Optimizing Walmart Listings: 3 Best Practices to Try Now
Amazon is still the king of ecommerce, but Walmart is ramping up its ecommerce presence to match: Between early 2017 and early 2019, Walmart saw 207% growth in its ecommerce buyer base. In 2018, Walmart became the third-largest ecommerce retailer in the United States, with online sales growing 40% year-over-year.
Walmart’s online marketplace now consists of over 33,000 sellers that span 52 million product SKUs, self-service advertising capabilities, and more. And 57% of Amazon shoppers shop on Walmart.com, making the two platforms complementary channels for your ecommerce strategy.
If you plan to sell on Walmart Marketplace, optimizing your product listings can play a major role in your success. In this article, we’ll cover what you need to know about:
- Walmart’s creative options
- Transferring listings from Amazon to Walmart
- Tips for optimizing your Walmart listings
Let’s dive in.
New to selling on the Walmart Marketplace? Start with our beginner’s guide.
Walmart creative options for product listings
There are two main pieces of content on a Walmart product listing: Written content and gallery images.
Written content includes keyword optimization for your product title and product details.
An optimized product title looks like this:
And optimized product information below the fold looks like this:
Gallery images are all of the images included in your product listing:
Your gallery images can (and should!) include creative beyond traditional manufacturer images.
“I think a lot of times when we’re looking at the gallery images, we’re inclined to just upload what the manufacturer provides us. But when you land on a Walmart listing, the customer only really sees these images. So it’s important that we’re including text overlays and really telling a story to move customers to purchase.”
– AJ Swamy, Client Solutions Strategist at Tinuiti
Transferring listings from Amazon to Walmart
If you plan to expand your Amazon ecommerce business to the Walmart Marketplace, you’ll need to choose which products to list on Walmart. We’ve found that sellers have the greatest chance of success with products that already have sales velocity on Amazon.
While there’s no guarantee, products that are already moving and have positive feedback on Amazon are more likely to succeed on Walmart. We recommend that Amazon sellers expanding to Walmart have at least a 95% feedback and seller rating on Amazon and at least 50 product reviews.
To upload your product listings to Walmart, you’ll need the following information on-hand to upload to your Walmart Seller Center portal:
- Product details
- Product images
- Pricing
- Reviews
- Inventory
- Promotions
- And more
You can upload your product listings to Walmart in three different ways:
- Via the Walmart API
- With a bulk upload using Excel spreadsheets
- Through a Walmart channel partner (like SellerActive or Deliverr)
Common issues with Walmart listings
If you’re a seller with an extensive catalog, you may run into issues with Walmart product listings that you don’t run into with Amazon.
“Large catalogs with 1,000+ SKUs will struggle with manual multi marketplace management. If their catalog doesn’t turn over much and inventory isn’t an issue, they can get away with manual management. Walmart cannot yet update product content the way Amazon can (beyond the basics). You need to have access to the rich media content API to do video, 360 images, comparison charts.”
– Elizabeth Marsten, Senior Director of Strategic Marketplace Services at Tinuiti
Other common Walmart product listing issues might include poor images and descriptions, spelling errors, HTML errors, and even content that is entirely incorrect. Fixing these issues as a Walmart seller is difficult compared to Amazon. Amazon’s Brand Registry lets sellers request changes almost immediately; Walmart makes it more challenging to correct product listing issues.
3 tips for optimizing your Walmart product listings
To make the most of your Walmart product listings, follow these three optimization tips.
1. Optimize your written content
Optimizing your written content means sharing all of the information a shopper needs to know about your product and ensuring that your title and description are optimized for Walmart SEO.
To optimize your written content for SEO, search potential keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner to see what potential customers are searching for. In your description, be conversational and authentic, provide valuable information about your product, and try to include your product name and related keywords for Walmart SEO.
“Detailed content is the best way to convey the value proposition of your product to the consumer. A Walmart shopper is much more likely to convert on a product online when it has clear and concise information regarding its use.”
– Megan MacDonald, Senior Advertising Account Manager, Tinuiti
2. Choose the right images for your product listing
You’ll need an enticing hero image to make shoppers want to click on your product listing — but make sure you also include images that show your product at different angles, highlight core features, and show your product in action. Try to tell a story through your images so that shoppers can imagine how the product fits into their life.
Here are some additional tips for choosing the right images for your Walmart product listings:
- Use a minimum of four images (we recommend 6 to 7)
- If your listing has multiple variations (like colors), you must include images for every variant
- All photos must be brightly lit
- Your hero image must be in color, on a white background, without any text or logos
3. Complete the product attributes for your listing
Last but not least, make sure to include as many product attributes as possible for your listing. For example, if you sell clothing, product attributes include details like:
- Category
- Fabric
- Brand
- Color
- Style
Adding additional attributes helps more shoppers find your product listing in the first place. It also helps shoppers find you when they filter their search results based on one of these attributes. And the more potential customers who find your excellent product listing, the more shoppers you can convert.
Learn more about selling on Walmart Marketplace
Want to find out more about how to succeed as a Walmart Marketplace seller? Check out our complete guide to selling on Walmart.com, using Walmart Seller Center, product listing qualifications, and how brands are using Walmart advertising to drive sales.
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