How to Sell Your Product to Walmart: Supplier or Marketplace, and Which to Ask For

A brand that wants to sell to Walmart usually means the shelf: the product in stores, bought by Walmart, paid for by Walmart. That is the supplier programme, and it is one door. The other is Walmart Marketplace, where the brand sells on Walmart.com under its own account, holds its own stock, sets its own price and pays a referral fee, the way it would on Amazon. The two have different applications, different economics and different odds, and the first decision is which one to ask for.

This is both doors as Walmart describes them, the annual event that opens the first one to small brands, and the way we advise a brand to choose.

A supplier sells to Walmart. A merchant decides to stock the product, Walmart issues purchase orders, the supplier ships to Walmart's distribution centres or stores against them, and Walmart pays on its terms. The product appears on shelves in the stores the merchant chooses and on Walmart.com as a Walmart sold item. The brand does not set the retail price, does not hold the customer relationship, and does not control which stores; it supplies a retailer.

Getting in is a merchant's decision, and the route to a merchant is the supplier application through Walmart's supplier centre, a category review, or the annual Open Call. The requirements are a retailer's: product liability insurance at retail levels, compliance testing for the category, GS1 barcodes, EDI capability for orders and invoices, the ability to fill a purchase order for hundreds of stores, and pricing that leaves Walmart its margin at a shelf price it wants to show. A brand that cannot produce the volume a regional test needs is a brand a merchant will not test.

A Walmart merchant is buying space on a shelf that something else already occupies. The question in the meeting is whether the new product will earn more from that space than what it replaces, and everything a brand brings should help answer it.

Evidence of demand. Sales figures, ideally from a channel the merchant recognises: Walmart.com, another marketplace, or other retailers. Reviews and repeat purchase rates show the demand is not a launch spike.

A price that works on the shelf. The retail price Walmart would want to show, the cost to Walmart, and the margin left for Walmart at that price. A product that only works at a premium price in a category Walmart sells on value is a hard case to make.

Something the shelf lacks. A product that does the same as three already stocked needs a reason to be the fourth. A clear difference, a gap in the range, or a customer the category does not reach yet is the strongest argument.

Packaging ready for a store. Packaging that survives a store, fits the shelf, carries the barcode and the required labelling, and tells a shopper what the product is from a metre away.

Supply that can keep up. Enough capacity to fill the orders a regional test and then a wider rollout would bring, with the lead times stated honestly.

Support for the launch. How the brand will drive shoppers to the shelf: its own marketing, its online audience, its advertising. A merchant prefers a product that arrives with customers looking for it.

A brand that can answer all six in a short meeting is the brand a merchant can take to the next conversation.

Once a year Walmart holds Open Call, its largest sourcing event, for products made, grown or assembled in the United States. The 2026 event ran on 6 and 7 October at Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas; applications closed on 3 August; submitting a product for consideration is free; products have to be shelf ready rather than prototypes. Selected applicants get a thirty minute meeting with a Walmart or Sam's Club merchant, and the outcomes range from a store test in a few locations, to Walmart.com, to an invitation onto the marketplace instead.

That last outcome is the point most brands miss. A merchant who likes the product and cannot yet justify a shelf will often say marketplace, which is a real answer and the beginning of a supplier relationship rather than a refusal of one. The brands that convert a marketplace listing into a shelf are the ones whose marketplace sales give the merchant a number to look at.

A marketplace seller sells on Walmart.com under its own name. Walmart does not buy the stock; the seller lists the product, sets the price, ships the order or uses Walmart Fulfillment Services, handles the returns, and pays a referral fee on each sale. The application asks for a verifiable business with a tax identity, a history of eCommerce sales, products with GTINs, and a fulfilment and returns plan that meets Walmart's delivery promise. Approval is Walmart's, on the business rather than on a merchant's taste for the product.

The economics are a seller's: the retail price less the referral fee, less fulfilment, less advertising, against the product's cost. The customer relationship is the seller's, the price is the seller's, and the scale is whatever the seller can sell. Walmart Fulfillment Services explained covers the fulfilment side, Walmart pricing strategy the price rules, and Walmart listing optimisation the listing itself.

The industry shorthand for the two doors is 1P and 3P. 1P, first party, is the supplier door: Walmart buys the stock and sells it as its own, at its own price. 3P, third party, is the marketplace door: the brand sells on Walmart.com under its own name and Walmart takes a referral fee.

There is a variant of 1P worth knowing by name. As a drop ship vendor, a supplier sells to Walmart, Walmart lists the product on Walmart.com as Walmart sold, and the supplier ships each order directly to the customer rather than to a distribution centre. It suits a brand with a wide or bulky range that Walmart wants online but not on shelves, and it carries the supplier door's requirements without its purchase orders for hundreds of stores.

