all right hello everyone it's a minute
after the hour we'll get right started
welcome to this webinar brought to you
by shipstation on Walmart my name is
Mark and I'll be quietly working behind
the scenes while our two great speakers
have the floor we have seen an
overwhelming response to this webinar
and we'll be covering selling on Walmart
Marketplace I'll start to ship we have a
lot of ground to cover and so we'll
briefly start with the why why you
should be selling on one more
marketplace followed by how to maximize
your application how to optimize your
operations to get ahead and how shipping
can put you on a path of being a top
seller so first a quick few housekeeping
notes all attendees are muted and
questions can be submitted via a
question box on your webinar dashboard
and this webinar is jam-packed with
information but we will get to questions
at the end
well there are best to answer any
technical and audio questions should
they come up and a question box during
the webinar as well and lastly the
webinar will be recorded and we will
e-mail you when it's available for
viewing so without any further delay
we're excited to have our friends at
Walmart is on this webinar so thank you
Chris for getting it kicked off for us
and I'll give you the floor thanks very
much my name is Christian a chef Sookie
and placed in California and worked
walmart.com for two and a half years now
managing channel partnerships for
marketplace it's my job to make sure
that Walmart is connected to the right
solution providers to help sellers grow
revenue and provide exceptional service
to customers I'm super excited to
co-present with shipstation and approve
partner that supports many Walmart
sellers - the best-in-class
shipping platform and today we're going
to talk a bit about how Walmart's doing
who shops on Walmart and then we'll be
covering elements that talk to both
marketplace sellers considering adding
Walmart as a new channel and also
existing warm up marketplace sellers
that are looking to grow their business
and have a fantastic holiday seat
so as you know e-commerce is growing
rapidly and projected to reach about 700
billion dollars by the end of 2020
various vegetable sources estimate
different growth rates so NRF project
projects about 12% growth while Internet
Retailer gives a more optimistic growth
number of 15% warmer calm is out
actually outpacing the market and
projecting 40 percent growth in 2018 so
you might just a single that we shared
our q2 results we actually achieved 40
percent year-on-year growth in year 2
sorry in q2 in the ever-changing retail
landscape Walmart is uniquely positioned
to enable customers to research shop and
receive goods where when and how they
want and with all this at Walmart we
rely on a third-party partners our
marketplace sellers to offer the best
assortment and customer experience to
Walmart shoppers so a few stats on the
current state of the business
a Walmart it's the world's largest
omni-channel retailer according to the
NRF top 250 retailers ranking and last
year we significantly grew our catalog
to reach over the 75 million items we
currently have about a hundred million
unique visitors monthly to the site but
let's put some color to this number so
we have a lot of diversity in our
customer base on walmart.com
which allows our third-party sellers to
reach valuable customers no matter what
they're selling
so what customers come to Walmart come
looking for a much wider assortment than
they do in Walmart stores and what we're
seeing is more than half of our online
shoppers and married or partnered and
have kids and what might be surprising
is that Millennials are our largest
generational segments over a third of
our customers also more than half of
wal-mart common customers have medium to
high household income and on the home so
this slide gives us some insight into
what Walmart calm shoppers are looking
for interesting insights and came from
the
your cancer report and walnut and not
surprisingly Walmart is save money live
better we help customers save money to
improve their lives so value is the
leading reading people shot on warm up
with 66% the overwhelming majority said
that feeling like I got a deal is the
most important purchasing factor for
them with the rise of multi-channel
shopping customers now have all the
information at their fingertips and
regardless of income they're savvy about
pricing and search for better deals
online Walmart's focus has always been
on saving people money and now we're
growing our 3p partnerships we ask our
sellers and vendors to fine-tune pricing
continuously and to be competitive and
to meet our customers expectations now
for those sellers that have been selling
a warm up for some time you've been
through a journey with us along our
growth trajectory and I'm not starting
as a new partner marketplace we've been
very conservative very focused on
getting the right customer experience
and also ensuring that we have the right
price points so we want a customer to be
confident that when they go on Google to
look for a product they're generally
going to see Walmart with the lowest
price in the market and we've pushed
pretty hard with marketplace sellers to
get this price down some some of you
will have had some of your items
unpublished in the past now we've
invested a lot in technology to and to
improve the way that we manage this
process so we can still give customers
the lowest price but also supports our
own the strides we've made over the last
few months have seen many many items
getting republished and so one action I
thoroughly recommend you taking the
Builder to holiday season is to look
through the inventory or look through
the items you post on warm-up check any
that may have previously been
unpublished for which you zeroed out
inventory and add inventory back in
because you're going to see a lot of
items getting republished there so a tip
for holiday season and back to the data
on the slide by experiencing convenience
59 percent and 42 percent respectively
so those are two really important
factors our shoppers like to have a
stress-free experience before and after
the purchase
and that's why we expect our partners to
ensure fast delivery and easy returns we
partnered with shipstation on this
webinar to show you how you can optimize
your shipping operations to offer
best-in-class customer experience in
relation to shipping something that you
may have seen we've made a lot of
efforts to develop as a two-day free
shipping offering but most of our first
party products are now available for two
day free shipping and when you do a
search on walmart.com you'll see the
free two-day tag against these products
and we're also expanding this to
marketplace slowly to a select bunch of
eligible sellers so what I would say is
and we'll touch on this further further
down in the deck is to really look
closely at your order defect rate and
because of that feeds into the
eligibility criteria for eventually
being able to offer this free two-day
