Walmart Service Requirements

Walmart is enforcing stricter customer service requirements on Walmart sellers.

Customer Service Requirments

As set forth in your Marketplace Retailer Agreement, Walmart may provide a customer service adjustment (not to exceed the total amount paid by the customer, including taxes and shipping) to the customer if you fail to meet Walmart’s customer service requirements.

As a Marketplace Seller, you have agreed to respond to customer emails within 24 hours, to process refunds within 24 hours and to provide accurate order tracking and carrier information for delivery purposes.

To reduce the likelihood of Walmart Customer Service Adjustments, we highly encourage you to implement these best practices into your business for Walmart Marketplace:

Include your hours of operation under the Customer Service section in the Seller Center.
Ensure your customer service phone number and email address are accurate in Seller Center at all times.
Respond to and resolve all customer inquiries within 24 hours with high-quality responses. Auto-reply messages do not qualify.
Keep records of customer emails for up to 12 months.
For documentation purposes, send customers an email summarizing the resolution, especially conversations concluded by phone.
High-quality responses to all customer inquiries are paramount to providing exceptional customer satisfaction.

Message Center

Ignoring the Message Center may have a considerable impact once Walmart decides to assess your performance, or they will need to resolve a dispute. Responding to customer emails can also build a good relationship with buyers, which may earn you positive reviews and encourage recurring purchases.

You can access the message center by clicking the Messages icon on the upper toolbar on Walmart Seller Center. This tab looks like a regular email inbox and consists of Walmart Customer Care (support representatives) and regular Walmart customer messages. For easier management, you can search your messages for specific order ID, subject, or customer name. You can also create message templates for the most common inquiries. The message center is easy to use and relatively self-explanatory, so we will not dive into details. However, there are a few message tags sellers should be aware of:

Response Needed: The message requires immediate attention and you should respond to the customer within the next 48 hours.
Customer Care: The message is from Walmart Customer Care on behalf of the customer. Customer Care issues should be given immediate attention and Walmart requires a response within the next 48 hours.
Service-level Agreement (SLA) Indicator: This displays the response time left to respond to a message (e.g., you must respond to a Customer Care email within 48 hours). There are two SLA indicators:
- Remaining Hours to Respond: A live counter that indicates the number of hours remaining for you to respond. This refreshes every 30 minutes until the time runs out.
- Overdue: When the SLA has passed, the notification will change to overdue.

Here you can find more information about Walmart customer messages.

Reporting on Customer Service Adjustments

You can access your seller payment report directly in Seller Center. For the next payment cycle after July 25, any adjustments made by Walmart Customer Care will show in the reconciliation report with an Adjustment Description of “Walmart Customer Care Refund” (in column BD). Adjustments will be marked as “Refund” for Transaction Type (in column F). Your reconciliation report is located in Seller Center under Insights & Analytics > Summary Reports > Payment History.

How do I appeal a Walmart customer service adjustment?

Create a case through your Seller Center account for review. In this case, you will need to provide proof that the resolution took place before Walmart Customer Care processed a refund. Walmart Marketplace Sellers must include the following order points for all appeals:
Order Number
The dollar amount being disputed
The reason for the refund (as displayed in your Payment Report)
Evidence of a resolution validating that no service failure occurred (e.g., communication with the customer)
If the returned item is materially different from what you shipped to the customer for the order, you must provide the following:
Photo of the item
Proof of the serial number of the item shipped and the item received back (e.g., photo)
Any additional supporting documentation
Where is my product if Walmart Customer Care processed a customer service adjustment?
If you fail to support a return by providing Walmart.com customers with clear and prompt return instructions, Walmart cannot be responsible for products or continued support for Seller return instructions (e.g., labels). When you fail to resolve customer service inquiries, customers may choose to not return the product. Walmart is not responsible for ensuring customers ship the product back to you.

Can Walmart Customer Care cancel my orders?

No. Walmart Customer Care cannot cancel Marketplace orders. We urge you to process cancellations as they arrive. We understand that orders may move into your fulfillment process quickly. If you are unable to cancel or stop the shipment, notify the customer that you are unable to cancel the order and that they will need to follow your return process or refuse delivery. In these cases of attempted cancellation, do not charge Walmart customers a restocking fee.

