Marketplace Newsletter

November 2021 | View All

News & Announcements

Set Up Promo Pricing for Key Walmart Holiday Moments

Walmart’s month-long savings event kicked off this week and we’re excited to work together to help customers find gifts for their whole family! Prepare your catalog with great deals on your top-rated, must-have products for the next Black Friday Deals for Days event beginning on Wednesday, November 10 at 7 p.m. ET with early access for Walmart+ members at 3p.m. ET.

Maximize your exposure during the event, by setting Reduced Price promotional tags on items with savings greater than 10%. Promotions must be set at least two days prior to the event.

Stay tuned for weekly updates on upcoming holiday campaigns launching on Walmart.com and get your best assortment ready by following tips from our Holiday Checklist and Holiday Hub.

Set up promo pricing

Optimize Your Sponsored Products Campaign with Automated Rules

We’re excited to introduce Automated Rules, a new optimization tool that can help Sponsored Products advertisers manage their campaigns better and make more impactful improvements to their advertising strategy. Set rules on days with heightened traffic like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, to receive real-time notifications if your campaign runs out of daily or total budget. You can also set rules to automatically increase your budget if those conditions are met and receive performance metrics like ROAS, ad spend, and impressions. Rules can be applied to selective campaigns or all campaigns that share similar advertising goals.

Activate Automated Rules today to gain more control of your campaign performance!

 

Learn more

Special Offer from MerchantSpring

MerchantSpring helps multi-marketplace sellers monitor their catalog’s performance across each platform by combining key metrics into a single dashboard. Leverage MerchantSpring’s service to uncover performance issues before they arise and to analyze sales and advertising insights at the store and product-level. Plus, through December 31, they’re offering a free 30-day trial exclusively to Walmart Marketplace sellers so you can ensure your products continue to drive growth and produce expected results during the busiest time of the year.

 

Start free trial

Turn Browsers into Shoppers with Great Listing Quality and the Pro Seller Badge

Increase your chances of making the sale this holiday season with top-notch Listing Quality. Make sure your listings include detailed product descriptions, high-resolution photos, and expedited delivery options to boost your discoverability and attract more customers. Plus, great Listing Quality health can help you gain or retain the Pro Seller Badge. As a reminder, the new badge criteria went into effect last month.

Visit the revamped Listing Quality and Rewards Dashboard to see your current badge status and read through our Listing Quality Optimization guide for more recommendations on how to improve your listings and influence the customer’s purchasing decision.

Enhanced Item Setup Experience

We are excited to announce the release of a newly revamped Item Setup experience in Seller Center that will make it easier and quicker for sellers to navigate when adding or updating items. In addition to a more streamlined navigation with new “add” and “update” buttons on the ‘Items’ page, sellers can now view Walmart fulfilled and seller-fulfilled items all in one place, giving Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) sellers a more holistic view of their catalog and feeds. Stay tuned for more improvements coming soon!

 

See what’s new

Order Management Dashboard Improvements Coming Soon

We’re making improvements to “Past Order” reports on the Order Management Dashboard. Later this month, sellers will have the ability to access “Past Order” reports minutes after requesting to download the report and will have access to that report for up to 6 months. Stay tuned for more updates.

Get Support

Payments & Tax

Payment Fees

As a reminder, in accordance with our Seller Promise, our default payment method is “direct deposit” to your bank account with no fees to you, ensuring that you receive 100% of your funds.

Requirements for no fee payments:

  1. Enrollment with your payment processor must be initiated from your Seller Center account.
  2. Payment must be delivered to a U.S. or Canadian bank account that supports direct deposit (ACH).

If you are paying fees today and wish to change to “no fees payment delivery”, please contact your payment service provider (Payoneer or Hyperwallet). You will need to have your business bank account details available when you contact them.

Complying with IRS Mandates

IRS mandates require Walmart to ensure that your tax profile on file with us is accurate. To comply with this mandate, we are verifying seller tax IDs and legal names we have on file with the IRS, and we may contact you if your information cannot be successfully verified.

How do I verify my tax profile is correct?

  1. Login to Seller Center
  2. Select “Tax Profile” under “Settings” on the top menu bar
  3. Verify that your:
    • Legal name is in the Name field
    • Tax ID (TIN)
    • Tax classification (W-9, W8-ECI, W-8BEN) are correct.
  4. If the information shown is correct, please open a Partner Support case for further assistance
  5. If you made changes to your tax profile, you will be notified after the information has been verified

What happens if I don’t correct my information?

If after 30 days, you have not updated your information or opened a Partner Support case, your payments may be suspended until we can verify your tax information with the IRS. Further actions may include, but are not limited to:

  1. Collecting backup withholding on gross payments at the rate of 24%, as directed by the IRS
  2. An IRS-imposed $280 penalty for incorrect information if updates are not made before your 1099-K form is filed for the calendar year (penalty assessed each year information remains incorrect)
  3. Additional solicitations from Walmart to obtain correct information

Please refer to the IRS for more detailed information.

1099-K Reporting

As a reminder, the information on the 1099-K form you will receive in January of 2022, must be verified, and corrected in Seller Center by December 31, 2021. 1099-K forms will not be amended or re-issued if your information is inaccurate, and you may be assessed an IRS penalty of $280 as a result.

Carefully review the key information and important dates below to ensure you are not penalized.

