News & Announcements
Our Seamless Enhanced Returns Experience Takes the Stress Out of Returns
Get a refresher on Enhanced Returns to ensure a smooth return process for you and your customers. This seamless experience will help lower your costs, streamline your operations, and turns customers into return shoppers. Review a list of eligible item exceptions here.
Spring Fashion Trend Forecast: What to Know for a Successful Season with Walmart.com
In our most recent Sell Better Blog, our fashion experts reveal brands and trends our customers love right now and provide details on how you can optimize your fashion category listings to create a top-performing catalog.
Plus, you can fill out a form to let our fashion category team know if you are planning on bringing any exciting new products that fall under the same category of the trends we highlighted in the blog.
Optimize Your Shipping Strategies with ChannelAdvisor
In their most recent blog, ChannelAdvisor, discusses the benefits and strategies of optimizing your shipping settings using Walmart Shipping Templates. As a reminder, April 30th is the deadline to migrate your current shipping setup, but the sooner you get started the quicker you can enable fast shipping options such as ThreeDay shipping and get the benefits that come with it such as a Buy Box boost and a lift in conversion!
Temporary Change to Pro Seller Badge Qualifications
Are you on track to qualify for the Pro Seller Badge? Due to holiday carrier delays, we are temporarily adjusting the 90-day delivery defects rate prerequisite. Starting February 5th, your 90-day delivery defects rate will need to be less than or equal to 10% to qualify for the badge.
*Please note: The 90-day delivery defects requirement includes a 30-day lag following the Order Defect Rate (ODR) logic.
Give Your Catalog a Competitive Edge with Insights from the Listing Quality Dashboard
Take advantage of some of the Listing Quality Dashboard’s newly added features to improve the quality of your listings and give your catalog a competitive edge. Sellers can now use the dashboard to:
- Report incorrectly priced listings
- Read customer reviews at the item level
- View detailed information for purchased items with the new Post-Purchase Filter
- Items utilizing Shipping Templates for ThreeDay shipping will now improve your Listing Quality Score
Be on the Lookout for Seller Performance Standards Emails
In an effort to maintain an excellent customer experience, you will be notified via email if your performance does not meet Walmart Marketplace Seller Performance Standards. Our standards are measured by your Order Defect Rate (ODR) which is calculated by cancellations, returns, delivery defects, and customer complaints. If your ODR fails to meet the required threshold, you will have up to 21 days to improve your performance before action is taken on your account. Check your Seller Scorecard regularly to make sure you are in compliance.
New Information Required when Manually Filing Disputes
As you work through any lingering returns from the holidays, you may find you need to file a dispute. We recommend filing disputes directly from the Payments Dashboard in Seller Center—this means less manual work for you and faster resolution times for your cases. However, if you file your case manually through Partner Support, you are now required to include the Purchase Order Number and Purchase Order Line Number.
New Pre-Populated Item Maintenance Spec Coming Soon
Soon sellers be able to download an item maintenance spec that has pre-filled item attributes for up to 5,000 GTINs! Save time, effort, and get better visibility of item winning content on Walmart.com.
Learn How to Add Your Item Content Contact Today
Do you have a member on your team that manages images or product descriptions for your listings? If so, you can now designate a point of contact in Seller Center for all communications regarding item content.
New Catalog Reports Section Coming Soon to Seller Center
Sellers will soon be able to quickly download the Item (Catalog) Report, BuyBox Report, Promotions Report, and Return Rules Overrides Report in a new Catalog Reports Section in Seller Center–giving you the most current insights for your items.
Duplicate Items to be Removed from Item Report
In order to improve the accuracy of the Item Report, effective March 5th, the report will no longer list duplicate Offer IDs created for a SKU.
Payments & Tax
Statement Summary Now Available for Payment Settlements
View a detailed breakdown of payment settlements for sales, refunds, adjustments and other invoices in a statement summary format. The statement summary displays open settlement cycles, past settlements, and annual summaries (beginning with 2020).
Form 1099-K
This is a reminder that 1099-K reporting for sales shipped in 2020 started last month.
Criteria for 1099-K sales reporting (all criteria must be met):
- W-9 tax classification
- For sellers residing in all states except MA, VA, VT and IL:
- More than 200 shipped sales
- $20,000 in gross shipped value
- For sellers residing in IL:
- $1000 in gross shipped value, irrespective of the number of orders
- For sellers residing in MA, VA and VT:
- $600 in gross shipped value, irrespective of the number of orders
Critical dates:
- January 31, 2021: 1099-K forms are made available to you in electronic form via your payment processor
- March 31, 2021: 1099-K forms will be filed with the IRS and Department of Revenue of the state corresponding to your legal address
Important notes:
- Refunds are not considered: if you shipped 201 orders in 2020 and 10 were refunded, you will receive a 1099-K form
- Gross value includes: product price, shipping charges, sales taxes and fees remitted to you
- Sales taxes and product fees for orders shipped to marketplace states will not be on your 1099-K form
- A marketplace state is a state which has mandated Marketplace to remit sales taxes directly to them
- If you do not meet IRS issued filing criteria, you will not be issued a 1099-K form and should instead self-report
- Maintaining the accuracy of tax information used for reporting is your responsibility
- 1099-K forms will be issued by your Payment processor (Payoneer or Hyperwallet) as PDF documents
- If you meet the filing criteria and received payment via more than one payment processor, your 1099-K report will be split across both
- Failure to maintain accurate tax information as part of your 1099-K filing may result in IRS penalties of up to $270 (IRS Pub. 1586) and/or backup withholding of 24%
How you will receive your 1099-K forms:
- Payoneer:
- You will receive an email from Payoneer with instructions on how to retrieve your 1099-K for from tax1099.com
- Hyperwallet:
- Login to your Pay Portal
- Click Resources > Tax Documents
- Locate your Form 1099 under “Available Year End Tax Forms”.
- Click Action > Download
IRS Mandates
In accordance with IRS regulations, we are mandated to ensure that the entities receiving payments are the sellers operating on Walmart Marketplace.
Compliance requirements:
- You must have a W-9 or W-8 form on file with your payment processor to continue receiving payments.
- The information given to your payment processor must match the information given to Marketplace during onboarding
Actions required from you:
- Post a W-9/W-8 form with Payoneer/Hyperwallet using the tax wizard available in your account settings
- Update your tax profile in SellerCenter under Settings | Tax Form
Non compliance:
- Your payments will initially be suspended
- Payments will be released after a 24% mandatory tax withholding
- Note: Tax withholding will be remitted to the IRS; appeals/attempts to recover funds will need to be directed to the IRS.
- Your 1099-K tax filing may not be accurate and penalties/assessments due to incorrect filings will be your responsibility.
Instructions for posting your W-9 or W-8 form with Payoneer:
1) While logged in to your Payoneer account, please visit the “Activity” Section, then “Tax Form”:
2) Select the W-form appropriate for your status:
W-9 if you are a US incorporated entity
W-8ECI if you are a foreign entity registered in the US
W-8BEN-E if you are a foreign entity not registered in the US
Note: W-8BEN form is not supported as it pertains to individuals instead of businesses
To view instructions for updating your tax profile for Walmart Marketplace, please use the following path: Seller Center > General Settings > Tax Form.
Please review this Seller Help article for more detailed information.
Policies & Guidelines
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.
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- 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.