What are the reasons for the Walmart account Suspension?

Walmart suspends sellers’ accounts on various grounds. These are as follows:

1st Reason: Walmart Performance Standards Infringement
2nd Reason: Non-Compliance with Marketplace Retailer Agreement
3rd Reason: Neglecting Walmart Operational Standards
4th Reason: Trust and Safety Standards Violation
5th Reason: Horrendous pricing

To successfully sell at Walmart Marketplace, sellers need to keep up a plan of action that makes sure none of those mentioned above violations take place, ever.

Reason #1: Walmart Performance Standards Infringement

Source: Walmart

Each seller needs to meet the performance standards laid down by Walmart and the sellers can view their performance in the Seller Scorecard provided by Walmart. The Performance metrics on Walmart comprise of the Walmart Performance Standards. These are as follows:

1. Cancellation Rate

The cancellation rate is the percentage of orders canceled by the sellers after receiving orders from Walmart. It must be less than 2% in 14 days. Cancellations can occur while you sell on Walmart when:

Walmart auto-cancels your orders. This happens when your orders cross the Estimated Shipped Date.
You cancel orders because of the inventory shortage.
Orders get canceled because of some pricing error.

2. Refund Rate

The refund rate determines the percentage of orders the customers refunded because of reasons the seller is responsible for, such as wrong item, damaged item, etc. The refund rate needs to be less than 6% in 90 days.

3. On-Time Delivery Rate

The on-Time Delivery Rate is the percentage of orders you deliver on or before the expected delivery date. It should be greater than 95% in 14 days.

4. Valid Tracking Rate

Valid Tracking Rate is the percentage of orders with valid tracking information provided and the delivery scan on or before the Expected Delivery Rate. It should be greater than 99% in 14 days.

Supplying Valid Tracking information is not as simple as it sounds. It is not about just providing a valid tracking number and confirmation of shipment made.

Sellers are required to follow the Walmart Performance Standards concerning the Shipping Policy. They are required to use only one of the following five carriers, which are further classified into two types:

Regular Shipping Methods
- Free Value
- Standard
- Next-Day
Shipping Large and Bulky Items
- Freight

Sellers are required to choose at least one of these as their shipping method. Providing tracking information requires a valid link using which customers can either directly track their order or a link to the website along with a tracking number.

Sellers must provide this information and follow the guidelines for every order they receive to maintain their performance and save their Walmart Account from being suspended.

5. Seller Response Rate

The Seller Response Rate is the percentage of customer inquiries responded to within 48 hours. Sellers are required to maintain a seller response rate greater than 95%.

Failure to respond to customer inquiries within the set 48 hours limit by Walmart can lead to the auto cancellation of orders that are not shipped by Walmart and a refund for the shipped orders.

Exceptions considered by Walmart

Walmart also states certain situations are out of the control of any seller. Thus, it pardons them of any repercussions if the sellers can prove that their inability to meet the stated standards was due to one such reason.

When a violation occurs, Walmart initially delivers a Warning and then proceeds to Walmart Seller Account Suspension.

On receiving one such warning, if the sellers feel that they were not at fault and can supply justification, they need to provide the following details to Walmart:

The reason behind the issue.
Provide valid proof that can justify the failure. Such as a natural disaster affecting the warehouses. That, in return, slowed the in-time delivery or failure of API for specific reasons, in which case you would have to supply a case number.
The period during which the said unbridled event occurred.
Provide the total number of orders that were affected by the event.

Order Defect Rate

It is the ratio of total orders with any defect (at least one such order) to the total number of orders during the period when the defect in order occurred.

What are the Order Defects?

Order Cancellation by Walmart Sellers
Orders Returned due to defective or wrong orders delivered by Walmart Seller.
Order Delivery out of the Expected Date of Delivery.
Customer Complaints and reviews based on defective or below expectations order delivery.

Order Cancellation Defect

Order Cancellation defects occur when the sellers cancel orders on Walmart due to low and insufficient inventory compared to the demands.

Or if sellers realize too late that they have priced the product incorrectly or a particular part of the description sends out the wrong expectation for the product.

These raise questions about the seller’s sincerity and create a negative customer experience.

