Walmart has long been protective over their operations, preferring sellers to use Walmart Fulfillment Services, or at least to ship from their own warehouse or 3p logistics operators. What they didn’t want was for marketplace sellers to use Amazon FBA but that’s all changed.
Walmart now allow Amazon FBA (or other marketplace multichannel fulfilment options) to fulfil Walmart orders, with some restrictions:
Walmart now say that you can use Amazon FBA Multi Channel Fulfillment to fulfil your marketplace orders as long as you opt to ship in unbranded packaging and block Amazon Logistics as a carrier (USP, USPS, FedEx are fine as options). What Walmart don’t want is a customer receiving their Walmart purchase in an Amazon box delivered by an Amazon van.
You may use Multi Channel Fulfillment as long as you ship in neutral packaging using unbranded delivery vehicles, which means neither can display any logos, trademarks or branding of the other retailer.
What this change really signifies, is that the worlds largest offline retailer and the worlds largest online retailer have to acknowledge that each other exists and can offer services that the other can’t. Walmart has customers shopping in a different mindset to Amazon customer and yet marketplace sellers will always find their operations simpler if they can use a single fulfilment business… and for many that’s Amazon FBA.
– Walmart
