Understanding and leveraging eCommerce platforms like Walmart Marketplace has become crucial for brands across various sectors. As online shopping rates continue to grow, so does the data available to marketers who use them.
Retail marketplace APIs provide brands with a powerful opportunity to understand customers' shopping behavior directly through eCommerce channels.
The Walmart Marketplace API, provided by the retail giant Walmart, has emerged as a game-changer, offering marketers a direct channel to assess their sales performance with Walmart's vast online marketplace.
In this blog we’ll take a look at how marketers can get the most out of their Walmart Marketplace data, and which metrics they need to track in order to measure the success of their marketing efforts.
What is Walmart Marketplace?
Walmart Marketplace is Walmart's eCommerce platform, offering third-party brands direct access to millions of online shoppers through seamless product listing, order management, and inventory synchronization.
Marketplace sellers are given the opportunity to use Walmart.com as a venue to sell and promote their products on Walmart.com alongside Walmart’s own products.
What’s the difference between being a seller on Walmart Marketplace Vs. being a Walmart vendor?
As there’s no intermediary buyer for brands selling on Walmart Marketplace, sellers can list any items they want, provided they’re not prohibited - and they can determine their own prices.
The Marketplace boasts numerous integrations with third-party platforms, simplifying the shipping and order handling processes, which is a notable advantage over the logistics required by Walmart suppliers. The Fulfill By Walmart (FBW) program closely mirrors Amazon's FBA initiative, and the platform’s Seller Center is continuously improving.
How can I get sales data from Walmart Marketplace API integration?
By using a Walmart Marketplace API integration, brands can stream their operation performance, enhance visibility, and reach Walmart's extensive customer base more effectively.
Brands can collect insights tailored to their goals, such as product catalog management, inventory updates, order processing, and shipping integration.
The platform not only facilitates efficient eCommerce operations but also unlocks insights into customer behavior, which can be cross-referenced to other marketing efforts. Therefore, brands are able to optimize their product offerings, pricing strategies, and overall customer experience within Walmart's vast online marketplace.
Why should Walmart Marketplace metrics matter to marketers?
Tracking key metrics on Walmart Marketplace is essential for marketers selling on the platform as it provides insights into sales performance driven by campaigns, influencing customer behavior, and overall return on investment (ROI).
By closely monitoring these metrics, brands can make data-driven decisions, optimize their advertising strategies, and maximize their impact on Walmart's highly engaged customer base.
What Walmart Marketplace metrics should I track?
Walmart Marketplace provides marketers with a comprehensive suite of reports and metrics to track and analyze their sales success. Each report delivered by Walmart Marketplace is delivered with important product attributes to obtain the flexibility needed to correlate these back to initiated campaigns, these include:
- Item ID: Unique identifier for each item.
- SKU: Stock Keeping Unit for each item.
- Product Name: Name of the product.
- Inventory Levels: Current stock levels of each item.
- Pricing Information: Current prices and discounts applied to each item.
These attributes, when analyzed in conjunction with metrics encompassing sales, promotional activities, shipping statuses, and more, offer comprehensive overviews of your marketing strategy and product positioning. Such insights are pivotal for marketers seeking to refine their approach and enhance market penetration.
At the moment, the Walmart Marketplace supports over 15 reports on various granularity levels, among which the following three are widely utilized. Below, we’ve listed a few key metrics and dimensions from these three reports to help you understand the relevancy for each:
Looking for a report that will gauge product performance?
Item Report:
- Sales Performance: Track sales volume and revenue generated by each item.
- Fulfillment Types: Determine the fulfillment methods available for each item (e.g., Fulfilled by Walmart, Fulfilled by Seller).
- MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price): Track the suggested retail price for each item.
- Searchable?: Signifies how easy it is to find an item on Walmart.com
Want a report for effective stock management?
Inventory Report:
- Input Quantity: Quantity of items added to inventory.
- Available Quantity: Quantity of items available for sale.
- Ship Node Name: Name of the Fulfillment Center or “Ship Node.” This is a custom name that sellers can create to identify the ship node, for example: “TwoDay_WestCoast” or “CA_Standard.”
Want a report that will help optimize your product strategy?
Assortment Recommendations Report:
- Internal Search: Analyze search queries within the marketplace store.
- Best Sellers: Identify items with the highest sales volume.
- Trending Items: Track products experiencing a sudden increase in demand.
- Inventory Correlation: Assess how well your inventory aligns with demand signals.
- Forecasted Purchase Volume: Predicted sales volume for upcoming periods.
- Price Trends: Monitor changes in pricing for trending items.
Using these reports and metrics provided through the Walmart Marketplace API integration, sellers can automate their reporting and gain proactive insights into their product performance, inventory management, and customer demand. This allows them to make informed decisions to optimize their sales strategies and maximize revenue.
More details on additional metrics for the Walmart Marketplace can be found here.
Walmart Marketplace in action
Numerous brands and agencies have already leveraged the power of the new Walmart Marketplace API to drive success. This is especially useful for CPG companies that are integrated with Walmart Marketplace's product catalog and inventory management systems, as they gain direct access to sales data and order fulfillment metrics which they would rarely have access to when selling within the wholesale model.
Obtaining these datasets optimizes their product assortment, pricing strategies, and delivery processes, leading to a significant increase in online sales and customer satisfaction.
4 tips on implementing Walmart Marketplace
To maximize the effectiveness of the Walmart Marketplace API integration, marketers should consider the following best practices:
- Develop a comprehensive integration strategy: Outline clear goals, data requirements, and operational workflows to ensure a seamless integration with the Walmart Marketplace API.
- Leverage data insights: Utilize the rich data provided by the Walmart Marketplace API to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, product performance, and operational efficiencies.
- Automate processes: Implement automated processes for product listing, inventory updates, order management, and reporting to streamline operations and ensure real-time synchronization with the Walmart Marketplace.
- Continuously optimize: Regularly monitor performance metrics and adjust strategies based on insights from the Walmart Marketplace API to improve sales, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
Mastering platforms like the Walmart Marketplace is increasingly important for marketers aiming to maintain a competitive edge in the eCommerce landscape. Adverity proudly collaborates with Walmart, empowering marketers to effectively monitor crucial metrics around sales data, order management statistics, inventory levels, and product performance. These insights offer guidance for refining strategies and outperforming competitors in the online marketplace.
With eCommerce becoming more dominant in the retail industry, platforms like the Walmart Marketplace offer brands a distinct opportunity to integrate their operations seamlessly while fostering deeper connections with customers and supporting brand loyalty.
By cross-referencing these performance metrics with other online marketplace platforms such as Amazon and Shopify, businesses can unlock greater visibility on a range of digital shelves, elevate customer experiences, and ultimately achieve sustained growth and success in the dynamic eCommerce landscape.