Order Return Defect

The order returned post-delivery is perhaps the worst thing that could happen to a seller’s image.

Several reasons could lead to this defect, such as defective or damaged or weak quality orders received by the customer. Customers can demand refunds for missing parts of the order, leading to a gap between the item delivered and the customer’s expectation.

This defect directly falls under the abolition of Walmart Performance Standards, leading to the suspension.

Delivery Defect

It is not a secret that customers prefer their item to arrive soon once they make payments.

Giving customers an expected delivery time and then failing to deliver within that time limit disappoints the customers greatly. Walmart’s Performance Standards expect sellers to deliver all items in an order on time.

With the guaranteed Next Day and 2-Day Deliveries promised by Walmart, the requirement to reduce delivery defects has increased more than ever.

Some reasons that could lead to this kind of episode involve late shipment in the first place. Or due to items being out of stock or some natural disaster affecting the shipping process or warehouses involved.

Under such circumstances, Walmart pardons the sellers and does not charge a penalty.

Customer Complaints

If you fail your customers, they will complain. It is just as simple as that. It could be a case where the customers find any defect in the product. Or a gap between the expectation laid down by your listing and what you delivered.

Please note that Walmart will not inform the sellers personally about the complaints they receive against them. Claims, even after settlement, will still be counted as a defect.

Periods for ODR Calculation

For calculating ODR, it is crucial to understand the periods for which scores are calculated and reflected on the Walmart Seller Account Scoreboard:

The scores for 90 days are calculated for the orders placed 120 to 30 days ago to escape the Return Window on the orders. Thus, it is reflected only for orders that are complete by all means.
Although it is possible to calculate ODR for any amount of time, the dashboard shows 14 days and 90 days of ODR.

The calculations vary, and Walmart bases them upon the following considerations:

One order can have more than one issue, but Walmart considers them as one order only in the ODR calculation.
ODR for Walmart Sellers with 50 or more orders over three months is calculated for 120 days.
For Walmart Sellers with lesser than 50 orders in three months, ODR is calculated for 12 months.
ODR for less than 120 days is calculated and reflected only for new sellers on Walmart with very few orders on their Walmart Seller Account Dashboard.
ODRs for 14 days and 90 days are reflected on the Walmart Seller account on the 1st and 15th day of every month.
ODR is not an average of order defects but an exact sum of them.

The sellers must keep Order Defect Rate (ODR) less than 2% to avoid the suspension of their Walmart Seller Account.

On-Time Shipment

It is crucial to ship the orders in the time promised and supply valid confirmation and tracking details to Walmart to avoid the delivery being late.

The two things you can do to deliver the items within the expected delivery date are choosing the right Shipping Services and shipping the item in time.

With the new promise of the next day and 2-day deliveries, missing the expected shipping date can hamper the commitment and reflect poorly upon Walmart itself, which is unacceptable.

The Expected Shipment Date is defined by two shipment-related factors: Order Cutoff Time and Fulfillment Lag Time. Order Cutoff Time is the time limit that determines whether or not the seller needs to ship the order on the same day of placement. This means if the placement of an order occurs before the cutoff time, the seller would have to ship it the same day; otherwise, they can ship it the next day.

Fulfillment Lag Time is the total time required for processing the item for picking, packing, and shipping. The two factors together describe the entire time between order placement and the Expected Shipment Date. Sellers should carefully define these in the Walmart Seller Account Profile Settings page to avoid adverse effects and wrong ESD calculations.

It is effortless to adjust the time you get before shipping. Hence you can control any issue arising from here with little effort.

Hence sellers can get their Walmart Account Suspended if they continue to repeat this practice for a long time.

Reason #2: Non-Compliance with Marketplace Retailer Agreement

During the Walmart Seller Account setup process, all sellers are asked to accept an agreement that binds them legally to abide by the Standard Terms and Conditions for Walmart after the account creation step.

The Agreement emphasizes the Terms and Conditions, Policies, and Guidelines, called Retailer Policies that sellers need to follow while selling under the Walmart Marketplace Program.

It is advisable to read the contract carefully. And if you find a clause that your business might fail to adhere to later, consider including that in your business practice. Or don’t agree to the contract in the first place.