flag more to come in the future on that
and the third point on this slide we
want to talk about is assortment and
brands so 49 percent 35 percent
respectively of customers say they come
to Walmart come looking for assortment
and brands so which we go back to the
point that we get many Millennials on
the site a third of our customers and
millenials think about the sorts of
brands that Millennials are looking for
they're not necessarily what we
traditionally stock in our Walmart
stores so a lot of opportunity for
brands way beyond that you know mid mid
to low high-end brands we're going to
sit really nicely on the site across a
broad range of categories when you join
Walmart marketplace you can sell with
confidence and at Walmart we have a
multi-layered vetting process that
allows us to select experience Spearin
sellers only and promote a professional
community in experience as a marketplace
seller you will have control of pricing
and customer experience and if you look
to expand to a new sales channel you
should seriously consider Walmart to
boost your online growth market place
sellers can leverage the power of the
world's largest retailer while keeping
your unique identity it's good for your
entire catalog and there are no set up
or monthly fees we only charge a
reasonable referral--
for each sale that you make this next
slide looks at a qualification criteria
for what marketplace okay so as I said
on the last slide we are selective about
who we add to the site so we want to
keep a fantastic customer experience you
want the best sellers on the platform so
one thing we're going to look at in your
application we're going to ask you to
demonstrate that you have really strong
marketplace experience so we'll ask you
to submit a URL from one of the other
major marketplaces and we'll take the
time to look at your feedback on your
product reviews you know looking at the
level of experience ideally twelve
months experience and we want to see
that you're serving customers extremely
well and you've got to be a real
business so have a US tax ID provide a
w-9 form in terms of uploading items to
the site we want items that have you pcs
or G tins with them so the structure of
marketplace it's similar to Amazon in
that there is a single listing for each
unique SKU and multiple sellers can tie
inventory and an offering to that list
and so it's essentially mu pcs or G
Jane's pricing is something we'll touch
on again it's super important here that
you know you you look at the market and
you do your best to offer the lowest
price you can for this product because
Walmart is in ten is extremely important
to us to up the customers get a lowest
price in the market this pricing
includes a product plus shipping and
fast and reliable fulfillment is very
important ideally offer free shipping
where you can free shipping is going to
feed into the decision on which seller
makes the buy box whether it be warm our
3rd party seller along with price those
are those are things you can really
focus on so try and win the buy box in
terms of fulfillment you've got to be
fulfilling from a US warehouse we cannot
allow a present orders to before bill
from overseas warehouse you can't
fulfill from an FBA warehouse and so
you'll need to fulfill from your own
warehouse or another us-based third
he was just no FBA and the last point
but my Norman is at least first class
customer service is incredibly important
so as a new marketplace seller
there are really two stages to
onboarding does the approval process and
then is the onboarding the technical
onboarding process where you'll start is
there's a unique URL that will provide
on a slide later on where you'll fill in
an application be super diligent in
completing everything you can in this
application don't skip bit you've got to
enter all the information to give you
the best chances of making it through
the application and not getting getting
declined we have a business rules engine
that scans through applications
immediately and will decline for various
reasons our approvals team will also
look at the application and can pull the
application out of decline state but
this just added adds time to to go in
life so be diligent in the application
and be on the lookout for emails in your
inbox asking you to do things such as
you know finish your application or
emails from one of our team asking for
more information and the final part of
the application process is we will send
you a contract that you have to execute
once you've got the contract and you've
executed that online then that's the
approval process done and you will then
move into the onboarding phase and the
thing to look out for there is an email
inviting you to register in celle center
that's our seller portal where you will
manage your account you'll also be able
to access your API credentials there
that you will put into the ship station
system to be able to enable them to
process your orders for you as part of
onboarding once you're in supply center
you can actually set up your items there
or you can use a channel aggregator such
as a channel advisor to upload your
items through them through the API so
you can work with multiple channel
partners you can work with ship station
for your orders inventory fulfilment and
you can work with another channel
aggregator to set up your items that is
completely fine
and the heavy-lifting piece of
onboarding is setting up the items so we
do recommend that you do work with a
partner on that and also very important
is get all your items over there go
don't get all your items listed that way
you can ramp faster for holiday season
and really generate sales so when you do
generate sales on the marketplace it
will be a real comparison to what you're
doing on other marketplaces if you only
list 10% of your products and then
compare it to what you're doing the
other marketplaces obviously you're
likely to generate a lower proportional
GNP get all your items listed there and
then be ready to go live and process
these orders to ship station so for
those sellers are on the marketplace
platform already or plan to join we'd
like to call it sell a performance
standards our performance metrics is
something we introduced in September
2017 and they measure customer
satisfaction with the marketplace
experience marketplace sellers attract
on order defect rates or you might hear
it known as olia it should be less than
2% so aim for less than 2% on-time
shipment rate is expected to be above
99% valid tracking should be provided
for a minimum of 95 percent of orders
and those are things shipstation can
help you with and which defects do we
consider for our defect rates or
cancellations returns and delivery
defects they all feed into your order
defect ring and you can see this when
you log into seller center um we provide
tools such as cell sensor for sellers to
track their OD our rating and take
action accordingly OD our rating below
2% is fantastic a rating between 2% and
6% means that some improvement needed so
