If you’re ready to grow your brand on the ecommerce marketplace, Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) should be on your radar. The team at Pattern sat down with some of the experts from Walmart.com to learn all the ins and outs of selling on their new platform.
You can watch that webinar here and our follow-up Q&A session here. Read on to see what we learned!
Why WFS?
Walmart Fulfillment Services, or WFS, is essentially Walmart’s version of Amazon’s fulfillment service, Fulfilled by Amazon, or FBA. Walmart officially launched WFS for the public in February of this year. Pattern was one of a handful of marketplace sellers invited to join the introductory pilot, and we’ve never looked back.
Why’s that, you may ask? It’s simple. The ROI has been awesome. According to John LeBaron, Chief Revenue Officer at Pattern, Pattern saw a 166% increase in business year over year with WFS, as well as a 176% increase in incremental revenue from January to March 2020. That’s 31% more revenue than expected in other marketplaces! Seven of Pattern’s products sold more in March via WFS than any other marketplace, including Amazon.
“This is very meaningful for us, and it’s meaningful for our brands, whether they’re looking for opportunities to grow, whether it’s domestically, internationally, etc.,” LeBaron said in the webinar. “So we’ve been thrilled with those results.”
Thorne WFS Case Study
To see the success that’s possible on WFS, look no further than one of Pattern’s brands Thorne Research. Pattern has fulfilled Thorne Research products since June 2017, with 50 items listed. On WFS, Pattern was selling an additional 22 Thorne Research products and saw a 771% increase in sales year over year from October 2019 to March 2020.
LeBaron attributes the exponential growth to the benefits of WFS, which include things like two-day delivery, easy returns, and a boost in Walmart search rankings.
“You get this great opportunity. . . . This is a premier spot, it’s a premier site, it’s premier customers, and so the ability to do this is just really unprecedented,” LeBaron said.
What does WFS offer?
- A great delivery experience with two-day badging and free shipping when customers hit the basket size of at least $35.
- Low-cost fulfillment service for brands and sellers. You send your items to a Walmart fulfillment center, Walmart stores it (within 1-2% of Amazon storage pricing), and when an order comes in, Walmart packs, ships, and delivers on behalf of the seller.
- A great return experience where customers can return an item through the mail or directly to a Walmart store. Walmart then reviews the product and either puts it back up for sale or sends it back to the seller.
- Customer service for all WFS sales.
- A new channel source—traffic you wouldn’t get by just selling or fulfiling with Amazon.
If those sweet perks don’t spark your interest, consider this: Walmart’s leverage. Walmart is the no. 1 retailer in the U.S. with 4,759 stores nationwide, explained Jare’ Buckley-Cox, Walmart’s Vice President of WFS, on the webinar.
According to Cox, 95% of Americans shopped at Walmart or Walmart.com in 2019, and there are 160 million weekly visitors between online properties. Just on Walmart.com, there are 118 million unique visitors monthly. Walmart also leads in mobile app adoption, over Amazon and Uber, with a 113% year over year increase in traffic.
“If you’re trying to find a broad reach of different kinds of customers, Walmart gives you a platform to do that,” Cox said. You would also be among the ranks of premier brands already selling via WFS including Rolex, Lord & Taylor, Lego, Coravin, TUMI, and more.
Why Pattern?
George Hatch, Pattern’s Director of Marketplaces, gave some insights on partnering with Pattern during the follow-up Q&A webinar.
If you want to partner with Pattern to sell on the WFS platform, the Pattern team would first work with yours to do a financial analysis to make sure the partnership makes sense. Pattern then buys your products and creates your listing on the Walmart marketplace using their seller center. The item then gets converted to be WFS eligible and Pattern ships it over to a Walmart fulfillment center to be sold and shipped to the masses.
Partnering with Pattern also gets you a full service creative team to ensure your content on WFS is top notch. The best part? According to Hatch, it can be done in less than 4 weeks.
Still on the fence? Feel free to contact us here at Pattern using the form below to learn more about WFS and why it’s right for your brand.
