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Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS)
To provide a consistent shipping experience for customers, you are required to meet a minimum set of shipping policy requirements. In this guide, you will learn more about the requirements of the Shipping & Fulfillment Policy, along with additional guidelines, including Expected Delivery Date, Fulfillment Lag Time, Expected Ship Date and Transit Times.
What is the policy?
This table outlines the shipping policy minimum requirements and restrictions.
Required | Prohibited |
|---|---|
|
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Walmart reserves the sole discretion to suspend, terminate or take action against sellers who violate these requirements and restrictions. A single violation may result in action against you, such as suppressing your listings from search results, imposing selling limits and withholding all funds.
Additional guidelines
Expected Delivery Date (EDD)
The Expected Delivery Date (EDD) is an item’s projected date of delivery to the customer. It’s calculated based on the order cutoff time, fulfillment lag time, and transit time that you’ve specified for the item. This EDD may or may not be the same as the Estimated Delivery Date that is shown to Walmart.com customers.
The Estimated Delivery Date that is shown to Walmart.com customers is calculated based on your historical on-time delivery rate, your carrier’s delivery input and Walmart’s logistical insights. This date also determines the search ranking of your product
Per the Seller Performance Standards, you must maintain an On-time Delivery Rate (OTD) of 95% or greater.
When an item is five days past the EDD and the carrier has reported no movement of the item in the last three days, Walmart considers the item to be in a terminal state. In these instances, Walmart reserves the right to cancel any order that has not been delivered within a reasonable period after the EDD, as determined by Walmart in its sole discretion. You're responsible for any associated costs. Repeated failures to meet the EDD may result in selling privilege restrictions.
The EDD is assigned by adding the maximum transit time for a given method and region. Order cancelation analysis for past-due EDD orders may be performed daily to provide refunds to customers.
Fulfillment Lag Time
Fulfillment lag time is an item-level attribute that determines the number of days it takes for you to prepare the item for shipment. You’re required to ship orders by the end of the next business day (0- or 1-day lag time) unless you’ve submitted a lag time exemption request and received approval from Walmart.
Lag time exemption limits are subject to change at the discretion of Walmart. Walmart reserves the right to update lag time limits as well as individual item lag time settings.
Lag time exemption approval is discretionary, revocable, limited and depends on the type of product. If you make any changes to your lag time, it may take up to 24 hours to be reflected on Walmart.com. Lag time is also used to calculate the shipping date that is displayed to Walmart.com customers, so you’re responsible for choosing a lag time that accurately reflects your fulfillment capabilities.
Expected Ship Date (ESD)
The Expected Ship Date is the date by which you must mark the order as Shipped with valid tracking information. Once you mark the order as Shipped in Seller Center or via APIs, Walmart will send a shipment notification to the customer. If the shipping confirmation is received on or before the ESD, the order is considered “shipped on time.”
Walmart will auto-cancel an order if it’s not marked as shipped and tracking information hasn’t been uploaded by the ESD + four calendar days. For example, if an order has an ESD of Monday, the order would be auto-canceled on Friday. If you ship an auto-canceled order, Walmart isn’t obligated to reimburse a seller for orders shipped after the ESD.
Per the Seller Performance Standards, you must maintain a Valid Tracking Rate (VTR) of 99% or greater.
Repeated failures to meet the ESD may negatively impact your performance metrics. If an order is placed by your order cutoff time, it’s expected to ship by the specified date below.
Fulfillment lag time | Date that the order must be shipped by |
|---|---|
0 days | On the same day |
1 day | The next day |
2 days | The day after next |
If an order is placed after the order cutoff time, an additional day is added to the fulfillment lag time.
Transit times
Order transit times determine the number of business days it takes the carrier to deliver an order to the customer after it is shipped. The transit time requirements are specific to your particular shipping method and supported region.
You’re not required to use any specific carriers or carrier service levels to support the specified transit times within each shipping method.