There is no escape from this condition, and failing to comply with the terms in the contract will get your Walmart Account Suspended.

Reason #3: Neglecting Walmart Operational Standards

To sell at Walmart Marketplace successfully, Sellers cannot fail at any time to maintain top-level operations. For example, on-time shipment and delivery, a refund within the period, and ensuring the best Customer Service. Not following Walmart's operational standards can result in a suspended Walmart Seller Account.

Also, keeping the prices competitively low is a hard limit for sellers on Walmart. Specific standards of operation include:

1. Customer Services

Transparently supply all the information exactly as it is. Customers’ expectations should be real so that they don’t get disappointed after receiving the delivery.
Work cooperatively with Walmart as a partner and be responsive to customer inquiries. Comply with the standards to the full capacity. Make sure you collaborate in any request or training offered by Walmart for the sellers.
Demonstrate that you uphold the standards by keeping proper documentation and promoting these standards throughout your chain.

2. Respect Individuals and Mankind

Sellers on Walmart should not participate in forced or underage labor.
To sell at Walmart Marketplace, sellers need to keep up the legitimate practice of fairly employing people based on talent, not race, gender, age, or creed.
Follow the existing laws about recompensing and working hours of all workers and keep up with the most recent amendments in those laws to protect the workers’ rights.
Do not make deductions that do not align with the laws. Or retain wages, delay them, or follow any unfair, illegal practice that might trouble the workers and make their living situations unbearable.
Do not discourage the formation of Trade unions or push workers to join one when they are unwilling to. Forming, joining, or assisting a Trade Union is every worker’s right, and respect it within the law’s limitations.
Ensure and maintain a safe work environment for all workers and push them to follow every safety measure laid down by the law. Establish a clean work environment with hygienic sanitation, water, and, if the need arises, food and living facilities. At all times, maintain proper First Aid and an easily accessible infirmary with a trained professional to assist if the need arises.

3. Excel as a seller at Walmart

Walmart expects sellers to consistently maintain Performance Standards and strive to excel the best they can. For which sellers are responsible for knowing the risks involved and addressing them to reduce any unforeseen and unfortunate events, comply with all the laws of fair trade and taxation and comply with Walmart policies.

These guidelines apply to all third-party sellers aiming to sell at Walmart Marketplace, and failing to comply with each one of them may result in a suspended Walmart Account.

Reason #4: Trust and Safety Standards Violation

Sellers at Walmart need to ensure the goal of maintaining Customers’ trust by ensuring their safety. They should ensure a legal business practice is fulfilled and not challenged by any violation.

While they sell at Walmart marketplace, sellers are strictly asked to keep up with the Trust and Safety Standards, failing to which get their Walmart Account Suspended instantly.

These standards have the following clauses:

1. Regulatory Compliance

A breach of this standard occurs when you sell at Walmart marketplace, such as a banned product, on the grounds of risk to the product and food safety regulations. This involves prescription drugs, gambling or surveillance products, baby equipment which have not been certified and tested, etc.

2. Offensive Product

Items that can be offensive to customers include products that encourage discrimination, encourage violence, or display profanity.

3. Intellectual Property

Articles that might violate someone’s Intellectual rights on their creations or something that might break the Copyright Policy on their intellectual property. Such as selling a painting without giving the proper courtesy and taking permission and right to distribution.

Reason #5: Horrendous Pricing

Competitive product pricing is crucial for selling successfully on the Walmart marketplace. When you list your catalog at unreasonable prices, Walmart delists your products from the marketplace. Additionally, when your product prices depict horrendous pricing or abusive pricing practices, Walmart can warrant your account suspension too.

Remember, when the items you sell on Walmart are also available on other websites for purchase, either by you or some other seller, your product prices on Walmart should not be more than those offered on the other sites. If such a thing occurs, the outcome will be the product de-listing or, worse, can cause the Walmart Seller account to be suspended.

Walmart’s Partner Performance Review Team

While violation of any of these can lead to Walmart Seller Account Suspension, the process is intricate. Walmart reviews the Performance of sellers on Walmart through a team of experts.

