As eluded to yesterday on the DD and based on some research, it looks like Walmart.com decided to blend their marketplace with their regular website and allow 3P sellers to have the "Buy box" on an item if Walmart is OOS.

I did reach out to Walmart inquiring about eligibility, fees and the like more out of curiosity than anything else . So far , for me anyways, this looks like it in in its infancy with more questions than answers. ToyWiz looks to be the new Lego Sheriff in this new Wild West Fronteer , heck their return policy alone is astounding in this day and age.

We shall see where this leads. 

27 minutes ago, Bold-Arrow said:

As eluded to yesterday on the DD and based on some research, it looks like Walmart.com decided to blend their marketplace with their regular website and allow 3P sellers to have the "Buy box" on an item if Walmart is OOS.

I did reach out to Walmart inquiring about eligibility, fees and the like more out of curiosity than anything else . So far , for me anyways, this looks like it in in its infancy with more questions than answers. ToyWiz looks to be the new Lego Sheriff in this new Wild West Fronteer , heck their return policy alone is astounding in this day and age.

We shall see where this leads. 

have a friend in my business that is on there, was wanting me to run his storefront or something to that effect.  I can talk to him at the beginning of the week and find out some more info if you would like.  

It is hard to believe Walmart allows such an offensive return policy on its website. I am guessing Walmart needs to expand its catalog to try and fend off Amazon. This seems to be an emerging trend and I think Target / TRU will follow suit before too long. One more thing to consider before risking getting banned on the buying side from big retailers as one day you may want to sell on their platform.

This is not anything new isn't it? BN.com allows 3PS sell on their platform, which basically makes searching for LEGO on their site tedious and waste of time.

ETA: which means not only we have to deal with Walmart incredibly unreliable search engine, once you find the item, you have to triple check the price

Let me get this straight ... the 3PS on this forum are complaining about the 3PS on BN.com & Walmart.com ?

Not complaining , heck I might jump on it if it becomes a good fit for me . Just think it is odd that Walmart would implement it in such a way . 

I think MyGofer is just setting the trends in the online marketspace.

6 minutes ago, Phil B said:

Let me get this straight ... the 3PS on this forum are complaining about the 3PS on BN.com & Walmart.com ?

More a case of envy rather than complaint 

My biggest issue with it is Walmart seems to not attract the sharpest individuals to start with. Next issue is that I don't think retailers should EVER be offering parted out sets. What the hell is next loose pieces. Are you a retailer or a yard sale...

Forget to post this article : http://clavisinsight.com/news/walmart-com-evolves-bring-marketplace-competition-buy-box/

7 minutes ago, dcdfan said:

My biggest issue with it is Walmart seems to not attract the sharpest individuals to start with. Next issue is that I don't think retailers should EVER be offering parted out sets. What the hell is next loose pieces. Are you a retailer or a yard sale...

Amen to this. Though on second thought ... wouldn't it be cool to be able to sell minifigs on Walmart.com?

I don't think customers will be able to comprehend who they're buying from. And if the items aren't truly sealed (with a real barcode), it's not really new when it's from a retailer, to me...

13 minutes ago, dcdfan said:

My biggest issue with it is Walmart seems to not attract the sharpest individuals to start with. Next issue is that I don't think retailers should EVER be offering parted out sets. What the hell is next loose pieces. Are you a retailer or a yard sale...

Start parting stuff out and you are no longer a retail business, you are a junk yard.

Guaranteed Sam Walton is rolling over in his grave...

If you could sell on Walmart's site, at least they have set expectations low on shipping large sets.  Anything is really a step up from the label on a box approach.

On a more serious note, I can see this causing much confusion for consumers expecting to return items to a store.

On January 9, 2016 at 9:50 PM, Bold-Arrow said:

ToyWiz looks to be the new Lego Sheriff in this new Wild West Fronteer , heck their return policy alone is astounding in this day and age.

Just curious, does anybody know if ToyWiz gets their inventory like all of us do?

They are not an official reseller of Lego right?

I don't see how Lego would allow them to buy stock at wholesale, store them, and re-sell for astronomical prices.

Just curious, does anybody know if ToyWiz gets their inventory like all of us do?

They are not an official reseller of Lego right?

I don't see how Lego would allow them to buy stock at wholesale, store them, and re-sell for astronomical prices.

If you could sell Lego on Walmart.com at the prices that Toywiz charges, you could simply buy all of your product at MSRP and still make a killing.

Also, they have a pretty sophisticated online buying operation. I have sold to them in the past when I had inventory that I needed to thin.

4 hours ago, ichiroll said:

Just curious, does anybody know if ToyWiz gets their inventory like all of us do?

ToyWiz has bought form me on Ebay more than once. He has employees and the whole 9 yards.

There may be one or two of you that might be interested in this.   https://marketplace.walmart.com

In an message I got from another source, here are the criteria which weren't already posted in this thread:

- Annual GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) > $1M across all US marketplaces and ecommerce platforms
- Have a US business entity and Tax ID
- Not use FBA for Walmart orders, but can use other 3PL warehouses (Warehouse must be in the US)
- Only business function that can be outside the US is customer support (it has to be in English)

I'm not anywhere close to that volume.

