Online shopping becomes extra exciting with huge discounts and exclusive deals, right? Without a doubt, customers will start pouring in once they see low prices and markdowns. That’s why we can gain significant traffic by offering these promotions in our dropshipping stores.
To achieve this, Walmart is our best supplier choice that offers everyday online perks. As the world’s largest retail chain of discount stores, Walmart offers lots of deals that customers will love. In return, we can earn substantial profit margins by sourcing from Walmart.
So, are you ready to learn how Walmart dropshipping works? Heads up, as we’ll discover the benefits of working with Walmart as our dropshipping supplier. Plus, this guide will run us through the step by the step process of establishing a Walmart dropshipping business.
What Is Walmart Dropshipping & How Does It Work?
Primarily, dropshipping is an order fulfillment business model where we don’t maintain physical stocks. Instead, we source products from our suppliers and we import these items to our stores. Then, when a customer orders from our store, our supplier ships the orders to our customers directly.
With that said, we need a reliable supplier that can help us serve customer demands satisfactorily, such as Walmart. In fact, Walmart achieved 642.6 billion USD in global net sales as of January 2024. So, Walmart’s substantial product lines and massive sales potential can give our dropshipping business a competitive advantage in the market.
Is Walmart Dropshipping Legal?
Yes, dropshipping from Walmart is legal. However, we must avoid dropshipping copyrighted, trademarked, prohibited, and similar products. As these product categories can pose hazards to sellers and buyers, we’re not allowed to offer them in our online stores.
Remember that dropshipping items under these categories can get our stores suspended. Moreso, we can face more serious legal and financial sanctions.
What Products To Avoid Dropshipping From Walmart
Interestingly, Walmart has a vast selection of products to dropship. But when sourcing items from Walmart, bear in mind to avoid products from the following categories:
Featured Brands
GroceryÂ
Refurbished Products
Cell PhonesÂ
Smart TVs
Telecommunications PlansÂ
Computers/Laptops
Gift Cards
While this list contains the main categories to avoid, it’s best to refer to theVeRO guide. This guide contains the complete list of products prohibited in dropshipping. All in all, it’s necessary that we only sell acceptable products to run our dropshipping business legally.
The Advantages & Disadvantages Of Walmart Dropshipping
So, what are the benefits and drawbacks of dropshipping from Walmart? We’ll explore them, beginning with the advantages.
Advantages
Large selection of productsÂ
Deals & discountsÂ
Next-day delivery
Price-match policy
Interestingly, Walmart offers a large selection of products that we can score with deals and discounts on its website. What’s more, we can extend a next-day delivery option, leading to customer satisfaction. Moreover, if we can find the same item elsewhere at a lower cost, Walmart’s price-match policy has us covered, offering us a lower price.
Disadvantages
Limited to US marketÂ
Payment methods
Strict return & shipping policies
On to the drawbacks, the company is limited to the US market and has selected payment methods. Plus, its strict return and shipping policies impose a maximum defect rate for returns of 2%.
Also, dropshippers must have at least 99% on-time shipping and real-time tracking rates. To achieve this, we need to quickly fulfill customer orders as they come and automate the tracking updates.
Nevertheless, these drawbacks can be managed by adhering to the company’s policies and using an automation tool. Plus, Walmart’s sweet deals can help us scale our profits big time.
Walmart Shipping & Return Policies
As previously mentioned, Walmart imposes strict guidelines on shipping and returns for dropshippers. So, let’s shed more light on Walmart’s shipping andreturn policiesin the following sections.
In general, Walmart has a 90-day return policy for most products. For products purchased from Walmart’s website, returns can be submitted via mail. Then, Walmart refunds are given using the original payment methods.
On the other hand, Walmart’s shipping policies offer a standard next-day delivery arrangement for thousands of products. For orders above $35, shipping is free. Otherwise, the buyer pays for the shipping cost of the package. Moreover, express delivery is available at an additional cost of $10 on top of a $7.95/$9.95 delivery fee.
For Walmart+ members, these shipping fees are waived. Therefore, members enjoy free shipping for their orders without a minimum purchase required.
Ultimately, our supplier’s shipping and return policies are the same ones that we’ll extend to our customers. Therefore, having these practical policies can help us achieve maximum customer satisfaction.
Aquiline Tracking Conversions For Walmart Dropshipping
Let’s proceed to another interesting aspect of Walmart dropshipping: the Aquiline tracking conversions. Essentially, Aquiline tracking conversions support any supplier that integrates with UPS, USPS, and FedEx tracking. Having access to real-time tracking updates gives our customers peace of mind.
For Walmart dropshipping, the use of this tool allows us to convert tracking numbers from supported carriers into Aquiline tracking numbers. In this way, sellers and buyers can monitor the whereabouts of all orders using one application.
Moreover, Aquiline has a zip code masquerade feature that provides tracking details of orders with the use of exact zip codes. For example, let’s take eBay as our selling channel where we are importing products from Walmart.
