Walmart.com Extension of the Iconic Brick and Mortar Walmart Stores

With the impact of the coronavirus on retail worldwide, more e-commerce businesses are looking to grow into new platforms to make up for lost sales. While many people are congregating to enormous marketplaces like Amazon or eBay, another often-overlooked marketplace, Walmart.com, is just as successful with a fraction of the competition.

About Walmart:

Walmart.com has long been an extension of the iconic brick-and-mortar Walmart stores. It is the world’s largest retailer, with $517 billion in global sales, twice as much as Amazon. But it wasn’t until 2009 that the Walmart Marketplace launched, and it allowed third-party retailers to sell on the Walmart.com website, complementing the current offers from first-party brands.

Membership in Walmart+ costs $98 a year or $12.95 a month (with a free 15-day trial period) which provides customers with benefits such as free delivery on a wide range of products. More than 160,000 products are available for same-day delivery.

Thousands of vendors sell on Walmart Marketplace, and it’s still rising. Walmart Marketplace is an important distribution channel for big and small vendors in the United States, with hundreds of categories.

A lot has improved since Walmart Marketplace’s launch as Walmart.com continues to expand (it saw 79% e-commerce growth making it the No. 2 online retailer in 2020), and online shopping becomes the standard for millions of Americans. Because of the enormous audience who visit Walmart’s website daily, selling on their marketplace can be a successful way to promote your products.

Walmart has over 11,700 locations and serves over 270 million customers.

Walmart has long been known for two core market principles:

• One-stop shopping
• Everyday Low Cost (EDLC) or Everyday Low Price (EDP)

1. Key Elements (4Ps) Of Walmart Marketing

Pricing: As previously mentioned, Walmart’s pricing strategy is based on the EDLP (Everyday Low Price) model. Yes, Walmart has lower prices and costs, but its high revenue volume allows it to earn higher profits.

Place: Walmart appears to use an intensive distribution channel design or strategy. Walmart Stores carry the same types of products and have the same tasks and obligations.

• Its well-organized fulfillment centers make picking up orders and deliver them directly to consumers.

• Walmart has enormous delivery trucks to make door-to-door deliveries efficiently.

Product: Walmart offers a broader collection of products in every category. Its products range from furniture, groceries, appliances, hardware, health goods, beauty products, wellness, sports to entertainment.

Promotion: Walmart places advertisements on its website and in newspapers. Sales promotions, advertising, public relations, and personal selling are all part of Walmart’s promotion strategy. It makes use of sales promotions such as discounts and special offers.

• Walmart uses well-known slogans that are associated with low prices. “Save money, live better,” “the lowest price store,” “everyday low price,” and so on are some examples.

• To promote, it employs a “diversified advertising media” policy. It covers everything from social media to advertisements television commercials, and websites.

2. Walmart Strategies To Boost Up Your Sales

Though you might not directly lead organic rankings on Walmart, there are a few things you can do to influence them. These include:

Win The Walmart Buy Box: Walmart held a buy box competition on the same day it launched its online marketplace for third-party sellers. It is essential to win the buy box to increase sales or conversions.

• Walmart’s buy box is gradually influenced by price (shipping + selling price).

• It ensures that if a few other conditions are met, sellers who bid the lowest price have a better chance of winning.

Good Reviews: Walmart takes a customer-first approach to its business. As a general rule, the higher the number of positive customer reviews, the higher the rankings and sales.

Provide Best Customer Service: As a seller, you must adhere to Walmart consultancy services or Walmart’s customer service and delivery arrangements. These will help you win the game. Otherwise, you face suspension. Here are several to keep in mind:

• Maintain an on-time shipping rate of 99% or higher. Anything less would cause your organic rankings to drop.

Make sure the product cancellation rate is under 1.5%.

Ascertain that the percentage of goods returned due to defects or damage is less than 3%.

Check to see if your 90-day Seller Rating is less than or equivalent to 90% favorable.

Ensure that 90% of customer’s e-mails are responded to within one day.

Ensure that each order file is verified and received by Walmart within 1 hour of its receipt.

Make sure that you use partner resources to provide immediate feedback on product details. This percentage must be less than or equal to 0.03%.