Selling on Walmart

Selling on Walmart's online marketplace offers businesses a vast platform to reach millions of customers since Walmart.com attracts over 100 million visitors a month and Walmart’s online marketplace has grown at an extraordinary rate to become the second largest after Amazon in the US. Just like any other e-commerce platform, Walmart charges a variety of fees that sellers must account for, from referral fees to shipping and fulfillment costs. Tracking these fees can be challenging, but having a clear understanding of the cost structure is essential to optimize your pricing strategy, maximize profits, and ensure long-term success on the platform. This article will break down the different selling fees on Walmart’s online store and provide insights on how to manage them effectively.

Walmart Selling Fees

The biggest online retailer Amazon has many different fees like fixed and variable closing fees, returns processing fee, low inventory level fee, long term storage fee, storage utilization surcharge, liquidations brokerage fee and etc. It is obvious that keeping track of these fees is not straightforward. However, Walmart offers a more simplified fee structure compared to Amazon.

While you must pay a monthly fee to list your product on the Amazon marketplace, this fee does not exist in Walmart thanks to their setup.

Like Amazon's FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), Walmart has a fulfillment system called WFS (Walmart Fulfillment System). In Walmart's fulfillment centers, sellers keep their inventory, while Walmart takes care of the storage, picking, packing, shipping, and customer support. The fees incurred for these operations are called “fulfillment fees”.

With the Seller Fulfilled model, sellers manage their own storage, picking, packing, shipping, and customer service. Sellers list their products on Walmart’s marketplace but handle the fulfillment independently. However, listing your products on Walmart.com will incur referral fees.

Walmart offers affordable fulfillment services and referral fees, a rather easy fee structure, and straightforward advertising for online retailers however how easy it seems, for accurate Walmart profit calculation, you need to track all the costs which makes it a bit difficult to do by hand. We will give you all the information you need to track your profit and Walmart profit margin.

1 - Walmart Fulfillment Fees

Unlike Amazon, Walmart Fulfillment fees are rather simple. The fees are defined by the size, either standard or big&bulky, and if the item is standard and matches certain criteria, additional fees may apply. There is also a monthly storage fee for all products.

Standard Fulfillment Fees

In order for an item to be considered as standard, Walmart has 3 criteria;

• Unit weight is less than or equal to 150 lb.
• The longest package side is less than or equal to 108 inches
• Longest package side + girth1 is less than or equal to 165 inches

Shipping weight	Fee
≤ 1 lb.	$3.45
2 lb.	$4.95
3 lb.	$5.45
4–20 lb.	$5.75 plus $0.40 for each lb. > 4 lb.
21–30 lb.	$15.55 plus $0.40 for each lb. > 21 lb.
31–50 lb.	$14.55 plus $0.40 for each lb. > 31 lb.
≥51 lb.	$17.55 plus $0.40 for each lb. > 51 lb.

Additional Fulfillment Fees for Standard Items:

If your item match one or more of these criteria, then fee will be applied for that product.

Type of fee		Fee
Apparel	Your item is an article of clothing.	Add $0.50
Hazardous materials	Your item is or contains a chemical, aerosol, pesticide or battery.	Add $0.50
Retail price less than $10	Your item is priced under $10.	Add $1
Oversize	Longest side greater than 48″ and up to 96”	Add $3
	Median side greater than 30″
	Longest side + girth greater than 105″ and up to 130”
	Longest side greater than 96″ and up to 108”	Add $20 (The unit weight also starts at 90 lb. when determining the fulfillment fee.)
	Longest side + girth greater than 130″ and up to 165”

Big & Bulky Fullfilment Fee

This fee will be applied if:

• Weight per unit is greater than 150 lbs (up to 500 lbs)
• The longest package side can measure up to 120 inches and more than 108 inches.
• Longest package side plus girth exceeds 165 inches.

Shipping weight	Fee
Up to 500 lb.	$155 + $0.80 per lb. > 90 lb.

Fixed Monthly Storage Fee

The price of keeping your goods at a Walmart fulfillment center is known as the storage fee. It depends on the volume of the product and the time of year it stays in the fulfillment center.

Time of Year	Fee
January–September	$0.75 per cubic foot per month
October–December (peak season)	$0.75 per cubic foot per month for items stored for fewer than or up to 30 days.
	Add $1.50 per cubic foot per month for items stored for more than 30 days.
>12 months	Up to $7.50 per cubic foot per month

2 - Walmart Referral Fees

Walmart charges you every time you sell a product which is called a referral fee or commission. It is a percentage of the total sales price and is usually 15%. The percentage varies based on the product category and can go as low as %6 based on the category and product type you choose during item setup.