is our the rating above 6% should take
immediate action or may risk being
suspended so I would recommend log in
daily if not weekly so attend to looking
at OD our rate figure out you know why
you might be dropping below maybe it's
the choice of carrier and method you use
it what I would definitely say is you
know don't take any risks with your
selection of carrier method if the
carrier if you want the item to be there
you know two days and you choose a two
to three day service so the risk is
going to arrive in three days and you're
not going to meet the customer
expectations for that you can get dinged
on your seller performance and it's
ultimately going to cause you stress and
keeping your account in good standing so
here and what the warm-up brand is known
to be one of the most customer centric
companies and weekly we reviewed
customer service calls and the top two
core reasons are returns and exchanges
and then where is my order so in
reference to returns and exchanges
marketplace customers contact wormans
warm up customer service to initiate or
inquire about returns and exchanges as a
number one reason and for this reason
we're playing to streamline the returns
process this fall we're launching a new
program that we'll discuss a little
further in the presentation and the
number two reason for number two
customer core reason is where is my
order a third of wal-mart marketplace
customers contact customer service to
inquire about the status of their own
let's take a closer look at both of
these in detail a great product return
experience is a top contributor to
overall customer satisfaction and repeat
purchases our customers expect to
consistent and easy experience
regardless of whether an item is sold by
Walmart or by a marketplace seller we
also know returns can be an unwieldy
process for you our sellers so our new
returns program is which is launching on
October the 1st will significantly
improve the returns experience for both
customers and sellers customers will now
be able to print shipping labels
directly from their warm-up comic counts
and return the product back to a seller
the benefits of this program are firstly
a transparent returns policy will build
customer satisfaction and brand loyalty
which results in an improvement
conversions secondly sales will have
greater control with an option to
configure the returns policy for each
item individually including settings for
restocking fees shipping carriers
returns windows and more overall we'll
aim to create a fast and efficient
process to all the help sellers focus on
the core business while customers
initiate their returns through warmer
account
and this is just a first step with 4700
stores across the country we have a huge
opportunity to make the marketplace
returns process even more seamless and
we look forward to sharing more in the
coming months on this so here we have
two marketplace customer sentiment in
verbatim I have still not received my
order even though the tracking says it's
shipped no clear white taking week to
get here I have still not got my product
yet I've been to FedEx Office last three
times but due to weird reasons still
none but it so I'm sure in your own
customer support you've heard these
reasons come through before and as I
mentioned earlier where is my order is
the second most frequent question our
customers have the customer experience
so this slide looks at customer
experience detractors and the top five
reasons for our shoppers inquiring about
their orders are missed estimated
delivery date order not found lost in
transit oddest-looking processing and no
tracking information available Walmart
customers expect fast and reliable
fulfillment with valid tracking on all
orders and there are solutions that
power many ecommerce sellers to deliver
this on expectation a couple of things
to really focus on as we move to holiday
season to avoid challenges in this space
so managing managing your inventory goes
without saying you've got your busy time
coming up many of you may see a peak and
you sailed it's really important to get
inventory right and when you go out of
stock you know zero out your stock don't
sell items that you don't have in the
warehouse as I said before don't take
risks with the choice of carrier and
method be conservative there and all
everybody wants to get costs down it's
the right thing to do for your business
but don't compromise the customer
experience for reducing cost is one
recommendation I would give okay so as
we all commit to ramp for holiday season
now is the time to get on board list
your products with great content and low
pricing hwaran moh mark remains
committed to our seller community
growing together and setting new
standards for online
experience shipstation we're about to
pass you over to shipstation to tell you
a bit more about how to actually help
you realize and execute your goals on
warm-up just before we move over you'll
see a link here for anybody who's not
yet selling a Walmart and wants to apply
go to info chip station comm forward
slash Walmart to start the application
um I wish you have great holiday season
over to Cody now thanks very much
all right thanks Chris good afternoon
everyone
as you mentioned my name's Cody dearmond
the sales director here at shipstation
has been around for about five years or
so now that Chris laid out all those
great reasons for you to consider what
what if you're not already we're going
to talk about a few ways that we can
help you to execute on that vision
I will chime in here because Chris was
modest about it we integrate with over
100 different selling channels at this
point and that gives us a really cold
front row seat to the e-commerce space I
can say definitively that across the
landscape our merchants who have
implemented Walmart I've seen explosive
growth much above average so I know we
have a mixed bag on attendees here some
of you may already have ship stations
but you may already have Walmart some of
you may be new to both but if you
haven't explored that channel yet it
could not encourage you more to check
that out especially with tools like ship
station it doesn't mean that you'd
necessarily add extra work to your day
it can be another channel that used to
drive sales and we'll look at a tool
that'll bring all of this into one place
so just to reiterate what Chris said
there if you're not already it couldn't
employee more to check that out
process is really easy to get started
and we've seen massive growth for our
merchants echo everything that he said
there so you know this is the boring
part for many of you and your day you're
excited about coming up with new
products and new marketing strategies
and shipping kind of be the last thing
that you think about checking off your
list we live and breathe it every day so
we've got some pointers some things that
you may not take the time to consider
some strategy that you can implement a
scalar sales and then also to to make
this holiday season a success so we're