The two doors are usually compared on price: the wholesale price a supplier receives against the retail price a marketplace seller keeps after fees. The costs around the price differ as much, and they decide which door actually pays.

On the supplier side. Retail level product liability insurance and category testing before the first order. The systems to trade orders and invoices electronically. Walmart's own compliance requirements for how and when orders arrive, with charges for shipments that miss them. Payment on Walmart's terms, which means funding the stock and the freight until the invoice is paid. And the risk that a product that does not sell through is marked down or delisted, with the brand sharing the cost depending on its agreement.

On the marketplace side. A referral fee on each sale, which Walmart sets by category, mostly between 6 and 15 percent. Fulfilment, either the brand's own or Walmart Fulfillment Services at its rates. Advertising to be seen in search. Returns, handled and paid for by the seller. And the work of running the account: listings, pricing rules, customer messages.

The cash difference. A supplier's large purchase order needs the stock made and shipped before any money arrives, often months before. A marketplace seller's stock sells a unit at a time, with payouts on a regular cycle once any new seller hold has ended.

Compare on contribution. For each door, work out what the brand keeps per unit after all of the above, and how much cash each needs tied up at once. The door with the higher price is not always the one that earns more.

Through the marketplace. 1. Have a registered business with its tax identity, and GTINs for every product from GS1. 2. Apply to Walmart Marketplace with the business details, your eCommerce sales history and your fulfilment and returns plan. 3. Once approved, list the products with complete attributes, priced to the rules. 4. Decide fulfilment, your own or Walmart Fulfillment Services, against the delivery promise. 5. Build the sales, reviews and share of search that become the evidence for the other door.

Through the supplier door. 1. Get retail ready first: product liability insurance at retail levels, compliance testing for the category, GS1 barcodes, and the ability to trade orders and invoices by EDI. 2. Price for a retailer, leaving Walmart its margin at a shelf price it wants to show. 3. Apply through Walmart's supplier route, or for Open Call if the product is made, grown or assembled in the United States, remembering that Open Call applications close months before the event. 4. Prepare for the merchant conversation with numbers, ideally marketplace sales, rather than a deck alone. 5. Plan the volume for a store test before it is offered, because a test that cannot be filled is not repeated.

A brand that starts on the marketplace and later wins a supplier relationship ends up behind both doors at once. That is a good position, and it needs managing, because the two can collide on Walmart.com.

The same item, two offers. If Walmart buys a product as a supplier item and the brand also sells the same item as a marketplace seller, both offers can appear for the same product on Walmart.com. Walmart sets the price of its own offer. The brand's own offer then competes with its biggest customer.

Decide which items go where. Many brands keep the items Walmart buys off their own marketplace account, and use the marketplace for the rest of the range: sizes, bundles and variants the stores do not carry. That keeps the two doors complementary rather than competing.

Keep the pricing coherent. Walmart compares prices across the web, and a merchant notices when the brand sells cheaper elsewhere. A brand behind both doors needs one view of its prices on Walmart.com, in stores and on every other channel.

Use the marketplace to test. New products can go onto the marketplace first, building the sales evidence a merchant needs before the brand asks for shelf space for them too.

Tell the merchant. A merchant who knows the brand's marketplace plans is far less likely to be surprised by them. The relationship with the buyer is worth more than any single listing.

Handled this way, the marketplace becomes the brand's testing ground and long tail, and the supplier relationship carries the volume.

The supplier door pays in volume and costs in control: a purchase order for eight hundred stores is the largest order most small brands will ever see, and it comes with Walmart's price, Walmart's terms, Walmart's compliance and the risk of a delisting that empties the warehouse. The marketplace door pays in margin and control and costs in scale: every sale is the brand's to earn, at the brand's price, with no merchant and no purchase order.

The advice we give is to start with the marketplace unless the brand already supplies national retail. The marketplace application is open all year, approval is on the business, and the sales it produces are the evidence a merchant asks for at Open Call or in a category review. A brand that arrives at the supplier conversation with a year of Walmart.com sales, reviews and a share of search has something a merchant can put in a spreadsheet; a brand that arrives with a product and a hope does not. The marketplace is also where the brand learns what Walmart's customer buys, at what price, which is knowledge the supplier door demands before it opens.

For the brands we run under Walmart marketplace management, the marketplace account is built to produce that evidence: the listings, the fulfilment through WFS, the advertising, and the monthly figures a merchant reads. The account's inventory discipline, covered in Walmart inventory management, is the same discipline a purchase order will later demand at ten times the volume, which is why the marketplace year is the apprenticeship for the shelf.