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Guide

Pricing rules

Last updated on Nov 7, 2024

Reading time: 4 min

In this guide:

Overview
What is the policy?
Frequently asked questions
Helpful resources

Overview

At Walmart, we’ve enacted automated rules that identify and remove offers from Walmart.com that are so highly uncompetitive or unfairly priced they could potentially harm customers and impact the overall shopping experience. Failure to adhere to the pricing rules or other Walmart Marketplace retailer policies may result in account suspension and or termination. In this guide, you’ll learn more about these rules.

What is the policy?

Pricing rule

The Pricing Rule will automatically unpublish offers from Walmart Marketplace that are priced egregiously higher than prices currently or recently offered for the same item on Walmart.com, a competing website or priced at a level that could potentially be viewed as price gouging, or other unfair or abusive pricing practices. Walmart reviews the offer’s listing price and shipping fee to determine whether an offer is compliant with our Pricing Rule.

If any offers are flagged by this Pricing Rule, Walmart automatically unpublishes the offer in question. If you’ve subscribed to Seller Center notifications, you’ll be notified via email and in Seller Center. Alternatively, you can check the Unpublished Items dashboard or download an item report in Seller Center to identify which items have been affected. The reason code will be listed as Reasonable Price Not Satisfied in the report.

Notes

Market conditions change frequently. We encourage you to monitor prices on an ongoing basis to ensure you can remain competitive. Alternatively, you can use the Repricer to enable automatic price adjustments. 

Egregious Shipping Cost

The Egregious Shipping Cost rule automatically unpublishes offers from Walmart.com if the shipping fee associated with your offer is considered unacceptably high.

Offers with low prices and unreasonably high shipping fees won’t be eligible for Buy Box boosts or site search prominence. Walmart will unpublish any Marketplace offers that violate the Egregious Shipping Cost rule. Preventive and corrective actions may be taken as circumstances warrant for repeated violations of our Egregious Shipping Cost rules or for items with unfair shipping fees that could potentially harm customers and impact the overall shopping experience.

Notes

You’re limited to 10 shipping cost edits per day for each Shipping Template. If you exceed this threshold, your Shipping Template will be locked for 24 hours. Wait 24 hours before proceeding to edit the existing template. 

Buy Box Ineligibility

Walmart’s Buy Box features an offer based on factors like competitive pricing, shipping speed, shipping cost, inventory in-stock rates, high-quality listing content and post-purchase customer experience. In certain cases where the offer is priced substantially higher than prices currently or recently offered on Walmart.com or on competing sites, but not at a level requiring automatic unpublishing, we’ll remove the Add to Cart button, as well as the offer details such as price and shipping from the item page. Customers can still purchase the item via the More Seller Options transaction flow.

This policy protects customers and Marketplace sellers. If your item is flagged by this rule, you can generate an Item Report in Seller Center to identify affected items or if you’ve subscribed to Seller Center notifications, you’ll be notified via email and in Seller Center. If an item is not eligible for Buy Box, the Buy Box eligible column will be displayed as “No” in the Item Report.

Notes

The information found within this policy and the related hyperlinks is for general informational purposes only and is not considered legal advice. This policy may contain links to third-party content which Walmart does not warrant, endorse or assume liability for and your reliance on such content is solely at your own discretion.

Frequently asked questions

My offer was unpublished but it’s listed by another seller on Walmart Marketplace for the same or a higher price. Why was my listing unpublished, but not other listings?

I believe my item was incorrectly matched, which resulted in market conditions being inaccurately calculated. What should I do?

My offer was unpublished due to the Pricing Rule. How can I republish my offer?

If prices change on Walmart.com or monitored competing websites and the item now falls within the acceptable range, Walmart will automatically republish the offer, typically within 48 hours.

Or, you can proactively update your price to be more competitive. If your offer remains unpublished after you've submitted a more competitive price, continue to adjust the price until your item no longer violates the Pricing Rule.

For any unpublished item, you can also find a Reference price on the Unpublished Items dashboard. Walmart calculates the reference price for each item using multiple external signals, such as match price from competitor websites, historical selling price, Buy Box winner price, average offer price and Walmart e-commerce and store price. You may use this reference price to help you update the new price and get your item republished.

When the price is back within an acceptable range, Walmart will automatically republish the offer, which typically takes up to 48 hours. If more than 48 hours have passed and you believe your offer remains incorrectly unpublished, select the Help button in the Seller Center menu bar to contact Support.

My offer was unpublished due to a pricing error. What should I do?

In certain cases, Walmart may automatically unpublish offers that have been priced too low, to protect you from unintended losses and customers from experiencing cancellations. The reason code listed for such items is Pricing Error. In such a case, use the Reference price or other provided price signals as a reasonable benchmark or reference to increase price until it no longer violates the Pricing Rule. When the price is updated to be within an acceptable range, Walmart will automatically republish the offer, which typically takes up to 48 hours.  

How do I reinstate my Buy Box eligibility?

Can I include my shipping fee in the item price itself?

While you’re allowed to include your shipping fee in the item price, including it may cause the price to become egregiously high compared to prices offered for same item on Walmart.com or external competing websites. In such cases, your offer may be flagged as a violation of our Pricing Rules and, therefore, unpublished or ineligible for the Buy Box.

Update the shipping fees in your Shipping Template for both your item price and the shipping fee to be competitive and avoid a Pricing Rule violation.

My offer was unpublished due to the Egregious Shipping Cost rule. How can I republish my offer?

I was suspended due to Pricing Rules violations. Can I appeal this decision?

Helpful resources

Was this article helpful?

How to update content: Overview

Catalog management

Keeping your Walmart Marketplace catalog up to date with relevant and engaging content helps create a great shopping experience on Walmart.com.

Go to guide

Update an item draft in Seller Center

Catalog management

This guide shows you how to update and publish an item draft you’ve already saved. 

Go to guide

Update item content individually in Seller Center

Catalog management

If you need to quickly update your item’s content, you can do so right from the Items dashboard in Seller Center. However, because there may be multiple sellers providing content for the same item, you may not always be able to define which content will be displayed on Walmart.com.

Go to guide

About Walmart.com

Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) helps people around the world save money and live better- anytime and anywhere - in retail stores, online, and through their mobile devices. Each week, approximately 240 million customers and members visit more than 10,500 stores and numerous eCommerce websites in 20 countries. With fiscal year 2023 revenue of $611 billion, Walmart employs approximately 2.1 million associates worldwide. Walmart continues to be a leader in sustainability, corporate philanthropy and employment opportunity.