gonna try and shift the thinking around
here there's not so much have shipping
as an afterthought but an integral part
of your strategy when it comes to the
full sales cycle you put a lot of
thought into where you're driving sales
your
bringing them with channels like Walmart
to get you these sales but you don't
want to have this part of the process be
the lasting impression that leaves a bad
taste with your customer or that docks
your ability to gain repeat sales so
we're gonna look at a few ways that you
can achieve all of this without
necessarily adding time to your day as
we know this day and age the customer
expectations are always evolving they're
becoming higher and higher we're going
to give you some tools to meet these
then also of course to keep you in good
standing in the marketplace so have you
stand out as a top performer and again
drive these sales over and over last
thing we'll leave you with is that we
tend to think of shipping it as an
extension of your customer experience
you've done all the work to get the word
out there you've got your brand in front
of these people they've made the
purchase so we want to make sure that we
engage the part of the process where you
know that they're guaranteed to be
interactive and use it as a tool to
drive success for your business in the
long run so first things first being a
top performer what does that mean what
does that look like so there are a few
things here then we're gonna look at
what you need to do is your benchmark
for shipping when it comes to these
Walmart orders of course first things
first is going to be getting the orders
out the door by the end of the next
business day that is a requirement it's
not unique it's a good practice to have
in my opinion anyway but look at where
you can see that in Warrenton we'll
discuss how you can achieve that in
shipstation again all of these
requirements are benchmarks that we're
discussing here not things that should
add extra work to your day if you have
your processes in place accordingly the
next is that you're getting your orders
delivered within five business days
that's going to be a mark of a top
performer in Walmart again helping you
drive those repeat sales keeping your
customers happy and hopefully shortening
that sale cycle driving repeat sales
through the holiday season of course the
customer is expecting a tracking number
one more it's going to require that for
you as well so you want to make sure
that least 95% of your shipments do have
valid tracking in shipstation can help
you achieve this automatically so it's
not something you have to do out of your
way that it is something to keep in mind
if you don't have a tool in place that
does this for you if you're still
copying and pasting tracking numbers
you're obviously leaving that up to user
error and exposing your business some
unnecessary
pitfall
there and then of course the top
performers in the marketplace are
offering free shipping across their
entire assortment and we know that
that's realistic for some businesses
other businesses may struggle with that
as they're getting off the ground but
look at a few different tools that you
can use to make informed decisions when
it comes to your strategy there so what
you're offering your customers so what
does this look like in your seller
center what are your benchmarks the ones
that we just discussed here so first and
foremost of course what are you shipping
the same day the next business day in
shipstation oftentimes my team is we're
working with merchants help them get up
and running optimize their strategy for
their omni-channel selling is to look at
this may be something as simple as a
filter maybe you know ranking your
orders according to their age we'll look
at a few ways you can do this but that's
gonna be your first step that you want
to keep tabs on when are you actually
getting orders out the door next is we
touched on there how many of your orders
are you getting there within five
business days you know this point
customers are expecting shorter and
shorter delivery times that'll be
something you want to keep top of mind
as well see here they're above their 95
percent threshold on the valid to
tracking using shipstation confident you
can keep that up at 100 because we can
do that for you automatically for
processing these labels through
shipstation that is something to keep in
mind you shouldn't be having to navigate
between tools to manage that part of the
process that should happen automatically
as you're shipping these orders out and
then of course the strategy around how
often are you serving up free shipping
to your in customers obviously that's
going to help with conversion it's going
to drive repeat sales and look at ways
that you can be smart about that and not
just have it be a sunken cost so we'll
start with that last one how to approach
free shipping as I mentioned we get a
pretty cool front row seat to
entrepreneurs of all sizes selling all
over the place doing anything you could
think of and so because there's a really
cool view of the landscape here we get
to consciousness data we get to share
our best practices hopefully making
these merchants as successful as it
could be first things first the free
shipping 57% of customers abandon a cart
when free shipping is not an option so
what used to be somewhat of a luxury now
is the
expectation right so the the biggest
thing that you can do right off the bat
to drive cart conversion is going to be
offering up free shipping
whenever applicable so what does that
mean that shouldn't just be you know I
ship it this way it costs X amount of
dollars I just have to eat that on every
order with tools like ship station now
you can bring multiple carriers into one
place so that means you can evaluate
different options you can essentially
shop around see what's going to get it
there most cost-effectively still meet
your SLA zuv delivery time and make this
process as seamless as possible and
therefore maximizing your margins as
well at this point ship station works
with dozens of carriers so you shouldn't
have to hop around from solution to
solution to solution within one platform
you should have all of your options
there in one place a lot of the
merchants that my team works with as I
get started will employ our rate
calculator to make informed decisions
start to see that ok this type of
shipment or this product line or orders
going to this part of the country are
typically going to be best served by
this combination of carrier and service
and then building that into an
automation that happens every time again
this process should all work the same
whether you have one order ten orders a
thousand orders that need to go out the
door we're trying to scale you up for
the holiday season for the next phase of
your business again all of this should
happen without adding time to your day
the same amount of work is you should
become increasingly efficient in your
operation negotiate your rates and the
discounts are something to explore as
