Walmart Cuts Dropshippers From Ecommerce Warehouses

Walmart is clapping down on dropshippers as customers have received a long list of hoops they have to jump through to keep their products on the marketplace.

Don’t Miss

• Do you need a business bank account for your online business? Have a look at our review of the five best bank accounts for sellers, some of which are free with no minimum balance or deposits.
• Boost your social media engagement with Publer. Learn how you can save time writing engaging content faster with AI. ^[sponsored]
• eBay to compete with sellers now!
• New stamp prices and fee increases are coming from USPS on July 9.
• SMALL BUSINESS WEEK SPECIAL: Three tips for SMB ecommerce success in 2023.

“As you know, offering fast and free delivery is key to helping provide a positive customer experience on Walmart.com. To best serve our customers, we will be resetting all lag time exceptions. If you currently have a Lag time exception, the exception will be removed and reset to the Default Value.

“This action is designed to improve customer satisfaction and help you optimize your promised and actual delivery times.

“To launch this initiative, your fulfillment settings will be automatically adjusted no less than 7 days from the date that this notice was sent. You retain the capability to adjust your lag settings moving forward. Please note that any item with lag time >1 day requires an exception.

“What’s next:

“For most sellers, no action will be required by this change, but we recommend you review your shipping methods and processes to ensure you meet your promised delivery times.

“Review our Request Lag Time Exemption article to understand acceptable reasons for lag time extensions. If you were previously granted a Lag Time Exception, you may consider submitting a new request for approval if you think you qualify.

“If needed, you can create a case to request approval for a Lag Time Exception from Partner Support by selecting Items and Inventory > Request exemption > Lag time exemption request.

“With the customer experience in mind, we encourage you to prioritize providing accurate delivery information.”

Walmart Making It Very Difficult To Keep Dropshipped Products

On its website, the company is actually asking many more questions, which is why it appears they are trying to reduce the number of dropshipped programs. The company says you must provide answers to the following questions:

• What percentage of your total sales on Walmart Marketplace do these SKUs account for?
• What percentage of your catalog do these SKUs represent?
• Where do the SKUs ship from?
• Reason for requesting the exemption.
• If we reject your exemption, how will it impact your business on Walmart Marketplace?
• How many SKUs in each category will require extended lag time?
• How many days of Lag Time are you planning to add to the SKUs in these categories?

If you provide the necessary items as requested, the company may ask the following questions in a follow-up:

• Why are you requesting an exemption, and why you cannot support same- or next-day shipping in these categories?
• Do you have inventory in stock in your warehouse for the SKUs that require exemptions? Or do you source from a third-party vendor?
• Please provide up to three links to show examples of the SKUs for which you are requesting additional lag time (e.g., URL links to the item on Walmart.com or other platforms).

And it concludes the list by stating it will reject your request if you:

• Sourced from third-party vendors after a customer places an order. (E.g., you do not contractually control the third-party vendor’s inventory levels and processing times.)
• Cannot ship same- or next-day due to inefficiencies in your fulfillment network.
• On preorder or backorder.

It’s pretty obvious what is going on here. Walmart is trying to rid itself of dropshipped products, and that may have something to do with the company’s recent notice that it is streamlining its ecommerce operations.

So, if you rely on Walmart to dropship products, it may no longer be the best possibilty and you may want to find another solution for your products.

However, just today we wrote how Amazon is also reducing returns by trying a new program reducing returns. Currently in a trial, but dropshipping is becoming a huge problem for these retailers, and the big companies may not want anything to do with it, as they clean up their marketplaces.