In-store pickup of online orders is a high priority, company says
of ConsumerAffairsThings are getting crowded in space -- the online space, that is. Amazon once had ths global online sales world largely to itself but newcomers are flooding in, including bricks-and-mortar behemoth Walmart.
Walmarts marketplace reached 150,000 active sellers as new sellers joining the platform continue to accelerate, according to Marketplace Pulse, which tracks the industry.
According to Marketplace Pulse data, Walmart added more than 50,000 active sellers over the past twelve months. Thats significant for a marketplace launched in 2009, with 50,000 active sellers in total as recently as 2022.
That has solidified its role as the second most important channel for most marketplace sellers. Walmart has also become less stringent about seller approval and has allowed more international sellers. As a result, international sellers nearly all from China now represent 35% of active sellers.
Walmart has over 420 million products for sale on Walmart.com; the marketplace -- meaning merchants other than Walmart -- is at least 95% of that.Over the past few years, Walmart has pushed sellers to Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) for fulfillment, just as Amazon before it did successfully.
That allows Walmart to control the delivery experience and to pack items from Walmart retail and marketplace in the same box. To get items into WFS faster, in August, Walmart introduced Walmart Cross Border, a port-to-door full-container-load ocean freight service from China to the U.S.
Unlike Amazon, Walmart has a nationwide network of large brick-and-mortar stores, more than 4,600 of them and it fulfills many of its online orders from those stores.
Coming soon is in-store pickup of online orders, according toJar Buckley-Cox, Vice President of Walmart Fulfillment Services, in a recent CNBC interview.
Other online platforms, like Temu, have also been expanding their catalog, with more than 300,000 sellers for Temu. Growth of U.S. and European brandshas been slow, however, because most brands aren't wild about sharing a shopping cart with Temu.
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-09-05 20:26:05