well you should never just settle for
the rates that you got when you signed
up from the carrier's website
shipstation we will provide you
commercial plus rates for USPS as an
example where you would normally qualify
for a really high volume other carriers
were preferred partners within as well
so if you don't have existing carrier
accounts definitely invite you to
explore that through shipstation we can
help you get started with rates that can
be significantly cheaper than lists so
if you just set up an account once and
then you never thought about it never
negotiated with the carrier
you never really revisited it that
definitely invites you to explore that
part of the process as you head into the
busy holiday season that could be money
that you leaving on the table right now
that's something my team can help you
look into as well
so again if you haven't ever explored
that definitely recommend putting the
top of your to-do lists as you head into
the busy season it's even just a little
bit saved on every shipment can start to
add up then of course not just the money
that we're trying to save here as I
touch on we're trying to save time as
well so this should be a repeatable
scalable process if you have twice as
many orders one day that's a great
problem to have but it shouldn't mean
that you spend twice as much time you
know filling boxes and getting orders
out the door so with tools like
shipstation automating this process we
can make look the same every day
regardless of how busy you start to get
making sure that you're hitting your SLA
is making it a very successful holiday
season things like automation rules
service mappings can take the order
information that you get you've worked
so hard for to get that sale and
translate that into best practices that
happen every time without manual input
or without you having to make a decision
on an order by order basis so two
takeaways there if you're paying more or
if you just have never put thought into
what you're paying for the shipments
definitely keep that top of mind if you
find yourself doing or anything
repetitively at this point should be
able to cut that out with automation so
again kind of the theme here is often
means optimizing things as we head into
the busy holiday season how does this
interact with Walmart so the first thing
is understanding this process
understanding that SFA's that we touched
on there to make sure that you're
meeting them so how do we get to those
numbers
the first thing first is the order cut
off time right so it is dependent on
when the order is place currently
standard in Walmart is and if the order
is placed for 2 p.m. local time Monday
through Friday it's considered that
business day your clock essentially
starts at that point right so within
shipstation
what we typically setup is you know
filters that show orders that were
placed that day or order age ranking
that start to start to show you you know
when orders are starting to elapsed to
get behind so it shouldn't be something
that you have to go in and look order by
order but you know as you have that
defined for your account as we see here
pretty straightforward 2 p.m. local time
should build in your account accordingly
so you can have alerts if an order is
starting it close to that or you can
prioritize orders that need to go out
that day so put some thought into how
you're getting orders out
and in the order that they're supposed
to go out and if you have questions
around that or if you've never really
put thought into that again my team
would be happy to look at the account
with you make sure that your account is
set up to automatically handle these SLA
so you stay in good standing
keep customer happy and keep your stats
where they need to be in the other part
of this equation and this is where we
can definitely help is the extra lag
time for your fulfilment so this is the
time that it takes for you to actually
get the order and pick it off the shelf
pack it into the box and get it out the
door so the standard is going to be 0 to
1 business days and that is a
requirement that's not just for the the
top performers so that's something to
have in mind
so again all these little things in the
process that may just seem like a couple
clicks here and a couple clicks there
that really starts to add up as you have
these deadlines that you need to meet
right so small things like copying and
pasting addresses or big things like
doing one label at a time those are all
things that are gonna make it harder and
harder for your team to meet these SFA's
so whether it's a tool like shipstation
or whether you're just value a ting your
internal operations these are things to
keep in mind it could be that you
started doing things a certain way when
you were smaller operation and that's
just how you've always done it or that's
how your warehouse staff is is
comfortable but now is the perfect time
of year to evaluate everything from A to
Z here to make sure that you're not just
doing things repetitively that wastes
time that cut into this lag time and
make it harder and harder for you to
have happy customers and to keep your
stats up so again kind of the theme here
is that if you find yourself doing
something over and over that really
shouldn't be the case right you
shouldn't really even have to do one
order at a time if you want tools like
pick lists or packing labels in bulk all
of these can help chip away at this get
this you know really down to a refined
process I would say probably the biggest
win on my team for new merchants that we
own border so when we see the light bulb
go off merchants that we work with it
may be we're doing things manually or
jumping back and forth between tools to
get this part of the process
sorted they may say wow this was taking
two three hours a day and now I've got
it down to 20 minutes that's what we're
here to do if that sounds like your day
to day definitely invite you to explore
this if you have an existing shipstation
account it's still taking longer than
you think
or maybe you just haven't revisited in a
while definitely reach out we'd be happy
to take a look at your account hopefully
point out some optimizations specific to
your operation that can widdle this
fulfillment lag time down because that's
what we're here to do so a few specific
examples of how I see merchants
accomplishing this so first and foremost
of course is having this all available
in one place most merchants are selling
in several channels now so you shouldn't
have to hop around between tools for
specific carriers or even specific
channels so I definitely recommend
having all this in one place fewer tools
to manage fewer room for user error
ultimately less time that you have to
spend doing this from there most
merchants that we work with are sorting
orders by age so we make it very easy
very apparent to see how long ago was
this order place you know am i running
up against my SLA s do i need to filter
down for my orders that have to go out