As such, this tool helps us to adhere to eBay’s item location policy. As a result, we can ship from varied locations with different zip codes.
Thankfully, Aquiline saves us from flagged accounts while keeping our eBay stores safe while dropshipping from Walmart. With Alquiline’s efficient tracking conversions, we’ll no longer worry about monitoring dropshipping orders from Walmart.
What To Look For In A Dropshipping Supplier
Remember that working with a reliable supplier is an integral part of our dropshipping business. Thus, we must be on the lookout for these key factors when selecting a dropshipping supplier:
Fast shipping timesÂ
Excellent customer service
Wide product range & quality productsÂ
Practical return & shipping policies
Reliable shipping carriers and tracking information
Affordable pricing
Undoubtedly, Walmart fits the features of an excellent dropshipping supplier. For one, Walmart provides fast shipping options and reliable tracking updates. With all the benefits that Walmart provides our dropshipping business, it’s surely one of the top supplier choices in eCommerce.
How To Start Dropshipping From Walmart To Your StoreÂ
Are you excited to start sourcing trending products from Walmart? Let’s get into it! So, here are the seven steps to start dropshipping from Walmart to your selling channel:
Buckle up as we begin our Walmart dropshipping journey.
1. Find Winning Products: Walmart Product Research
To begin, finding winning products by conducting product research on Walmart is important. On a vast marketplace like Walmart, there are thousands of products that we can dropship. However, we must run down our choices according to customers’ top product choices and the latest market trends.
Knowing the in-demand products to sell at the right time can help us attain huge sales. So, here are some key product research methods we can adopt when dropshipping from Walmart:
With the help of these product research tools, we’ll find best-selling items on Walmart. Then, we can offer these items in our dropshipping stores. To give us a glimpse of some of the top products we can dropship from Walmart, we can check out this list:
Fire Pit With Mesh ScreenÂ
Cloth Slide Slippers
Glitter Gel Pens SetÂ
Remote Controlled Cooling Fan
Portable Basketball Hoop
Now, let’s explore the features of our first product idea, the fire pit with a mesh screen.Â
Fire Pit With Mesh Screen
Fire Pit With Mesh Screen
Retail Price
$70
Item Cost
$45
Potential profit:
$25
Shipping time: 1-2 days
The fire pit with mesh screen can serve as a centerpiece in the backyard while enjoying warmth amid the cold weather. When dropshipping this item, ensure to offer durable and rust-proof variations. Plus, we can cross-sell this item with complementing chairs to complete customers’ outdoor set-up.
2. Select A Selling Channel
Once we have discovered top products to dropship, we need to select a selling channel. In essence, a selling channel is a platform where we establish our dropshipping stores and offer our products to customers. Generally, selling channels can either be a marketplace or a website.
Essentially, marketplaces are existing selling platforms that allow us to add our products and offer them to customers. Typically, marketplaces have significant traffic due to their wide user database. Here are examples of popular marketplaces for dropshipping:
On the other hand, websites allow us to fully customize our stores and build our brand from scratch. Although most customizable websites don’t have organic traffic, they usually don’t have selling limits for dropshipping. Now, the following are famous customizable websites for our dropshipping business:
After choosing the best-suited selling channel for our business, it’s time to add products to these top dropshipping platforms. Â
3. Import Walmart Products To Your Dropshipping Store
When importing products from Walmart, we can choose between the manual or the automatic method. Manual product imports require us perform each step individually, requiring lots of time and effort. Meanwhile, automatic importing methods utilize dropshipping tools that carry out the import processes on our behalf.
Among these excellent methods, let’s demonstrate how to import products from Walmart using the bulk importer.
Importing Products In Bulk
The bulk importer allows us to list numerous products at once using a CSV file. Before we proceed, we must install theAutoDS Dropshipping Helper extension.
Let’s begin by heading over to Walmart’s website and searching for the products we want to import. After doing so, click the AutoDS extension icon on the lower-right corner of the screen.Â
Then, click the ‘Extract’ button, and all product IDs will appear in the dialog box. The next step is to save the CSV file containing the product information. To do so, click the ‘Export as CSV’ button, and the file will automatically download to our computer.
Now, let’s proceed to the AutoDS platform and click ‘Add Products’ on the left sidebar. Then, choose the ‘Multiple Products/Stores’ options, and a dialog box will pop up.
In the dialog box, click ‘Upload CSV’ at the top section. Next, choose the CSV file from your computer. Alternatively, we can automatically drag and drop the CSV file into the dialog box.
By clicking the ‘Add As Draft’ button, all items inside the CSV file will transfer to the ‘Drafts’ section of the AutoDS platform. Once the products are available as drafts, we can start optimizing them. At this point, we must set search engine optimized (SEO) titles, descriptions, tags, images, and other important data.
