Walmart Marketplace

Overview

Walmart Marketplace is the third-party (3P) selling platform operated by Walmart Inc., the world’s largest retailer, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas. It lets independent brands and sellers list products alongside Walmart’s own first-party (1P) inventory on Walmart.com, reaching 255M+ weekly customers. After a near-dormant first seven years, the marketplace became the centerpiece of Walmart’s e-commerce turnaround and is now widely viewed as the most credible challenger to Amazon in US online retail, hosting roughly 200,000 active sellers as of mid-2025.

What they’re known for

Walmart Marketplace is best known as the “Amazon alternative” — the go-to second channel for sellers who want to diversify away from Amazon while tapping the reach of the biggest US retailer. It is distinctively known for:

• A no-monthly-fee model (“only pay for what you sell”), contrasting with Amazon’s subscription-based Professional plan.
• Being curated and invitation-oriented: sellers are vetted, with background checks and brand-protection tooling, positioning it as a more controlled catalog than open marketplaces.
• The tight bundle of Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) for Prime-style 2-day shipping and Walmart Connect, its fast-growing retail-media/advertising arm.

History

• 2009 — Walmart announces Walmart Marketplace on August 31, adding nearly one million items from a small group of sellers.
• 2009-2016 — Largely dormant for seven years while Walmart struggled with online relevance (fewer than 500 sellers at the start of 2016).
• 2016 — Acquisition of Jet.com (August 2016) becomes the catalyst; sellers grow from under 500 to nearly 8,000 by year-end.
• 2016-2019 — Catalog expands from ~5M to 45M+ items; two-day shipping and in-store returns for marketplace orders added.
• 2020 — Launch of Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), letting sellers store and ship through Walmart’s fulfillment network.
• 2021 — Marketplace opened to international sellers (China, Canada, UK); ~80,000 active sellers.
• 2022 — ~155,000 3P sellers; 3P accounts for ~27.5% of Walmart’s $118.6B GMV.
• 2024-2025 — Crosses 200,000 active sellers for the first time in mid-2025; ~44,000 new sellers in the first five months of 2025; cross-border expansion into Canada and Mexico.

Business model

Walmart operates a hybrid 1P + 3P model. On the marketplace side it earns money primarily through category-based referral (commission) fees taken on each sale — typically 6% to 15% of the item price, with some categories tiered by price point (e.g. apparel at 5%/10%/15% across price bands). There are no monthly subscription, listing, or setup fees, a deliberate contrast with Amazon.

Additional revenue layers:

• Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) — weight-based pick/pack/ship and storage fees (fulfillment starting around $3.45 for sub-1lb items); roughly two-thirds of sellers use WFS.
• Walmart Connect — retail-media advertising (sponsored products, video, retargeting). Walmart’s global ad revenue hit $6.4B in 2025, growing ~37-46%, far faster than Amazon’s ads.

Third-party sellers now supply roughly 95% of the products on Walmart.com and account for nearly half of marketplace GMV.

Why it succeeded

Walmart Marketplace’s turnaround rests on a few structural advantages that its links document:

• Distribution moat. Walmart could plug a marketplace into 255M+ weekly shoppers and an existing store/logistics footprint, giving sellers instant reach that no standalone challenger could match (marketplace.walmart.com).
• Seller diversification demand. Amazon sellers actively wanted a second channel to reduce platform risk and find lower ad/fulfillment competition, and Walmart positioned itself precisely as that channel (Seller Labs).
• The Jet.com inflection + WFS. The 2016 Jet acquisition and the 2020 launch of WFS gave the marketplace the talent, urgency, and Prime-style logistics it had lacked for seven years (Marketplace Pulse: Ten Years).
• The retail-media flywheel. Walmart Connect turned marketplace traffic into high-margin ad revenue, funding further growth — its ads grew more than twice as fast as Amazon’s (Marketplace Pulse).
• Fee simplicity. No monthly fees and a straightforward referral-fee model lowered the barrier for new sellers (Feedvisor).

It is not without friction: sellers report inconsistent results, thin human support, and slower account resolution than Amazon (Modern Retail).

Notable facts

• ~200,000 active third-party sellers as of mid-2025, up ~25% from 160,000 in 2024.
• 95% of products on Walmart.com come from third-party sellers (~420M items in the catalog).
• US 3P marketplace grew nearly 50% year-over-year in FY2027 Q1 — its fastest pace in ~2.5 years.
• Third-party marketplace GMV estimated at roughly $15B, ~10% of Walmart’s ~$150B US e-commerce business.
• ~34% of active sellers are Chinese merchants; ~60% of new 2025 sellers came from China.
• ~66% of sellers use Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS).
• Walmart Connect ad revenue reached $6.4B in 2025, growing far faster than Amazon’s $68.6B ad business.

Links

Title	URL	Type	Note
Walmart Marketplace — Let’s grow together!	https://marketplace.walmart.com/	official-site	Official seller-facing landing page; fees, WFS, reach
Marketplace: The Holy Grail of E-tail (Walmart Global Tech)	https://tech.walmart.com/content/walmart-global-tech/en_us/news/articles/Marketplace.html	official-site	Walmart’s own explanation of its marketplace strategy (EDLP/EDLC)
Ten Years of Walmart Marketplace	https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/ten-years-of-walmart-marketplace	article	History: 2009 launch, dormant years, Jet.com inflection
Walmart Marketplace Growth Reaches Fastest Pace in Years	https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/walmart-marketplace-growth-reaches-fastest-pace-in-years	article	~50% YoY 3P growth, ~$15B GMV, ~200k sellers
Walmart’s Advertising Revenue Is Outpacing Amazon’s	https://www.marketplacepulse.com/articles/walmarts-advertising-revenue-is-outpacing-amazons	article	Walmart vs Amazon ad revenue and penetration
Walmart’s Ad Revenue Totaled $6.4 Billion In 2025	https://www.adexchanger.com/commerce/walmarts-ad-revenue-totaled-6-4-billion-in-2025-as-the-ecom-flywheel-started-to-spin/	news	Walmart Connect ad revenue and the ecommerce flywheel
How Many Walmart Marketplace Sellers in 2026? [200K+]	https://redstagfulfillment.com/how-many-walmart-marketplace-sellers/	article	Seller counts, WFS adoption, Chinese seller share
Walmart Seller Fees: What You’ll Actually Pay in 2026	https://feedvisor.com/university/walmart-seller-fees/	article	Referral fee ranges, tiered categories, WFS/storage fees
What is Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS)?	https://tinuiti.com/blog/commerce/walmart-fulfillment-services/	article	WFS launch (2020) and how it works
Walmart Marketplace’s Growth Surge: Why Amazon Sellers Are Expanding	https://www.sellerlabs.com/blog/walmart-marketplace-growth-2025-for-amazon-sellers/	article	Why Amazon sellers add Walmart as a channel
Walmart touts marketplace success over Cyber 5	https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2023/12/01/walmart-marketplace-results-cyber-5/	news	2022 GMV ($118.6B), 3P share, seller base
Walmart’s Record Marketplace Growth (Multi-Marketplace Strategy)	https://www.teikametrics.com/blog/walmart-growth-2025/	article	200k sellers, 420M products, China seller mix
‘We made like 4 sales’: mixed seller results	https://www.modernretail.co/retailers/we-made-like-4-sales-walmart-is-investing-in-its-third-party-marketplace-but-sellers-are-seeing-mixed-results/	news	Critical view: support gaps and uneven seller outcomes