Today, when it comes to choosing a suitable place to sell, Walmart and Amazon are two marketplace e-commerce platforms that come to mind. In the United States today, Amazon attracts more than 2 billion visitors monthly. Walmart, on the other hand, gets more than 400 million monthly visitors. As a business owner looking to enjoy the goodies that come with selling online, picking one of these platforms is a must.
In the rest of this post, you’ll discover a Walmart vs Amazon face-off. With this post, you’ll learn:
- What exactly is Walmart and why should you consider selling your products on it?
- What exactly is Amazon & why should you consider selling your goods on it?
- Walmart vs Amazon face-off to decide the right marketplace e-commerce platform to sell on.
What exactly is Walmart Marketplace? Should you sell on this marketplace?
Why we love Walmart Marketplace
- No hidden seller fees attached
- Less seller competition
- Great customer base (with loyal buyers)
What we don’t like
- Limited online fulfillment services
Founded in 1962, Walmart is currently the largest retailer in the United States. Walmart launched its marketplace e-commerce platform in 2009. With this marketplace, third-party vendors can attract the Walmart customer base to sell their products.
Of course, launching a marketplace e-commerce platform is a win-win for both Walmart and third-party vendors.
Walmart gains, as this marketplace will allow its business to grow its customer base and deliver a more diverse product range.
As a third-party seller, here are a few reasons why you’ll gain from selling on this marketplace:
- First, Walmart generates a high volume of sales. As long as you have products that’ll interest your potential buyers, you can always rest assured of making great sales.
- Walmart has increased brand diversity and better delivery options, which helps to attract millennials. As long as your target buyers are millennials, you won’t have any issues selling on this platform.
What exactly is Amazon Marketplace? Should you sell on this marketplace?
Why we love Walmart Marketplace
- Higher sales are assured
- Little marketing fees
- Global expansion
- Great online fulfillment services
What we don’t like
- Selling fees are required
- Higher seller competition
- Order management
Launched in November 2000, Amazon marketplace is a platform that allows third-party sellers to sell their products. Amazon makes money from its marketplace in different ways. One of them is stocking & selling its products. Furthermore, Amazon gains ad revenue by allowing third-party vendors to advertise and sell their products.
As a third-party vendor, here are a few ways you can benefit from this marketplace e-commerce platform:
- Amazon Marketplace attracts high traffic. As such, you can rest assured of attracting more potential buyers when you sell on this marketplace.
- With Amazon Marketplace, you can always sell your products to more global buyers.
- Another good thing about this marketplace is that it has great online fulfillment services. For instance, by selling on this platform, you can always pick FBA for your products. With Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), you can always rely on Amazon to ship products to your buyers.
Walmart vs Amazon: factors that influence the choice of the right marketplace
Now that you know one or two things about both the Amazon and Walmart marketplaces, it’s time to pick one. Below are a few factors you can consider when picking the better marketplace between Amazon and Walmart.
● Selling fees
One factor you certainly want to consider when deciding between Amazon and Walmart is the “selling fees.” Amazon will require you to pay an account fee to sell on its marketplace e-commerce platform. With the Walmart marketplace, however, you won’t need to pay any fee to register a seller account.
Speaking of Walmart selling fees, you should prepare your mind to pay between 6% to 20% of your product’s selling price.
With Amazon marketplace, you have a lot of fees to pay. For an individual account, you’ll have to pay $0.99 for every product you sell. For a professional account, you’ll have to pay a monthly fee of $39.99.
Speaking of Amazon selling fees, you’ll have to pay roughly 6% – 45% of your product’s selling price. Other fees you can expect are $0.005 for products with a listing volume of over 100,000 and a closing fee of $1.80 per media product.
The bottom line is that the Walmart marketplace is a better option in terms of “selling fees”. You should pick Walmart over Amazon if you’re on a tight budget.
● Ease of use
When it comes to onboarding and listing your products on marketplace e-commerce, which marketplace is easy to use?
Well, to answer this question, we’ll say that the Amazon marketplace is more beginner-friendly than the Walmart marketplace. To start selling on Walmart, you’ll have to apply and wait to pass the platform’s “trust and safety” review. Unfortunately, for this application process, you’ll need different documents, such as US Business Tax ID, W9 or W8, and EIN Verification Letter.
On the other hand, Amazon will only require you to pay for your preferred marketplace seller plan. Once you successfully purchase your seller plan, you can start selling.
● Online fulfillment
Online fulfillment is another important factor you need to consider before picking between Amazon and Walmart.
With Walmart, you have two options: Self-fulfillment and Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS). To use WFS, you need to become a well-established seller. If not, self-fulfillment is the best option for you.
With Amazon, however, FBA is a good option. This online fulfillment service will help you gain more visibility on your profile, as it always comes with an Amazon Prime badge. For a self-fulfillment service, Amazon Fulfilled by Merchant is a perfect option. This service also comes with a Seller-Fulfilled Prime badge for vendors that have a consistent on-time delivery record.
● Competition
Is seller competition a big problem in growing your brand? If yes, Walmart is certainly the better marketplace e-commerce platform for you. With the complex registration process on the Walmart marketplace, more sellers choose Amazon over it. Fewer sellers mean less competition in the Walmart marketplace.
Walmart vs Amazon: Why not sell on both platforms?
Instead of choosing between Walmart and Amazon, why not sell on both marketplace e-commerce platforms? Selling on both platforms will enable you to enjoy all the goodies that come with working on Amazon and Walmart marketplaces.
To begin today, Automated Wealth Management (AWM) Holdings is one reliable company you can rely on to get full-scale consultancy and management services. Apart from guiding you on how to register and become a seller on both Amazon and Walmart marketplaces, we can also help you manage your marketplace e-commerce for the best results. You can check our official website to better understand how our e-commerce management services work.