Remember that optimizing our products can help them rank higher in customer searches. As a result, our potential sales conversions become higher.
After the optimization process, click the ‘Save’ button to apply the changes. If everything is ready to be published to our selling channel, click the ‘Import’ button.
Great, our items are available in the ‘Products’ section of the AutoDS page. Thus, they are now visible in our selling channel, and customers can start checking them out.
Tips For Importing Products To Other Selling Channels
In general, importing products to different selling channels is similar, except for some instances that need special processes. For instance, Wix and Shopifyare customizable websites. Therefore, importing products from Walmart to these websites is the same as the above process.
On another note, FBMP is a marketplace thatrequires an additional extension if we want to automate the importing process. Remember that in order to scale our dropshipping business, it’s best to automate methods like product imports.
4. Market Your Dropshipping Store
Our next question is, how can we market our dropshipping store? Well, there are several ways to promote our dropshipping business, depending on the platforms we utilize.
But before we proceed, we need to understand that marketing is an integral part of our eCommerce business. For us to maximize our sales, we need to reach the maximum audience possible. So next, we’ll discover the different marketing techniques we can adopt for the diverse selection of selling channels:
Remember that some of these marketing strategies require a budget. Therefore, we must allocate a marketing budget for us to run these promotions. Nonetheless, we can harvest the fruit of our marketing investment once we start raking in our dropshipping sales.
5. Fulfill Customer Orders
At this point, we’ll start getting orders, and we need to serve customer demands promptly. Reiterating, we need to fulfill customer orders quickly so that customers will become satisfied with our efficient service. When fulfilling customer orders, we have the following ways of doing so:
Manual order fulfillment
Automatic Orders
Fulfilled by AutoDS
For the manual order fulfillment method, we need to purchase customer orders from Walmart. Then, we have to manually input the shipping information and payment details. Now, manually fulfilling orders can be overwhelming if we have tons of pending demands waiting to be processed.
That’s why we can opt for automatic order fulfillment methods to assist us with our store orders. For one, AutoDS has the Automatic Orders feature that uses our buyer accounts to purchase orders from Walmart. Also, it provides real-time tracking updates under the AutoDS dashboard.
Meanwhile, Fulfilled by AutoDS is a 100% automatic order fulfillment service. Using this tool, the platform processes customer orders using our auto-credits. So, we won’t worry about maxing out our cards, especially if we have huge customer orders.
In addition, Fulfilled by AutoDS has a one-click return button that makes return requests fast and easy. On top of that, this order fulfillment service provides a2% cashback on all orders from Walmart. So, we can now enjoy discounted rates and a convenient automated fulfillment method.
6. Provide Excellent Customer Service
One of the foundations of a successful business is excellent customer service. So, as Walmart extends superb customer support, we can do the same for our customers.
To attain this, we can open live chats, publish FAQ pages, provide an email address, and more. Remember that addressing concerns immediately makes our customers feel that we value them. As a result, we can win over customers’ confidence and loyalty to our business.
7. Integrate Dropshipping Automation To Your Store
Undeniably, the benefits of automation for product imports and order fulfillment are clear. But wait, the perks of automation don’t end there yet. As AutoDS provides more dropshipping automation tools that will help us manage our stores efficiently:
Remember that if we want to scale our business, the best way to do so is by automating repetitive tasks. In this way, we can save time and dedicate it to other aspects of our business to continue growing our profits.
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I Allowed To Dropship Products From Walmart?Â
Yes, you can dropship products from Walmart. However, there are product categories we’re prohibited from dropshipping, such as featured brands, grocery, refurbished products, and more. Finally, it’s always best to offer safe and legal items to avoid store sanctions.
What Selling Channels Are Supported With Walmart Dropshipping?Â
When dropshipping from Walmart, we can integrate with several selling channels. To mention the top-tier selling platforms, we have Shopify, Wix, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and Facebook Shops.
What Are The Best Products To Source From Walmart?Â
Top trending product ideas on Walmart include the fire pit with mesh screen, cloth slide slippers, glitter gel pens set, and more. Remember to stay up-to-date with Walmart’s latest market trends so we can offer our customers the best products.Â
How Much Does It Cost To Return A Dropshipping Product To Walmart?Â
In general, Walmart allows free returns for eligible items. As such, this supplier offers a 90-day return period from the date of delivery. Beyond that, return requests will be subject to evaluation and return fees.
Conclusion
Perfect! With the knowledge we’ve acquired, we’re now ready to start our Walmart dropshipping venture. From conducting product research to extending superb customer service, we’ll surely attain dropshipping success in no time!
As always, we must consider dropshipping automation as a crucial part of our online business. Thus, we need to utilize dropshipping software like AutoDS to help us manage everyday tasks in running our business.
Now, it’s time to explore setting up our stores so that we can import top-caliber Walmart products. Hence, here are complete guides about diverse selling channels that we can work with:
