Walmart uses your warehouse’s location and shipping carrier service information to calculate a more accurate promise time for customers. 

If you've shipped the order on time and the carrier you selected had delays, you will not be responsible for the late delivery, and it will not affect your On-Time Delivery (OTD) metrics. 

We recommend sticking with the carrier and carrier service listed in your template’s settings. If you choose to switch the carrier and carrier service after an order is placed and the order is late, you'll be responsible for the late delivery.

You should use the same warehouse (zip code) as listed in your template to fulfill the order. If you fulfill the order from another warehouse and the order is late, you will be responsible for the late delivery. Make sure to set up your current warehouse address and zip code in your template to ensure you're fulfilling the orders from the right warehouse. We don't recommend using your virtual node if you aren't shipping your orders from that location. 

No. Only one carrier service per template is allowed. 

Each template will have one carrier service, but you can create two separate templates if you're using more than one carrier.

Sometimes a customer’s location is within proximity to your warehouse, so the carrier service may be able to deliver the order sooner. If your Ship Method says to expedite or rush the order, you can ignore that and move forward with the carrier service you’ve chosen in your automated shipping settings.

This is typically because you still need to assign inventory to the warehouse that you selected in the automated template (visit Step 5 above). If you are not using the default fulfillment center for automation, then you need to make sure the inventory quantity is set to zero. 

Currently, automation is only available to those who offer free shipping, which consequently means you can’t add shipping fees to your automated Shipping Template settings. If you do not offer free shipping, you will need to set up your Shipping Templates manually. For more information, visit Shipping Templates: Add settings manually.

There are many reasons why a customer’s promise time might be inaccurate. Here are a few things you can do to avoid this issue in the future:   

• Add the fulfillment warehouse to your automated Shipping Template settings.
• Use the same carrier service you set up in your automated settings.
• Add reasonable cutoff times to avoid delivery delays.
• Confirm the offer doesn’t have excessive handling time (also known as lag time).
• Enable Saturday delivery in your General shipping settings.
• Set your default fulfillment center’s (FC)  inventory count to zero if you are not using it to fulfill the order in question.

If your inventory is not updating after making changes to your automated shipping settings, make sure you used the correct Inventory file, which can be found on the Update items in bulk page in Seller Center under step number three. When filling out the Inventory spec, make sure you enter the right fulfillment center (FC) and the correct format for the fulfillment center ID: FC – FC ID number (example: FC- 614832115886776321).   Also, if your FC doesn’t show up on the Location drop-down menu during the automation setup process, that typically means it hasn’t been added yet.

Select sellers will have automated shipping settings enabled automatically to help optimize their delivery promises. If you’ve been enrolled automatically and wish to opt out, let our team know via email.