today all these things that can be
easily accomplished again it shouldn't
be something where you have to open up
an individual order look to see when it
was placed it should just be stack
ranked in your account or you can just
set up a simple filter that says know if
my age is older than you know XYZ let's
go ahead and bump it to the top of the
queue things along those lines the main
thing is just put a little bit of
thought into it if you have questions
around how to build this in reach out to
us we can do it for you but you need to
know what orders you need to process
specifically what orders really need to
get out the door that day to keep your
SLA is up next of course I kind of
touched on it but creating pick list
there's simple simple tools that instead
of going to other end of the warehouse
grabbing that one SKU that you need off
the shelf walking back to your station
putting in a box taping it up printing
one label putting it on there and then
repeating the process tools like ship
station make it really easy for you to
do this in bulk
whether it's one order 100 orders a
thousand orders this process really
should look the same so maybe you want
to knock out you know the 50 orders that
need to go out the door today and you
just select all of those and create a
pick list for all the products that need
to be grabbed off the shelf before those
or the next point batches maybe you want
to instead of doing one label at a time
as you've done previously you want to do
a hundred labels at a time you could get
really automated in this process
essentially the idea is that your
fulfillment
processin shipstation should look like
logging in seeing the orders that need
to go out that day hitting select all
and clicking print at that point
everything from picklists
to the actual labels itself should
happen for you automatically so if your
operation does not look like that today
consider it's all like ships ation or
reach out to us optimize your current
ship station account again a lot of this
can be done in bulk now it shouldn't be
a one-off order you know copy and paste
create one label at a time walk over
grab one item that was the old way of
doing things now we see successful
merchants scale by doing all of this in
bulk okay and of course the next part of
this process is the transit time you
know how much time does it actually take
for the shipment to get there so you see
the standards listed out here you've got
the minimum time and the maximum time so
those are your windows right that's the
ultimate measure it's gonna drive happy
customer service that's gonna drive your
rankings on Walmart so this is really
important and it doesn't have to be
guesswork anymore either right in ship
station rate calculator that I mentioned
where merchants are using us to make
informed decisions across different
providers it's also giving you an idea
on how long this is going to take you
know if you've been doing this for a
while you probably have a pretty good
idea but you're new to it or you just
haven't revisit it in a while
it's very easy to apply the best
practice automatically every time so you
shouldn't be relying on someone there in
the shop to do the right thing you
should be done for them and right so if
you have new workers come in or if your
team scales or whatever the case may be
you get really busy this should all work
the same right so for example maybe you
know that a certain delivery area maybe
it's your East Coast orders can be
delivered on time with USPS but if it's
outside of that delivery area to meet
your SLA it needs to go to day service
anything you can come up with there
whatever the use cases for your business
we can build that in so the first is
being aware of these standards of course
you keep that top of mind and then kind
of working backwards from there the
services that can fall within that you
know essentially most economically for
your operation so do a little bit of
homework upfront my team again can work
with you to do that making informed
decisions here since you have all of
these in one place
and then building in the practices with
automation rules or service mappings to
make sure that it happens every time
we're about to look at what that will
look like so of course the first part of
this two-part process is going to be on
the Walmart side of things so it's
selecting your shipping methods in
seller centers so I'm sure most young
women are familiar with this already but
it's going through and specifying by
region what standard what excited what a
next day and of course the rate it goes
with that as we touched earlier you know
the more free options the better but you
don't have to go into this blind anymore
with multi-carrier tools like
shipstation again you can start to run
hypothetical shipments through as you
build out these decisions so you're not
taking a shot in the dark here you're
making really informed decisions with
data behind it to start to add in you
know rates here that will be you know
most effective for you as a business but
then also obviously driving car
conversion there so you know that's the
big thing that I would take away here
don't think of a shipping cost in the
cart as just you know a loss think of it
as part of your strategy towards driving
repeat sales and getting that car
conversion as high as possible so first
part of the process here setup on the
Walmart side you should station to make
informed decisions and make that set up
within sellers in there and then should
be really quick set up on the ship
station side of things
you take your settings from Walmart and
then we're gonna have those turned into
what we call a service mapping in ship
stations what does that mean service
mapping it just means automatically have
the right thing happen every time so if
that means standard always goes
first-class package or if that means
that for example your ex but it always
goes with a certain carrier and a
certain service you know all of that
should happen automatically it shouldn't
be a scenario where you have to open up
the order look to see what was selected
then go back and select from a drop-down
how you want it to go all of that should
happen automatically right so it's just
that it's mapping it up it's mapping
your Walmart settings into what you want
to happen in ship station the great
thing is you set it up once per choice
right so you just set it up once for
standard then the right thing happens
moving forward same thing for expedited
or next day you just said that once you
tell ship station what
do from their own we've learned you know
your preferences we're gonna make that
happen
automatically you always have the option
to override it if there's some
extenuating circumstance but again the
whole key here is having this pre
assigned out so that if you want to you
can log in hit select all click create
labels and you're off and running
so two parts set it up in Walmart and
then in ship station match it up to how
you want that to go at that point your
process is almost completely automated
