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Guide

Shipping & fulfillment policy

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Overview
What is the policy? 
Additional guidelines
Frequently asked questions
Helpful resources

Overview

To provide a consistent shipping experience for customers, you're required to meet a minimum set of shipping policy requirements. In this guide, you’ll learn more about the requirements of the Shipping & Fulfillment Policy, along with additional guidelines.

What is the policy?

This table outlines the shipping policy minimum requirements and restrictions.

Required	Prohibited
You must support a minimum of one shipping method to ship orders to customers. You must choose an appropriate lag time, shipment method, carrier, and carrier service level to deliver the order to the customer on or before the Expected Delivery Date (EDD). Walmart reserves the right to extend or shorten your Expected Delivery Date for accuracy. You'll be held accountable to the Expected Ship Date in these scenarios. You must configure your operating schedule for each of your active fulfillment centers in Seller Center to define the timeframe in which you'll stop receiving orders on a given day. You're required to support shipments until 11:00 am in your local time zone, at least five days per week. Your preferred days must be selected for each of your active fulfillment centers. Tracking numbers must be accurate, valid, and only communicated to Walmart once a package has been tendered to the carrier for shipment. For more information, review our Valid Tracking Number Policy. All attempts to increase the sale price of a purchased item after a Walmart order has been completed are prohibited and may result in suspension or account termination.	You may not purchase products from another retailer and have the order shipped directly to a Walmart customer. Orders can't be shipped in competitor boxes or packaging. Additional Days Off should be used sparingly and for exceptional cases. You can use up to 15 days off per fulfillment center per calendar year. Excessive use of Additional Days Off is closely monitored and could result in temporary or permanent account suspension or termination from Walmart Marketplace. Don’t knowingly mark an order as Shipped without physically shipping the item. If you mark an order as shipped without shipping the items, you'll be responsible for all shipping-related charges, refunds, or adjustments. Packages may not contain any seller or third-party promotional or marketing materials (including but not limited to, customer surveys, requests for product reviews, promotional offers, coupons, or similar marketing items). For more information, review our Packaging Policy. Walmart reserves the right in its sole discretion to suspend, terminate, and/or take other immediate action against sellers who purchase a product from another online retailer and have that other retailer ship the product directly to the customer (also known as Retail Arbitrage), if the packing slip or materials, invoice, and/or external packaging for the product includes the name or other identifier of any entity other than you and if an exception has not been granted. Such other actions may include, without limitation, suppressing your listings from search results, imposing selling limits, and withholding all funds. A single violation may result in action against you.

Required

Prohibited

You must support a minimum of one shipping method to ship orders to customers.
You must choose an appropriate lag time, shipment method, carrier, and carrier service level to deliver the order to the customer on or before the Expected Delivery Date (EDD).
Walmart reserves the right to extend or shorten your Expected Delivery Date for accuracy. You'll be held accountable to the Expected Ship Date in these scenarios.
You must configure your operating schedule for each of your active fulfillment centers in Seller Center to define the timeframe in which you'll stop receiving orders on a given day.
You're required to support shipments until 11:00 am in your local time zone, at least five days per week. Your preferred days must be selected for each of your active fulfillment centers.
Tracking numbers must be accurate, valid, and only communicated to Walmart once a package has been tendered to the carrier for shipment. For more information, review our Valid Tracking Number Policy.
All attempts to increase the sale price of a purchased item after a Walmart order has been completed are prohibited and may result in suspension or account termination.

You may not purchase products from another retailer and have the order shipped directly to a Walmart customer.

Orders can't be shipped in competitor boxes or packaging.
Additional Days Off should be used sparingly and for exceptional cases. You can use up to 15 days off per fulfillment center per calendar year. Excessive use of Additional Days Off is closely monitored and could result in temporary or permanent account suspension or termination from Walmart Marketplace.
Don’t knowingly mark an order as Shipped without physically shipping the item. If you mark an order as shipped without shipping the items, you'll be responsible for all shipping-related charges, refunds, or adjustments.
Packages may not contain any seller or third-party promotional or marketing materials (including but not limited to, customer surveys, requests for product reviews, promotional offers, coupons, or similar marketing items). For more information, review our Packaging Policy.
Walmart reserves the right in its sole discretion to suspend, terminate, and/or take other immediate action against sellers who purchase a product from another online retailer and have that other retailer ship the product directly to the customer (also known as Retail Arbitrage), if the packing slip or materials, invoice, and/or external packaging for the product includes the name or other identifier of any entity other than you and if an exception has not been granted. Such other actions may include, without limitation, suppressing your listings from search results, imposing selling limits, and withholding all funds. A single violation may result in action against you.

Additional Guidelines

Expected Delivery Date (EDD)

The EDD is the delivery date that the customer sees before they make a purchase on Walmart.com. It’s calculated by your predefined order cutoff time, fulfillment lag time and transit time. Walmart uses a prediction model to ensure late deliveries are minimized and makes adjustments as needed. If the first delivery attempt takes place on or before the EDD, the order is considered delivered on time.

Notes

Per 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 Expected Delivery Date may result in selling privilege restrictions.

Notes

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.

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. Any previously configured and approved lag time may be reduced by Walmart when not used to ensure accurate delivery promises. It’s your responsibility to ensure a lag time is configured accurately, and that you comply with delivery expectations.

Expected Ship Date (ESD)

ESD 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."

Notes

Per 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

Notes

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.

Notes

Walmart reserves the right to extend or shorten the Estimated Delivery Date and transit times based on your historical performance and current practices to provide the customer more accurate delivery information on Walmart.com. However, as a seller you’re still responsible for making sure your items are shipped by the Estimated Shipping Date, and that your fulfillment practices comply with the requirements to ensure delivery by the Estimated Delivery Date.