Has your brand joined sellers, like Samsung or Barbie, on Walmart’s growing Marketplace yet? Collaborating with this giant eCommerce platform will give your products the honor of reaching over 100 million ready-to-buy monthly visitors. With that degree of exposure also comes a certain level of freedom. Although obliged to follow Walmart’s seller agreements, policies, and standards, you control the pricing for your product catalog after joining.
Nonetheless, securing the most impressions possible relies on your stock prices checking three key boxes. Namely, keep your inventory affordable, enhance your listings’ visibility, and adhere to Walmart’s strict rules and guidelines.
1) Your Prices are Affordable
From ‘Buy One, Get One’ and free shipping to percentage discounts, every shopper loves a great bargain. Thus, it makes logical sense for eCommerce sellers to maintain reasonable prices to attract consumers. The key here, though, is low enough. You read that right! Beware of lowering your pricing too much!
One study from Vanderbilt University, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, suggests bargain prices can become counterproductive. Seeing a price that seems too reduced often signals shoppers to question the product’s quality, making them less likely to transact. To keep price tags budget-friendly, yet high enough to prove to shoppers that the unit is worth the investment, Walmart Marketplace extends two exclusive recourses: the Everyday Low-Price Promise and the Repricer Tool.
Everyday Low-Price (EDLP) Promise
Everyday Low-Price Promise (EDLP) describes a pricing strategy Walmart uses that guarantees all consumers will get a low, fair price on item listings. Even more enticing, shoppers can claim these prices without applying any coupons, promotions, or exclusive discounts. Walmart’s focus was not on short-term profit spurts, but on lasting benefits: the driving of a longer-term momentum in sales. EDLP builds trust amongst consumers; shoppers feel they can depend on brands that sell products with this consistent, favorable pricing.
As a result, buyers will turn to your brand rather than visit your competitors. On the brand side, the commitment removes the hassle of keeping up with a constant cycle of promotions and associated marketing costs. Typically, this strategy works best for large retailers since those brands have less room for growth than smaller retailers, who usually rely on extra advertising to boost brand reach.
The Repricer Tool
The Walmart Repricer Tool provides another free and innovative way to keep your products competitively priced. With this aid, eCommerce sellers do not need to constantly check and manually update prices for goods every time competitors’ prices change. Walmart’s algorithm pays attention to prices on Walmart, as well as helps your products stay competitive with prices on other eCommerce sites like Amazon. When needed, the Repricer Tool automatically adjusts commodity prices – not shipping costs – for your items.
To start using the Repricer Tool, follow these three essential steps:
- Head to your Walmart Seller Center and select GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES, located under ANALYTICS.
- Once you access the Repricer Tool, choose GET STARTED, and click CONFIRM to accept the terms and conditions.
- Utilize the Seller Center dashboard to SELECT, CREATE, VIEW, EDIT, or DELETE Repricer strategies. There is no limit to the number of units you can add to a strategy, and you can bulk upload up to 10,000 commodities at a time.
The three pre-set strategies the Repricer Tool uses are External Price, Buy Box Price, and Competitive Price.
- External Price makes your products beat or match costs on other eCommerce platforms, not just Walmart.
- Using the Buy Box Price strategy, the Repricer will automatically make updates to help you beat the Buy Box price on Walmart.
- The Competitive Price strategy combines the first two, so you can compete with whichever price is lowest.
2) Your Prices Contribute to Enhanced Visibility
In any case, increased brand awareness and product visibility help to boost sales. If more shoppers know about you, they are more likely to trust and buy from you. Walmart makes that “getting to know” process better in a couple of ways, both of which can be made available for brands with competitive pricing.
Buy Box Status
When multiple sellers list the same type of good, Walmart displays all offers on the related product page. Unfortunately, only one seller wins Buy Box status. This accomplishment rewards one brand with being the default seller when shoppers click the Add-to-Cart button.
The Buy Box is how Walmart rewards sellers that make offers with the best value. You can download the Buy Box Report in Seller Center to see how often your products win the Buy Box from the Items Dashboard in Seller Center.
Affordable prices, which must stay competitive with other listings to achieve Buy Box status, are just one piece of the puzzle. Other key considerations for this ranking include:
- Attractive and branded packaging
- Reviews from customers, which will boost your SEO ranking on Walmart’s site
- Keeping products in stock
- Supplying accurate quality content for all unit attributes.
- Fast and cheap shipping
Strike-Through Pricing & Promotion Flags
Strike-through pricing and promo flags can further expand your products’ reach. Product listings with discounts will naturally attract customers looking to save big, especially during the busy holiday season. ‘Reduced Price’ or ‘Clearance’ flags mark products set up with promotional pricing on Walmart. These critical insights will appear on the product and item pages.
When the savings for buyers exceed 10%, the promotion strikes through the original price. Most eCommerce experts recommend deploying these promotions when activity surges, particularly during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In all cases, planning your promotions in advance of these big moments is key; the process can take up to 4 hours for the promo price to update on Walmart.com.
3) Your Prices Must Abide by Walmart’s Rules
Walmart gives sellers ample freedom when it comes to pricing decisions. But if you want to use Walmart’s resources, you must play by Walmart’s rules. It is their brand name and reputation on the line, so Walmart will automatically unpublish unfairly priced listings. High prices are unlikely to contribute to happy, and successful, browsing experiences for shoppers looking to keep to their budgets. Keep in mind that unfair prices do not only affect your listings’ performances. Due to Walmart’s use of automatic price adjustments, unreasonable prices will kick up related item prices as well.
Unfair prices do not match up with prices offered for the same good on competing websites and Walmart. When Walmart flags any units, you will receive alerts via email and Seller Center Notifications. If you disagree with any of these assessments, try troubleshooting unpublished with the Unpublished Items Dashboard in Seller Center. Lastly, if prices change on the monitored competing websites and the item falls within the acceptable range, Walmart will automatically republish the listing within 48 hours (about 2 days).
Make Walmart Marketplace Work for You With the “Right Pricing”
Adjusting your prices to stay as competitive as possible on Walmart lets you take advantage of exclusive incentives that Walmart offers its partners. “Better” and ethical pricing earns enhanced visibility on Walmart’s website. Consider how saturated your category is, the best-selling products, and whether your products fill a niche at a competitive price point. With higher item page rankings and special badges marking saving opportunities, Walmart’s massive wave of online buyers will soon discover your optimized listings.
The professional eCommerce specialists at Premiere Creative can easily help you fine-tune the appropriate strategy to approach this pricing quandary. Going through the hoops of becoming a Walmart seller undeniably outweighs the trouble. Need help crafting a unique Walmart pricing strategy? Give us a call at (973) 346-8100. The price should always be right.