Any time the ODR limit of 2% increases to a significant amount, Walmart can temporarily terminate or temporarily block seller accounts of the respective store. They will issue at least one warning before the suspension by Walmart. Only the sellers who have spent at least three months on Walmart will be susceptible to suspension.

Walmart gives plenty of opportunities for sellers to improve their ODR before taking action against them.

The team bases observation on past 90-day ODR, and for sellers with 50 or more transactions over 120 days, it judges them for the recent three months. Also, once the limit is crossed for a particular seller, Walmart will check the changes in the latest 30 days ODR to see improvements.

The Process of Walmart Seller Account Termination

If the sellers still cross the ODR limit after everything, Walmart will suspend the seller’s privileges to sell at Walmart Marketplace. However, it is good that Walmart follows a very fair process. It provides the reason for the suspension. It also provides additional requirements or advice to change the issue.

Walmart can also take additional actions, such as terminating all open orders for your account, but they will inform you about it just as well. Sellers will receive a notice of the suspension with the most recent date on which they can appeal to Walmart to re-establish their account.

Depending upon the type of violation that resulted in a suspended Walmart Seller Account, they provide the time to test your performance.

1. Violation of Performance or Operational Standards

Sellers will receive a warning once or twice before the suspension. If the ODR remains unimproved, the suspension of the sellers’ Walmart Accounts will occur, and they will have to go through the Appeal Process.

2. Violation of Marketplace Agreement

In case the breach of the marketplace agreement causes the suspension, sellers will be informed about the specific clause that was offended and exactly how. The sellers can reinstate their selling privileges by creating an action plan that promises to comply with the said clause.

3. Violation of Trust and Safety

If you violate the community’s trust and safety, you will receive a notice from Walmart, and depending upon the degree of a breach, the team will take action.

Whereas, a Termination of Walmart Seller account, Walmart reserves the right to give no explanations, and you would not be eligible for any appeals.

Why does Walmart remove some product listings automatically?

Walmart reserves the right to de-list some of your products. They do it if they find it violates some standards, with or without giving the reasons. When it happens to the sellers at Walmart, they sometimes find it bewildering. Some of these reasons can be:

Selling items that align with the list of prohibited items or product categories list of Walmart break Walmart’s trust and safety standards.
Pricing of listings should remain competitively low compared to the same item listed under Amazon, eBay, or other marketplaces under your store name.
Walmart considers low-performing items to be the ones that do not drive enough sales. Walmart removes the listing if they are not performing well or is not popular among customers.
It is highly unprofessional to let your stock go all out repeatedly, and repetition of this will prompt Walmart to stop displaying your listing.
Walmart removes an item with too many negative ratings from customers. The reason for this is apparent. If your product is not up to the standards or creates a false expectation causing frustration in customers, they will react.

How to get a removed listing back on display?

If Walmart finds a violation in any of your listings and decides to delist it, sellers on Walmart will receive a message along with reasons and the type of breach. If something like that happens, sellers can recover the listing by immediately removing the cause of the breach or any other issue behind delisting and re-upload it to Walmart.

It is advisable to create outstanding listings that fall in line with the Walmart Performance Standards and ensure that the listings are safe in the first place.

Walmart’s Appeal Process

If the reason for your Walmart Account Suspension is other than Trust and Safety Standards violations, you can follow the Walmart Appeal Process. The following process can help you out in re-establishing your privileges to sell at the Walmart marketplace:

1st Step: Analyze Seller Performance Standards

2nd Step: Develop a new Strategy for Business.

3rd Step: Send this strategy to Walmart

4th Step: Do everything possible not to keep up but excel beyond Seller Performance.

Step 1: Revisit the Walmart Performance Standards and Walmart Retailer Agreement Policies with your Scorecard in focus.

Analyze the reasons for which your Walmart Account was suspended and re-examine your scorecard as well as ODR. First, establish the specific course of actions and factors that led to a violation of Walmart Performance Standard or Walmart Retailer Agreement Policies.

If necessary, consult an expert and figure out what caused the defects that contributed to high ODR. Make a list of different types of Order Defects and track their reasons. List them all.

If it was a violation of the Retailer Agreement, quickly go ahead and figure out Why, How, and What caused this violation.

Step 2: Develop a new optimized strategy: Business Plan of Action.