2021 tax year reporting thresholds:

Rule Type Applicability Min Order Count Min Gross Value ($)
IRS All states 201 $20,000
State override IL 4 $1,000
State override MA n/a $600
State override MD n/a $600
State override MO n/a $1,200
State override MS n/a $600
State override NJ n/a $1,000
State override VA n/a $600
State override VT n/a $600

 

Important dates:

# Limit Date Activity
1 Dec 20, 2021 Review and update your tax information in Seller Center.

  • Tax ID
  • Legal business name
  • Legal business address

Allow 5-10 days for your information to be verified and potential follow up actions to complete.

2 Jan 5-14, 2022 1099-K sales reports will be generated based on the information on file at the close of 2021
3 Jan 31, 2022 Your payment processor will contact you via email with instructions on how to retrieve your 1099-K
4 Mar 31, 2022 1099-Ks will be filed with the IRS and Department of Revenue of the state corresponding to your legal address

 

Eligibility and Important Notes:

  1. Only sellers with a W-9 tax classification are eligible to receive a 1099-K form
  2. Reporting thresholds are applied to orders shipped between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021
  3. State given reporting thresholds take precedence of IRS thresholds
  4. Refunds are not considered: if you shipped 201 orders and 10 were refunded, you will receive a 1099-K
  5. Cancelled sales, even if shipped are not counted towards thresholds eligibility
  6. If you do not meet filing criteria, you will not be issued a 1099-K and will instead need to self-report
  7. Follow IRS guidelines
  8. Maintaining the accuracy of tax information used for reporting is your responsibility
  9. Amended reports will not be issued if your tax information is incorrect by the close of 2021
  10. 1099-K sales reports will be issued to you via your Payment processor (Payoneer or Hyperwallet) to your primary contact email
  11. Failure to maintain accurate tax information as part of your 1099-K filing may result in IRS penalties of up to $280 (IRS Pub. 1586)

Tax Profile Form

We recently made several important enhancements to the Tax Profile form in Seller Center and added the following enhancements:

    • Support for W-8BEN sellers (primarily from China and Hong Kong)
    • Ability to enter the company name and address in your country of incorporation
    • Ability to provide a reason for and the effective date of your tax profile change (this impacts your 1099-K)
    • Ability to upload supporting documentation to streamline the review/approval process
    • Verification of your tax profile with the IRS

Sellers can expect additional enhancements coming in January 2022:

  • Tax & Payment contact information:
    • First & last names
    • Phone
    • Email addresses (primary & alternate)

This contact information will be used if we need to contact you regarding verifying your tax information, changes to payments, or to send you 1099-K forms.

Summary of features by tax classification:


Tax Class.
Country of

Incorporation

United States Other Country Reason for

Change


Supporting
Documentation
TaxID Address TaxID Address
W-9 US R R n/a n/a R R
W-8ECI Country other than US R R O O R R
W-8BEN-E Country other than US n/a n/a R R R R

Legend:

R: required O: optional n/a: not allowed

 

Policies & Guidelines

Marketplace Enhanced Returns

We’re continuing to refine our return exceptions policy to lower your costs, improve customer satisfaction, and streamline your operations. Starting December 1, pursuant to the Marketplace Return Policy, all eligible items will be automatically moved to our Enhanced Returns experience.

Read more

Prohibited Products Policy Reminder

We want to remind you of our Prohibited Products Policy, which lists the types of products that are prohibited and/or restricted from the Walmart Marketplace. The policy is subject to change so please periodically review the page.

Walmart will remove any product listings that per our discretion may be in violation of Law, the Prohibited Products Policy, or any other Walmart policy. Please consult with your legal counsel if you have questions about the laws and regulations concerning your products. Note that corrective action may be taken on your account as needed due to violations of our policies, this may include suspension and/or termination of your account.

If you have questions about our Prohibited Products Policy or would like additional guidance, please create a case for Partner Support and reference code TNS.

Review the Walmart Seller Pricing Policy

We want to remind sellers that the Walmart Marketplace pricing policy is in place to ensure that customers have access to fair, competitive prices for products offered by sellers on Walmart Marketplace.

For all products, including products such as hand sanitizers, cleaning agents, face masks, etc., we require sellers to continue to adhere to Marketplace policies regarding price and advertising claims to ensure customer trust in Walmart Marketplace. Products that are priced in violation of the pricing policy will be removed. Please refer to the Pricing Policy and our Prohibited Products Policy for more information.

If prices change and the item now falls within the acceptable range, the item will automatically republish, typically within 48 hours. If more than 48 hours has passed and you believe your item remains incorrectly unpublished, please create a case with Partner Support.

Product Restrictions - Pre-Approval Categories

Walmart strives to be the most trusted retailer, having a marketplace that is inclusive, robust and compliant is one of our highest priorities. As per our Prohibited Products Policy, please be aware that the following categories require pre-approval from Walmart before a Seller may offer such products on the Marketplace.

    • Fragrance
    • Luxury brands
    • Software
    • Cell Phones and Accessories
    • Halloween and select seasonal products
    • Custom Content

Sellers may apply for approval to offer products in these categories by contacting Partner Support and selecting: Items/Inventory > My item is unpublished. Include a list of the brands or products you wish to sell. Approvals will be granted for specific brands or products within these categories. Please note that approval may be retracted if there are any legal claims related to products or if your products, or account are found to be in violation of any of our policies.

If you have questions about category restrictions or our Prohibited Products Policy, please create a case via Seller Center with the code “TNS”.

Security & Privacy

Walmart protects your security and privacy. We will never ask for personal information (such as passwords or credit card numbers) in an email. If you receive such a request, please do not respond to the email.

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