search data and manual campaigns to control keywords and bids. Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Videos and display options become useful as you scale. Walmart's ad auction is generally less crowded than Amazon's, but it still rewards structure: separate discovery from proven terms, add negatives weekly, and bid toward a target return, not a gut feeling. Our Walmart advertising service covers how we run it.
6. Work toward the Pro Seller badge
Walmart's Pro Seller badge is performance-based. Walmart evaluates sellers against standards such as on-time shipping, cancellation rate, customer experience and assortment. The criteria change, so check Seller Center for the current list. You can't buy it; you earn it by running a clean operation for long enough.
How much are Walmart seller fees?
Walmart's fee structure is simpler than Amazon's. There is no monthly subscription and no setup fee for a Walmart seller account. The main cost is a referral fee, a percentage of the sale price that Walmart takes on each order, which varies by category. It is commonly cited in roughly the 6–15% range for most categories, but always check Walmart's current referral fee schedule for your specific categories before you model margin.
| Cost | Required? | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | No | Walmart does not charge one. |
| Setup fee | No | No fee to open a Walmart seller account. |
| Referral fee | Yes | A percentage of each sale that varies by category. Check Walmart's current fee schedule. |
| WFS fees | Only if you use WFS | Fulfillment fees based on size and weight, plus storage fees. See Walmart's WFS rate card. |
| Walmart Connect ads | Optional | You set budgets and bids; you pay for clicks or impressions depending on the ad type. |
| Your own shipping | If self-fulfilled | Carrier costs, packaging and labor, plus return handling. |
Run a per-unit model before you commit inventory: price, minus referral fee, fulfillment, product cost, freight and a realistic ad cost per unit. Our FBA profit calculator is built for Amazon, but it is a quick way to see your Amazon margin as a baseline to compare Walmart against.
How does Walmart decide who gets approved?
Walmart does not publish a scoring formula, so anyone who tells you exactly how approval works is guessing. What we can say is that Walmart reviews applications against its published requirements and its own view of seller quality, and that complete, consistent and verifiable applications give it the least reason to hesitate.
Tips for a strong Walmart seller application:
- Make everything match. The legal name, EIN, address and bank details should line up exactly across every document.
- Show a track record. Point to an active marketplace or e-commerce store with real sales history and healthy customer metrics.
- Be specific about your catalog. Name the categories, number of SKUs and price points. A focused catalog reads better than “everything.”
- Have GTINs sorted. GS1 barcodes in your company's name signal that you are a real brand owner.
- Show a fulfillment plan. WFS or a proven 3PL with fast delivery answers one of Walmart's biggest concerns.
- Check category rules. If your category is restricted, have the required documents ready rather than waiting to be asked.
If you are declined, read the reason carefully, fix what you can, and reapply once your history or documentation is stronger.
What is the Walmart Brand Portal?
The Walmart Brand Portal is Walmart's tool for brand owners. It lets a brand register with Walmart, typically using a trademark, and then report potential intellectual property infringement and help protect how the brand appears on Walmart.com. Think of it as Walmart's rough counterpart to Amazon Brand Registry, although the features are not identical.
For private-label brands it is worth doing early, especially once you see resellers or copycats on your items. You will need your trademark details. If you don't have a registered trademark yet, that is the first step; a pending application may or may not be enough depending on Walmart's current rules.
What should you do in your first 90 days on Walmart?
New Walmart sellers usually lose momentum in the first quarter by listing everything and hoping. A tighter plan works better:
| Window | Focus | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1–30 | Foundation | Launch your best 5–20 SKUs, not the whole catalog. Complete every attribute, push Listing Quality up, set shipping templates, and send a first WFS shipment if you use it. Register in the Walmart Brand Portal. |
| Days 31–60 | Traffic | Run Sponsored Products auto campaigns to find converting terms, then build manual campaigns around them. Add negatives weekly. Watch price competitiveness against other sites. |
| Days 61–90 | Scale what works | Expand the catalog from winners, shift budget to proven terms, work on reviews through legitimate programs, and track progress toward Pro Seller standards. |
What are the most common mistakes new Walmart sellers make?
- Copy-pasting Amazon listings. Walmart has different templates, attributes and content rules. Straight copies usually underperform.
- Ignoring price competitiveness. Walmart watches pricing across the web and may suppress or unpublish items it considers uncompetitive. Price higher on Walmart than elsewhere and you can lose visibility.
- Slow or unreliable shipping. Late shipments and cancellations damage your performance metrics, Buy Box chances and Pro Seller progress.
- Cheap barcodes. Resold UPCs that don't trace back to your company in GS1 data can cause item setup errors.
- Running ads with no structure. One big auto campaign and no negatives burns budget fast.
- Starting too wide. Fifty mediocre listings do less than ten excellent ones.
How does Embarc Consulting help brands sell on Walmart?
Embarc Consulting is a private-label-only agency with 10+ years of Amazon account management, SPN-registered on Amazon, and it now manages Walmart Marketplace accounts for private-label brands alongside Amazon. On Walmart we run the same operator-led, AI-assisted weekly process we use on Amazon:
- Weekly Walmart Connect ad audits: wasted spend, negatives, bids and budget pacing.
- Listing and content optimization for Walmart search and Listing Quality.
- Account health monitoring and inventory planning, including WFS.
- Readable weekly reporting you can act on.
If you are an Amazon brand weighing a second channel, start with our Walmart vs Amazon comparison, then see our Walmart account management service.