Product Category	Referral Fee Percentage
Apparel & Accessories	5% for items with a total sales price of $15 or less
	10% for items with a total sales price between $15 – $20
	15% for items with a total sales price greater than $20
	15% for backpacks
Automotive & Powersports	12%
Automotive Electronics	8% for categories including Dash & Backup Cameras, Car Speakers, Power Inverters, Vehicle Tracking Systems, Car Video Monitors, Radar Detectors, Automotive Remote Starters, Anti-Theft Devices & Car Speakerphones
Baby	8% for items with a total sales price of $10 or less
	15% for items with a total sales price greater than $10
Beauty	8% for items with a total sales price of $10 or less
	15% for items with a total sales price greater than $10
Books	15%
Camera & Photo	8%
Cell Phones	8%
Consumer Electronics	8%
Electronics Accessories
15% for the portion of the total sales price up to $100	8% for the portion of the total sales price greater than $100
Decor	15%
Gourmet Food	15%
Grocery	8% for items with a total sales price of $10 or less
	15% for items with a total sales price greater than $10
Health & Personal Care	8% for items with a total sales price of $10 or less
15% for items with a total sales price greater than $10
Home & Garden	15%
Indoor & Outdoor Furniture	15% on the first $200 / 10% on amounts over $200
Industrial & Scientific	12%
Jewelry	20% for the portion of the total sales price up to $250
	5% for the portion of the total sales price greater than $250
Kitchen	15%
Luggage & Travel Accessories	15%
Major Appliances	8%
Music	15%
Musical Instruments	12%
Office Products	15%, except 8% for Calculators
Outdoor Power Tools	15% for items with a total sales price ≤ $500[Text Wrapping Break]8% for items with a total sales price > $500
Outdoors	15% except 8% for Hunting Trail Monitors, Binoculars, Telescopes, Spotting Scopes, and Night Vision Goggles
Personal Computers	6%
Pet Supplies	15%
Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Ventilation	10%
Shoes, Handbags & Sunglasses	15%
Software & Computer Video Games	15%
Sporting Goods	15%
Tires & Wheels	10%
Tools & Home Improvement	15%, except 12% for Base Power Tools
Toys & Games	15%
Video & DVD	15%
Video Game Consoles	8%
Video Games	15%
Watches	15% for the portion of the total sales price up to $1,500
	3% for the portion of the total sales price greater than $1,500
Everything Else	15%

3 - Advertisement Costs

Companies like Walmart use CPA (Cost Per Action) and CPS (Cost Per Sale) pricing strategies in digital advertising to encourage online sales and customer behaviors. Advertisers pay a cost per action (CPA) for each specific action a user does after seeing an advertisement. Clicks, downloads, and form submissions are examples of actions. The expense an advertiser pays once a sale results directly from their advertisement is referred to as CPS.

There are two ways you can calculate your ad spend; Advertising Cost of Sales, or ACoS, compares the amount you spend on advertising to the sales that result directly from those ads to determine how effective your ads are. Total Advertising Cost of Sales, TACoS, on the other hand, considers total sales revenue, including organic and ad-driven sales, providing a more complete picture of advertising success.

4 - Returns and Refunds + Removal Fees

If you are a business owner you know that refunds and returns are inevitable which is normal considering mistakes or errors made during the packaging and shipping process. You are required to take into account return and refund fees. These include

• Return Shipping Fee (The shipping cost when the products are returned to your inventory)
• Disposal&Removal fee (If the item is damaged, Walmart charges you with disposing fees)

* Walmart has to return a product to you because it has a missing or improper label or poly bag, you may also be assessed additional "problem inventory" fees.

Here are some examples of the return fees sellers are responsible for:

• Wrong size
• Poor quality
• Missing parts
• Not as described
• Defective product
• Bought somewhere else
• Found lower price

Because these fees are variable per product you are required to calculate profit per product, it is difficult to calculate and get an accurate result but don’t worry we have a solution for you.

Profit Cyclops: The Best Walmart Profit Calculator

We know that making wise decisions is essential to success in this ever-changing environment. We are aware that these costs are difficult to calculate by hand and we offer a useful tool to help you understand the complexity.

By signing up to our application, you can easily monitor your profit without these difficult-to-calculate variable fees.

All you have to do is to enter the cost of the product. After adding COGS, you won’t even have to lift a finger, our application demonstrates all of your profits by calculating all your fees.

After signing up to our application click on Profile and Integrations you can add Walmart to your profile and review your Walmart profits and reports hassle-free.

Dashboard

On your Dashboard, you will find graphics of your sales and profit by choosing a time period you like.

Orders

On the orders page, check detailed expenses for the sold goods during a selected time period. This section shows the costs of the products, Walmart Fulfillment Fees, and total monthly storage fees. You may view the orders placed within specific time frames as well as additional product details on the order summary page.

Profit and Loss Report

By clicking on P&L Report, you can find detailed data on your Net Profit.

Profit by product

Learning your best-selling and most profitable product is easy by using Profit Cyclops.

With Profit by Product Report, you can see your best-selling, most profitable item and worst-selling, least profitable item and make wise decisions on your inventory and marketing. In this report, you will find your profit margin, ROI, and profit per piece.

Conclusion

While Walmart’s fee structure is simpler than Amazon’s, calculating profits manually will cost you your time and you might not have the healthiest and most accurate results. Profit Cyclops offers you hassle-free and easy-to-access profit reports. Analyze your reports and make informed decisions with Profit Cyclops.