Based on your observations in step one, devise a strategy. Make it one that would ensure that your performance will be optimum while you sell at Walmart marketplace in the future. It should also ensure that your trade practices remain in line with Walmart Performance Standards and Walmart Retailer Agreement.

Ensure that your action plan reflects your understanding of the issue, its cause, and its root. Do it such that Walmart can conclude that you understand how and why the violation occurred and that you seek a chance to do a better job.

For a violation of Walmart Performance Standards, attempt to focus on the standard type. For example, what will you do to maintain all deliveries on time if you fail the in-time delivery? Will you change the shipping service you have been using so far, or will you re-evaluate the ESD to avoid false expectations? Clearly, state it with the justification of why this is the best solution.

If your Customer Service was below acceptable standards, draft a relevant strategy. Focus on how you will improve and assist the customers in the shortest time possible.

If the suspension was due to a lack of keeping up with the demand and maintaining the inventory, then put up a well-formulated action plan for that. It should ensure that the supply is maintained at all times to satisfy the market better.

Make sure you consult an expert if the need arises. Share your action plan with them to see if it is an excellent, low-risk one that will resolve the issue.

Step 3: Submit the Plan of Action for Walmart to Review it.

Follow the steps below to submit your plan of Action on Walmart Seller Center:

Log in to Seller Center
Go to Support > Partner Account/ Profile > Appealing Account Suspension.
Attach your Business Plan of Action
Submit your case

Merely submitting the Plan does not reinstate your selling rights at the Walmart marketplace. After submitting your case, Walmart will contact you within two days with their decision. Neither all suspended sellers are eligible to appeal for reinstatement. For example, in violation of Trust and Safety Standards, you may or may not be eligible for the appeal. Whether or not you can appeal, the mail notifying the suspension also notifies sellers of this.

Also, in the case of Trust and Safety violations, the method of appeal is different. The mail also describes the process if the seller is eligible for appeal.

Step 4: Improve your performance after the restoration of the Walmart Seller Account

Once Walmart revokes the suspension on the account, sellers are expected to strictly follow the Business Plan of Action submitted in the appeal for restoration. Also, they must strictly improve their ODRs to avoid future violations and comply with the Standards and Retailer Agreements. If the performance remains unchanged, sellers might face a suspension the second time or termination eventually.

How to avoid Suspension or, worse, Termination?

Sellers must comply with all Walmart Performance and Operational Standards. They should follow the rules and guidelines laid down by Walmart Retailer Agreement.
Supply correct Customer Service contact information at Partner Profile settings. Make sure both email addresses and phone numbers are available and authentic. Customers should be able to contact you when the need arises.
Sellers should supply the details about their correct working hours so that customers can contact them only during that time and have a higher chance of successfully communicating with sellers.
Update item descriptions from time to time, keep them accurate, and promise only what the product is instead of exaggerating it.
Pay attention to packaging to ensure the item is delivered safely to the customers.
All sellers should ensure that they meet ESD and EDD for every order to garner optimum customer satisfaction.
Sellers should continuously monitor their scorecards and keep taking measures to maintain the best performance.
Sellers should ensure top-class Customer Service all the time. They must provide an in-time response to all emails and questions and issue refunds within 48 hours. They should resolve issues quickly and maintain a polite tone while interacting with them.

After restoring your account, you can focus on creating a strategy to increase your sales and performance on Walmart.

By and Large

Thus Walmart experts intensely monitor the performance of a seller at Walmart. Based on certain factors, Walmart creates a Scorecard for its sellers, reflecting the performance of the respective sellers.

Walmart is committed to ensuring all its customers’ and sellers’ privacy and safety and maintaining fair trade practices. Therefore, in case of any violation of the standards and guidelines laid down by Walmart, Sellers are warned off. If this continues, Walmart reserves the right to suspend or terminate the seller’s right to sell at the Walmart marketplace.

It is the sellers’ responsibility to comply with Performance and Operational standards and the Retailer Agreement. Sellers should endeavor to maintain fair and safe selling practices for the customers and fellow sellers to avoid getting their Walmart Seller account suspended. If Walmart’s selling process is getting too much or you want to start selling today, let Sitnsell marketplace integrations solve your problems.