Getting approved to sell on Walmart Marketplace isn't the same as being ready to sell. Once you've agreed to Walmart's terms, you land in Seller Center — the dashboard where you finish account setup before anything can go live on Walmart.com. This walkthrough covers that setup flow end to end. For the decision of whether Walmart is the right marketplace for you in the first place, see Amazon vs. Walmart Marketplace.
Nothing you list can be published until this entire process is complete, so it's worth doing in one focused sitting where possible — the business verification step especially can introduce multi-day waits if your submitted details don't line up cleanly with your official documents.
Step 1: Decide whether to use Express setup
If you already sell on another marketplace, Walmart's Express setup can import your existing business information and catalog data in one pass through its secure integration partner, Versori. You log in directly to your other marketplace account and explicitly choose what's shared — Walmart never sees or stores that account's credentials.
Express setup is optional and one-time. Skipping it just means entering your business details and catalog manually in the steps below — nothing is lost by skipping it.
Step 2: Submit business verification
This is the step that actually gates everything else — you can't move on to store setup until it's done. You'll provide:
- Business details: legal business name, entity type, business phone number, and a state-issued business registration number (U.S. businesses) or business license number (China-based businesses). If your business is outside the U.S., Walmart asks for additional location-specific documentation on top of this.
- Personal information: the applicant's or legal representative's personal ID. Depending on Walmart's review, you may also be asked to verify identity using a photo ID and facial-recognition software.
- Payment setup: Walmart doesn't support ACH direct deposit to a bank account. Instead you choose between the Marketplace Wallet or an approved third-party payout provider, with the specific providers available depending on your country of incorporation.
Everything you enter here has to match your official business documents exactly — a mismatched address or a business name that doesn't precisely match your registration is the single most common cause of delay. See Walmart Marketplace Business Verification for a full breakdown of what causes rejections and how long each stage typically takes.
You have 30 days after submitting your business details to finish the payment section, or your application is declined and you'll need to reapply from scratch.
Step 3: Complete store setup — market details and fulfillment
Once verification clears, store setup has three parts. First, market details: your customer service contact information, and if you're an international seller, your U.S. tax ID and corresponding U.S. legal business name (this has to match your IRS records precisely).
Second, choose how you'll fulfill orders:
- Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS): Walmart picks, packs, and ships on your behalf, and handles customer support and returns. You'll need to provide country of origin, item dimensions, and hazardous-materials data for WFS items, and add a billing method — Walmart verifies it in two to three business days before WFS can start fulfilling.
- Seller-fulfilled shipping: you pack and ship yourself. Walmart offers delay protection using its own calculated transit times by default, or you can set Manual Shipping Settings with your own return labels, return centers, and fulfillment center details.
Both fulfillment paths require a verifiable return address. You can change your shipping settings later from the Shipping Profile section of your Account page, so this choice isn't permanent.
Step 4: Set up your catalog
You can't reach this step until business details, payment, market details, and fulfillment are all complete. Here you choose how to build your Marketplace catalog — importing from an external marketplace, importing from your Supplier One catalog if you're a Walmart Drop Ship Vendor or Warehouse supplier, or building it manually. See Walmart Item Setup Methods Compared for the full menu of options and which one fits your situation.
If you sell products that don't carry a standard product ID — private label or handmade goods, for example — you can request a GTIN/UPC exemption directly from the item setup flow rather than needing a separate application. Account setup can take up to four hours to finalize after you add inventory, so don't be alarmed if your account isn't immediately marked ready the moment you finish this step.
What happens next
As a new seller, expect a New Seller Payment Hold on your early sales while Walmart builds sales history and performance data on your account — the exact hold length varies by country of incorporation. This is standard and not a sign anything went wrong. Once setup is complete and your first items are live, see How to Create a New Product Listing on Walmart Marketplace if you still need to add items individually, or run the numbers on the Marketplace Fee Calculator before pricing your first SKUs.