most of the merchants that I work with
do set it up that way but you've also
got other automation tools at your
disposal here again if you have a ship
station account don't have these in
place please reach out we can set it up
for your account and five ten minutes
make a world of difference as you get
busy headed into the holidays if you
don't have an account yet reach out
we'll get you set up with one it's
really simple to implement and we can
help build and best practices from all
the entrepreneurs and merchants that
we're working with on a day to day basis
the service mapping we just looked at a
one-to-one relation between what the
customer selected how you wanted to ship
out he granular and set up product
defaults if you have asked you by SKU
setup that you would like to implement
in ship station that's very easily done
as well preset groups if certain lines
of skews always ship a certain way or if
you want to apply changes in bulk you
can do that very quickly and then of
course the automation rules where you
can get really creative really granular
those gonna be probably our most
powerful tool within ships ation to have
the right thing happen every time
whether that's something like a
high-value order gets special treatment
and shipped a certain way or a specific
customer choice at checkout translates
into a specific setting or if you want
an alert to go out if you start to hit a
certain threshold on H anything that you
can think up that you would want to
happen automatically or that you feel
you do repetitively at this point we
should be able to automate out with some
combination of these rules and don't
feel like you have to go it alone like
in the reach outsource your ship station
expert on our team here in Austin Texas
can walk you through all of it and then
of course all of that adds up to the
expected delivery date and this is going
to be the outcome that drives that
customer experience that's going to be
driving repeat sales and of course
that's ultimately going to be driving
your stats in one more
helping you stay in good standing there
helping you maintain this explosive car
that we've seen for our merchants on
their platform so again pretty
straightforward here whether it's free
standard expedited or next day they can
think through the strategy with what
services and what options you would like
to offer and then of course make sure
that we're meeting these again with
tools like ship ization in place should
be able to cut down especially the
fulfillments lag time the transit time
to help you meet this expected delivery
date every time there's just a few quick
notes to leave you with and some
advanced things you can look at as we've
touched on throughout the presentation
today we're looking at ways to make your
sect exceptionally efficient as you
start to scale as you start to gain more
orders going into the holidays so you
can start to think of things like
scanners we have some merchants that run
their entire operations without ever
touching a key keyboard right they may
pull up a packing slip scan that have a
label automatically generate and then go
on to the next one instead of searching
for an order by name they may just scan
that document have it automatically pull
up I've seen some merchants that may
have a list of barcodes printed out and
they scan a barcode to automatically
assign service and have specific
settings apply so as your operation
starts to scale this is something to put
thought into every little bit you can
cut down even if that's just a couple
seconds per order can really translate
into you know that many orders that you
can get out the door that day or that
many more orders that you can get out
the door with the same amount of
headcount so you're not having to you
know scale necessarily your workforce as
you scale your sales so all these are
just little ways again don't feel like
you have to figure this out on your own
if you haven't account haven't looked
into this we've got a ton of resources
we can show you how to do this if you're
new to this arena and again this is some
advanced functionality that we can bring
to your operation to help get orders out
the door as quickly as possible and
maintain a great customer experience and
as I touched on at the beginning
shipstation
is exceptionally well connected when it
comes to e-commerce platforms so all the
tools that you see here can be
integrated into shipstation Walmart's
been one of our most popular most
successful integrations meeting point
here
you should have all this integrated into
one place if you heard nothing else I
said today just don't be hopping around
from told at all whether that's carrier
it's a carrier whether that is ecommerce
platform its e-commerce platform in this
day and age especially heading into the
busiest part of the year you should have
a consolidated view of all of your
orders that's going to save you time
it's going to cut down on user error and
it is just gonna make your life so much
easier as things get busy so if you have
systems that you feel like you're
jumping back and forth between at this
point you'll reach out to us we're happy
to have that discussion we have more
integrations built out than anyone in
the space but then there are also other
options that are available that you may
not see on the website so if you're
trying to figure out how to integrate
your stack here when it comes to your
operation and bring this into that
conversation we're happy to share some
of our expertise when it comes to this
show you how we see the most successful
merchants implementing this flow of data
and then again I know we have a mixed
crowd today some of you already are on
ship station if you saw something here
that Pete you hear us a reach out we'd
be happy to educate you on some best
practices or work through your processes
you get busy if you haven't you ships
issued before you don't currently have a
ship station account maybe some of those
things about jumping back and forth or
copy and pasting you're spending more
time than you would like to hit a nerve
we'd love to help with that ship station
comm it's gonna be a link at the top to
try it for you can't miss it that's
going to give you unlimited access
everything that we touched on today will
be available to you for free for 30 days
you don't even have to plug in a credit
card to get started an account manager
from my team and expert here in Austin
Texas but reach out we'll educate you on
all of this we'll help you set up best
practices so that you can meet your
requirements for Walmart you can have a
successful holiday season you can
maintain happy customers that want to
come back and buy from you not just
during the holidays but all year round
so that's what we're here to do
hopefully save you some time make your
life a little bit easier optimize your
shipping process so that you can spend
more time focusing on the part of the
business that you get really excited
about so we appreciate what we're
bringing us in on this today as Chris
