As customers place orders on your eCommerce sites, you’ll need to add the orders to Seller Center for Walmart to fulfill. In this guide, we’ll show you how to create customer orders and track delivery progress.
You can learn more about and utilize the API tools available for MCS by accessing the Walmart Developer Portal. These tools help streamline and automate your fulfillment processes, including tracking inventory and all aspects of creating and fulfilling customer orders.
Check in-stock inventory
Once you’ve sent items to a Walmart fulfillment center, we treat them as a single pool of inventory. This means we fulfill orders on a first-come, first-serve basis, without reserving units for each sales channel. Multichannel fulfillment is available at all of our fulfillment centers for delivery in the 50 US states and Puerto Rico. You can check real-time inventory on the WFS Inventory page.
For a more detailed view, download the Inventory Health Report to see available or expiring inventory. This downloads a report for any inventory that’s at a WFS facility and eligible for multichannel fulfillment. This report will show the number of units shipped in the last 7 or 30 days instead of units sold. You can also easily view inventory that will expire in 31 to 90 days.
When you first use Multichannel Solutions, it may take up to 1 hour for data to appear in the Inventory Health Report. It may also take up to 3 hours for the report’s data to refresh, compared to the real-time data in the Inventory page download.
Create multiple orders
If you have multiple customer orders for fulfillment, you can add all of them at once through a downloadable template. If you are unsure how to fill out the bulk order template, each field contains a brief description to help you avoid errors along the way. In addition, you will find detailed examples by selecting the Examples tab.
Follow these steps to create multiple orders:
- Open the Multichannel Orders page in Seller Center.
- Select Manage fulfillment, then Multiple orders from the dropdown.
- Download the template.
- Fill in the template with order channel IDs or numbers. You can find these in the Multichannel Settings page under the Sales channel ID column.
- Add customer information and item details.
- Add "US" for country code in column K.
- Choose the ship speed in the Shipping Method column.
- Upload the template and submit.
After you submit, our system will check the file. To track the status, select Submission status at the top of the Multichannel Orders page.Download the error report to view issues, edit and resubmit. Here are common errors and how to fix them:
Error message | Next steps |
|---|---|
Orders are failing because of same SKU with same lineId. | There’s a duplicate order. This may happen if you’re creating a row for each unit, rather than each order.
|
Delivery promised failed. | There may not be enough inventory to fulfill the order. Please check your inventory before placing an order and restock if necessary. |
SellerLineID needs to be unique | Update SellerLineID for multiple SKUs in an order. |
Create single orders
If you want to add customer orders one at a time, you can easily enter all the information.
- Open to the Multichannel Orders page in Seller Center.
- Select Manage fulfillment, then Single order from the dropdown.
- Add the sales channel ID, customer information, shipping speed and item details. Your carrier preference package, based on the sales channel, will be displayed here.
- Review the order, then submit.
The customer order will then appear on the page. You’ll also see a Delivered by date, based on your chosen ship speed. Once we start fulfilling the order, you can’t make any changes to the items, quantity or delivery address.
Always select Residential as the address type, regardless of the actual location. We do ship to commercial addresses but can’t currently specify that for the order. We ship to any valid US address, except PO Boxes.
Non-sort items, which are typically greater than 30 lb. in shipping weight, can only be shipped by standard (3-5 business day) speed. Your item is non-sortable if it weighs >30 lb. OR if its longest side is >25" OR if its smallest side is >14".
Track your orders
You can track fulfillment on the Multichannel Orders page by using the Shipped and Unshipped tabs. Each order will show one of these statuses:
- Pending: You added a customer order, but we haven’t started fulfilling it yet.
- Processing: The fulfillment center is picking and packing items for the order.
- Partially shipped: One or more items from a multi-item order have shipped.
- Partially returned: One or more items from a multi-item order have been returned.
- In transit: Items are on the way but have not been delivered yet.
- Delivered: Items have arrived at the customer's address.
- Canceled: You or Walmart canceled the customer order. For example, this may happen if an item is out of stock. You can view all canceled orders in the Canceled tab.
Please note that multi-shipment orders may have statuses that appear in multiple tabs. When the status of your order is In transit or Delivered, select the 3 dots in the Action column and choose View order to see full order details and tracking information:
Tracking information availability depends on the day your shipment leaves the facility and the shipping speed. Here are some examples of what to expect for timing:
Two-day shipping example: If you were to place an order on a Monday before the 2pm(EST) cutoff time, your shipment would arrive on Wednesday and your tracking would be available Monday or Tuesday. After the 2pm(EST) cutoff time, your shipment would arrive Thursday and tracking would be available Tuesday or Wednesday.
3-5 day shipping example: If you were to place an order on a Monday before the 2pm(EST) cutoff time, your shipment would arrive on Thursday or the two business days after, and your tracking would be available Tuesday or Wednesday. After the 2pm(EST) cutoff time, your shipment would arrive Friday, or the next two business days the following week. Your tracking would be available Wednesday or Thursday.
Please note that these are estimates and may vary. Delivery estimates are based on business days, Monday-Friday and do not include weekends or holidays. During peak (October 1-December 31), sales events and other circumstances, it may take longer for tracking numbers to appear.
Walmart Multichannel Solutions may require delivery signatures for certain regulated items and add that requirement to your package at no cost to you.
Cancel an order
You can request to cancel within 1 hour of creating the customer order and if the status is still Pending. This means we haven't started fulfilling items yet. However, if that 1-hour window interferes with the delivery promise date, your cancellation request will be reviewed but cannot be guaranteed.
Here’s how to request a cancellation:
- Log into Seller Center and go to the Multichannel Orders page.
- Go to the Unshipped tab, locate the order, then select the 3 dots in the Action column and choose Cancel order.the order, then select the 3 dots and choose Cancel.
- Check the status. If your order is successfully canceled by the fulfillment center, the status will change to Canceled. You can view all canceled orders in the Canceled tab.
If any partial quantity line item within the customer order is canceled, remaining items will still be shipped.
Canceling an order sends a request to the fulfillment center. However, it doesn’t guarantee cancellation if associates have already started preparing the order.