Walmart Fulfillment Service (WFS) is Walmart’s proprietary 3PL provider for eCommerce businesses. 

We’ve written two posts on the topic, covering:

• How WFS works
• How much it costs
• How to sign up
• How it compares with Amazon FBA
• How to know if it’s right for your business

If this is all new to you, we recommend starting with our first post: What is Walmart Fulfillment Service?

When eCommerce businesses utilize 3PL services, they can scale their operations despite having little or no warehousing space.

But businesses that attempt to scale without a foundational strategy or system are asking for headaches.

A strong inventory management system (IMS) is the centerpiece of every successful eCommerce business; it’s the hub for controlling and optimizing your supply chain, processing workflow, sales forecasting, and more. 

IMS systems like SkuVault also come with powerful features that automate much of the essential, but time-consuming work of inventory management.

In this post, we’ll talk about why all eCommerce businesses need an IMS at their core, especially those utilizing 3PL programs like Walmart Fulfillment Service.

What Are the Benefits of Using an IMS With Walmart Fulfillment Service?

While WFS and other 3PL companies offer a great service to eCommerce businesses, they’re primarily looking out for their own interests.

In other words, no one is going to care more about the ROI of your business investments than you, the owner, and your stakeholders. 

You need a system outside of the WFS ecosystem to keep tabs on your own inventory costs and supply chain status. 

You need inventory management software, like SkuVault, that tracks the entire inventory lifecycle of your business — from managing suppliers to getting shipments out the door.

Here are some of the tangible features and benefits of using SkuVault as your inventory management system. 

Direct integration with Walmart Fulfillment Service

SkuVault seamlessly integrates with Walmart’s back-end warehousing system. From one dashboard, you can see all your product quantities in their warehouse.

SkuVault updates inventory metrics every 5-10 minutes so you can act quickly to replenish products when they run low. 

Aggregated data across multiple sales channels

Many businesses find success in selling their products across multiple channels. That means not only selling through 3PL services but also:

• Brick-and-mortar retailers
• Custom storefronts (like Shopify)
• Other established marketplaces (like Etsy or eBay)

It may not be right for your business to sell exclusively on WFS year-round. As we mentioned in our previous posts, Walmart’s fees jump significantly for slow-moving products or seasonal storage. 

SkuVault helps aggregate all of your essential inventory data into one convenient dashboard. Our one-stop-shop for inventory management also integrates with all popular channel management software, such as ChannelAdvisor. 

This way, you can reduce operational headaches and multiple logins by having all of your inventory data in one central location. 

Robust SKU system

If you’re utilizing a multichannel strategy, you’ll want to create a “single source of truth” to keep your products organized. 

SkuVault allows for detailed, simple SKU creation for all your products. You can include product attributes, manufacturing dates and locations, lot numbers, and more. From there, you can easily generate and print barcodes for easy scanning and picking when it comes time to replenish your Walmart inventory.

Comprehensive Reporting

A multichannel strategy by definition requires you to diversify where you sell your products. While this often comes with a broader demographic reach, it also requires you to reconcile reports from several different storefronts.

Reporting is an essential discipline to ensure positive ROI, but as a busy business owner, you don’t want to spend your time exporting CSVs and trying to get them to match up in Excel every month.

SkuVault features a bevy of helpful reports, most notably for WFS is the Replenishment Report. In a matter of clicks, you can generate a report that shows you a recommended replenishment amount based on:

• Sales forecasting
• Established reorder points
• Maximum/minimum order quantity

Improve seller performance ratings

Businesses on Walmart.com live and die by seller reviews. In fact, the algorithms on all the major marketplaces (eBay, Etsy, Amazon) use seller reviews as a major ranking factor when choosing which products to serve up to customers.

SkuVault comes with built-in quality control checkpoints that will help you ensure you’re replenishing Walmart with the proper products in the proper quantities. Good quality control on your end trickles into Walmart’s operations, which helps prevent mis-ships, stock-outs, and poor customer experiences.

When customers are receiving the right products in good condition in a timely manner, they’re much more likely to leave positive seller reviews. Good seller reviews propel you higher and higher in Walmart’s rankings, and the flywheel effect continues.

Walmart WFS With SkuVault Makes Life Easier

In addition to:

1. Complete inventory visibility
2. 5-minute updates from Walmart’s warehouses to your SkuVault dashboard
3. Easy replenishment reports
4. Aggregated inventory data

 

SkuVault drastically simplifies the process of getting products from your location (or distributor) to Walmart’s distribution centers.

We know 3PL providers are essential services for eCommerce growth. That’s why we’ve built SkuVault to make your WFS fulfillment process as simple as possible.

With a few clicks, you can generate your WFS shipment, complete with a digital or physical picklist. You can even choose from multiple fulfillment strategies, such as:

• Replenishing according to projected sales forecasts
• Replenishing according to maximum or minimum order quantities

SkuVault does all the calculations for you. All you need to do is pick, pack, and ship your items to Walmart. 

Next Steps

3PL programs like Walmart Fulfillment Service make growth possible for eCommerce businesses. Especially those with big goals, but not a lot of storage space.

Walmart is a powerful eCommerce marketplace in its own right with an unparalleled physical infrastructure. However, diving in without a strategy or a system in place will only create unnecessary costs and complications.

We’d love to take you on a tour of all SkuVault’s benefits and show you how we can help you achieve your goals and boost your revenue. 

To find out more, reach out to our team today for a live demo.