I don't think customers will be able to comprehend who they're buying from. And if the items aren't truly sealed (with a real barcode), it's not really new when it's from a retailer, to me...

I had this issue with the Best Buy market place. 7-8 years ago I started writing for examiner.com and that got me access to the best buy market place which was only open to best buy, and partners, employees. Basically stores all over the US could sell their clearanced and open box items on there.
I gave my sign in to my dad so he could access deals. A year later my dad mentions he has his own account. Market place is open to the public, though I don't think it ever got that popular. A few years later the bestbuy website was semi merged with the market place. I picked up a laptop on there. 10 months later laptop breaks, I took to Best Buy and geek patrol wouldn't touch it. Turns out, it was fulfilled by a 3rd party. Had no idea, just a little blurb on the bottom of the screen. No warning of the potential consequences. Fortunately it was covered under manufacturer warranty, but it was a scary day or so of extra paperwork to contact the 3rd party and get the warranty info I needed.

Now, the site is gone. maybe 2 years ago I got an email that the Best Buy marketplace was shut down.

16 hours ago, DadsAFOL said:

There may be one or two of you that might be interested in this.   https://marketplace.walmart.com

In an message I got from another source, here are the criteria which weren't already posted in this thread:

- Annual GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) > $1M across all US marketplaces and ecommerce platforms
- Have a US business entity and Tax ID
- Not use FBA for Walmart orders, but can use other 3PL warehouses (Warehouse must be in the US)
- Only business function that can be outside the US is customer support (it has to be in English)

I'm not anywhere close to that volume.

Working on this as well and once I got a reply to my many attempts I asked about the $1m mentioned here and the person I spoke with said this is not the case, and it is all a case by case kind of thing when it comes to selecting sellers. I got an invite after a few back and forth messages even though I am no where near that amount either. I am not saying I will get approved just that I got a step further than I had in the past. The next step was a little intimidating since it asked about hard numbers and percentages of sales and channels buy box felt like it was designed to figure out if you are a price gouger or not.

Got approved to sell on WM so the $1mil is not true. I am about 1/4 that much. Its all about getting wm to acknowledge you.

22 minutes ago, romoore245 said:

Got approved to sell on WM so the $1mil is not true. I am about 1/4 that much. Its all about getting wm to acknowledge you.

Congrats.  After you've been live for a while, let us know how you like it compared to other marketplaces.

I've never seen a messier system across all selling platforms.... grrrrr

I wonder if the Walmart "Marketplace" could back-fire on Walmart? When I search "Lego" in the toys category today, I get a page full of offers, including... a $171 Creative XXL Box, a $72 Vacation Getaway, a $290 Ferris Wheel, a “Reduced Price” $129 Destiny’s Bounty, a $47 Hulkbuster Smash, a $69 Large Creative Box 10698, a $180 High Speed Train, $83 Architecture New York City, $109 Santa’s Workshop, $110 Vader’s TIE vs A-wing, $45 Scooby Mystery Machine, $73 Avenger’s Tower, etc... a few dicsounts on the page, but a LOT of jacked up prices.  For the casual customer, it gives the first impression that Walmart has some expensive Legos... would make me inclined to say, "Well, I'll just have to shop on Amazon..."  They really should find a way to feature their own offers as the first several lines on the page... maybe put the Marketplace offers as a single line or two at the bottom, maybe even in a different font or color.

2 hours ago, Kenxxx said:

I wonder if the Walmart "Marketplace" could back-fire on Walmart? When I search "Lego" in the toys category today, I get a page full of offers, including... a $171 Creative XXL Box, a $72 Vacation Getaway, a $290 Ferris Wheel, a “Reduced Price” $129 Destiny’s Bounty, a $47 Hulkbuster Smash, a $69 Large Creative Box 10698, a $180 High Speed Train, $83 Architecture New York City, $109 Santa’s Workshop, $110 Vader’s TIE vs A-wing, $45 Scooby Mystery Machine, $73 Avenger’s Tower, etc... a few dicsounts on the page, but a LOT of jacked up prices.  For the casual customer, it gives the first impression that Walmart has some expensive Legos... would make me inclined to say, "Well, I'll just have to shop on Amazon..."  They really should find a way to feature their own offers as the first several lines on the page... maybe put the Marketplace offers as a single line or two at the bottom, maybe even in a different font or color.

Walmart is useless at ecommerce. It is the reason they overpaid massively for Jet, to bring onboard that online marketing talent. Amazon is extremely smart and they know to hide the over-inflated third party prices (that is why they don't give the buy box when prices rise past a certain level). Walmart's customer service is piss poor, and I expect their third party merchants would offer the same. When Walmart goes the way of kodak, blockbuster, and sears I won't be complaining. Like all of those companies they realized too late that the market had changed and now they are scrambling. Once Amazon has built its own delivery transportaion network and offers 3 hour delivery on all of its catalog to 90% of the country (within 10 years) it is lights out for the walton family.