The first step to achieving conversion on an online marketplace is having an active audience ready to shop and make a purchase—check. Walmart.com attracts millions of customers each month who search for their perfect match among nearly endless categories and products. The next steps are largely up to the seller: providing quality items and content, offering competitive pricing, and guaranteeing fast, reliable shipping.
Walmart Marketplace equips its sellers with all the tools necessary to achieve those important steps with helpful technology and processes. Read on to discover how few of Walmart Marketplace’s essential features—Item Spec 4.0, Listing Quality, and expedited shipping—work together to help sellers stand out and boost conversion.
1. Make item setup work for your product discoverability with Item Spec 4.0
Recently, Walmart Marketplace updated its 3.2 spec iteration to a new version known as Item Spec 4.0. With it comes a lot of new capabilities: enhanced data definitions, new and more specific closed list values, modernized attribute names, and greatly improved organization of attributes. All of these features work together to provide sellers with not only a streamlined workflow when uploading and maintaining items, but also improved item description pages that customers view. Setting up items correctly using Item Spec 4.0 can lead to better discoverability on Walmart.com and can contribute to a shopper’s decision to make a purchase.
One of the most important ways this happens is through proper attribution. With up to 40 required attributes for Marketplace sellers and up to 80 recommended attributes, Item Spec 4.0 is already set up to help sellers succeed. Attribution shows up in a few different ways on Walmart.com, and it greatly affects a person’s shopping experience. Whether the attributes are colors of a sweater, types of fitness equipment, age ranges of a toy, or flavors of a beverage, they end up factoring into the Walmart.com shelving experience and left-hand navigation. In other words, the way product pages are organized on the site starts with the attributes selected by the seller when setting up items. By ensuring proper attribution, you don’t risk missing out on extra impressions and clicks while customers are browsing and narrowing down their search results in your category.
2. Get actionable insights to improve conversion with your personalized Listing Quality Score
We want all Marketplace sellers to feel supported and prepared with insights tailored just for them, and that’s where the new Listing Quality process comes in. Thanks to an advanced algorithm weighing factors that can affect a customer’s purchase decision, each seller has a numerical Listing Quality Score that signals the overall health of the seller’s listings on Walmart.com. This exciting growth tool is designed to take the guesswork out of setting up attractive listings and to offer concrete, clear advice for sellers to help them succeed. The higher the score, the better, but if it’s low, sellers always have the opportunity to improve it (guided by specific tips found in the Listing Quality Dashboard).
The Listing Quality Score consists of four main factors: content & discoverability, offer, ratings & reviews, and post-purchase quality. A high-quality listing on Walmart.com will have clear Titles, Descriptions, Images, and Attributes (uploaded via Item Spec 4.0!), plus competitive pricing, convincing reviews, and expedited shipping options.
In the same way that using Item Spec 4.0 correctly can affect an item’s placement on Walmart.com, taking Listing Quality seriously can make a big difference, too. Top-notch item page content can help you gain more product visibility in search results, and detailed product descriptions are known drivers of conversion. For each listing, we recommend including at least four high-resolution product photos, a Description paragraph with a minimum of 150 words, and a descriptive Title with 50-75 characters. For more in-depth tips on this topic, check out the entire Listing Quality Optimization Guide. Putting in the effort to get your catalog in its best shape will pay off in the long run.
BONUS tip: Walmart Marketplace recently introduced the Pro Seller Badge, a mark of excellence given to top-performing sellers to help them stand out and drive conversion. Listing Quality works together with other factors, including cancellations and returns, to determine a seller’s eligibility. Learn more >
3. Win over more customers with expedited shipping
Once you’ve mastered using Item Spec 4.0 and optimizing your listings with the Listing Quality Dashboard, you can’t overlook an equally important component to your sales strategy: expedited shipping. It’s no secret that customers have come to expect fast shipping, and Walmart Marketplace provides a portfolio of options to fit each seller’s needs. Offering TwoDay and ThreeDay shipping is the best way to go when possible, because these speedy options are proven to increase conversion on Walmart.com. In fact, products on the TwoDay program see a 50% lift in conversion on average.
With the introduction of Shipping Templates, another recent improvement to Marketplace processes, it’s easy for sellers to customize their shipping strategy based on warehouse locations, shipping carriers, and items they deem worthy of TwoDay or ThreeDay shipping. For example, Shipping Templates would allow sellers to offer TwoDay on items that ship to regions nearby their fulfillment centers, while keeping ThreeDay or Standard shipping elsewhere. There are dozens of ways to customize Shipping Templates and optimize your shipping strategy to win more customers. Whether you fulfill your own items or want to participate in Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), there’s a way to make expedited shipping work for your catalog. Expedited shipping attracts customers and improves your Listing Quality Score, so it’s a win-win.
Let Walmart Marketplace’s solutions give your business a boost.
You’ve just learned a lot about Walmart Marketplace, but Item spec 4.0, Listing Quality, and expedited shipping are just a few of the features the company offers. In addition to providing internal tools, Marketplace partners with best-in-class solution providers, including Sellercloud, to help sellers reach their full potential. Whether you’re an existing Marketplace seller or would like to learn more and request to sell on Walmart.com, discover even more benefits from the world’s largest omnichannel retailer. When a quality seller partners with a high-traffic e-commerce destination, plenty of conversion is bound to happen.
