Lag time is the number of operational days it takes for you to ship an order after it’s been placed by a customer. Walmart Marketplace requires sellers to ship orders within two operational days after receiving an order. In this guide, you’ll learn how to request an exemption to exceed that timeframe if needed. Â
Walmart recommends setting a fulfillment lag time of 0 days to help improve your customer conversion rates and your eligibility for expedited delivery programs.
What is the policy?
For made-to-order and print-on-demand items that are made in your facility, the lag time exemption request must not exceed five operational days. For all other items, including items shipped by freight or less than truckload (LTL), the lag time exemption request must not exceed 10 operational days.
If you’re a new Walmart Marketplace seller, you may be eligible to apply for a temporary lag time exemption with a set end date. Eligibility is determined by Walmart. If approved, you’ll receive an email notification before your exemption expires. After the expiration, any items with expired exemptions will automatically have their lag time reset to one day.
If your lag time is 0 days and an order comes in after your fulfillment center’s cutoff time, you must ship the order by the next business day. If your lag time is greater than 0 days, your lag time starts from the order date, regardless of the cutoff time. Additional Days Off aren’t counted as operational days.
Operational days are the active days specified in your fulfillment center settings, defaulting to Monday through Friday while allowing for adjustments.
Lag time exemption limits are subject to change at the discretion of Walmart. Walmart reserves the right to update the seller’s lag time limits as well as individual item lag time settings. Without limiting this discretion, Walmart may reject your request if the information is incomplete or misrepresents your business or the assortment offered on Walmart Marketplace.
Common lag time rejection reasons also include:
- You sourced the item from a third-party vendor (a vendor whose inventory levels and processing times are not contractually controlled by you).
- You’re not able to ship the item with same-day or next-day shipping due to inefficiencies in your fulfillment process.
- The item is on preorder or backorder.
- The item is to be personalized.
Additional guidelines
To submit a lag time exemption request, select the Help button in the Seller Center menu bar to contact Support. Choose Contact support and enter the phrase: submit a lag time exemption request. Select Next and then select Confirm. Then, select the Get in touch with us link and provide your answers to the prompts.
If you’ve already set up your item prior to your request being approved, Walmart recommends that you temporarily unpublish the item or zero out your inventory to ensure that customers can’t place an order while the exemption request is being reviewed.
You can request more than one category when submitting your lag time request. To request multiple categories, you must submit a qualifying SKU example for each category. To confirm which lag time request category your SKU belongs to, download an item report from the Reports page in Seller Center and check the Lag time category column.
The third-party 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.