mentioned if you're not already on the
Walmart maybe your ship station user I
definitely recommend looking into it
info chips h com
such will work quick application they
will get the ball rolling ship station
side of things
once you have one more in place
implementing that in the ship station so
that all of your orders come into your
existing flow will take you about two
minutes will help you to set all that
out so very pain-free process so
couldn't echo what Chris said anymore so
thank you all for hearing me out hope
that was helpful and again any questions
come up shipstation comm will be happy
to help with your existing user or
whether you're looking at this for the
first time we'd love to have that
conversation for you to make this
holiday successful hey let's so Chris
again from Walmart here and we had a few
questions come through so I'd like to
try and take a look at some of these and
see if it will give you a bit more
information to leave with today tell
them to grow your business and so one of
the one of the first questions that came
through was how long does the
application tape and also I have applied
how do I follow up how is the
application take so to actually complete
the application online probably takes
you about 10 minutes so in maybe 15
minutes depending on what is having all
the information with you so be prepared
to sit down and go through it diligently
if in terms of the approval process
howlers the approval process take that
depends heavily on how well you complete
the application and then the output of
the information you provide so we want
to see that your experienced your
genuine business and that you're
performing extremely well in terms of
serving customers on other marketplaces
if you know if the information that
comes back seems okay maybe you're not
ready for warm up maybe and you too
small as a business you don't have
enough experience maybe if your feedback
and product reviews um you know the high
the high standard that we require on the
other marketplaces if you do get
declined go back take a look at those
CDs see if you can figure out yourself
yeah my you know my Amazon account my
feedback score is low my percentage is
low or I've only been operating on other
marketplaces for a couple of months and
just because you've been declined for an
application
doesn't mean you can't come back in a
few months and reapply and get through
you're not fine forever just at that
point in time we thought you weren't
quite a fit so so don't give up do make
the effort to try and figure out we're
not going to give you all the reasons
you know some things we've got to keep
internal would take a look through all
those pieces and see if you can figure
out what you might need to change and it
may just be you need longer experience
on other marketplaces and if you if you
put in your application that you 100
percent of your items are currently
fulfilled FBA
as well that's something that's going to
get you blocked when our approval agent
reaches out to you this is something you
can discuss with them and they might ask
you for evidence you've got another way
out what I would say is in the
application if you do currently ship
100% FBA but having to ship Walmart from
another warehouse an unearthly warehouse
then maybe reduce the percentage from
say 100 percent to 50 percent just to
show that and then have a conversation
okay next question is what is Walmart
looking for in potential suppliers so as
I said you know really high quality
serving customers well and other
marketplaces and in terms of categories
we serve a broad range of categories so
consumer electronics home outdoor
sporting goods furniture there are
really wide range of categories apparel
the categories that warmer generally
serves best ourselves traditionally our
groceries and consumables so that's red
and butter to warm up that's core to
what we do a bulk of that we have
first-party we have direct relationships
with these and so we don't necessarily
on the marketplace team actively look
for sellers in that space that said
there are some that sometimes come
through to support extra assortment and
in terms of other categories so may be
that we're not quite ready for
automotive where a product requires
fitment I could be a product that a
single UPC that is used across multiple
makes and models of vehicles
we're not able to yet display that very
well on the site so we steer away from
bringing in those products
but everything else go for it you know
try and get these products listed and
then see what comes in what we've seen
from many sellers is also that products
that haven't sold well on that other
marketplaces sometimes actually sell
well in Walmart there might be a gap if
you think we've got 75 million SKUs our
biggest competitor up in Seattle has
made what three hundred and fifty
million there's a really large
assortment gap there so there's
opportunity for you to bring some
products that you can be the first to
market in um the question here is
Walmart marketplace different than
Walmart comm and can you explain the
difference between Walmart comm and jet
comm so yes something maybe I should
have addressed a bit earlier um
Walmart marketplace enables third-party
sellers to sell on walmart.com and on
walmart.com you'll have these
marketplace of products alongside
Walmart's first party products that
Walmart's owns in our own warehouses and
also dropship products that are also
classes first party but it's a third
party supply that does the fulfillment
so all three models set on walmart.com
your products will sit next to Walmart's
own products in terms of jet obviously
Walmart and jet are part of the same
company gedcom is a separate platform
and a separate technology stack with a
separate application process so consider
jet as a sales channel separately apply
to them through jet Khan site and work
with their team there now you can sell
them both that's completely fine okay it
looks like some of the other questions a
more shipstation focus or practically
film
sure so a couple great questions coming
through here first one there we have is
asking about actually getting the order
out the door and the natural material
around this so can you use carrier
branded materials to box up your order
so a great example of this
probably most popular on my side of
things might be something like USPS flat
rate box so great question no problem
there so your options would be using a
carrier branded delivery box or of
course unbranded
so you can set that up in ships a sheik
you have an automation rule that says
automatically assign this service and
then it could even have a message to
you're you know workers saying hey make
sure you use this specific type of box
so we can previous learn a service you
can use the carrier specific boxes or
unbranded boxes and then again assuming
you're managing these orders alongside
potentially orders from other channels
as well to do substation to build-out
automations to the right thing and every
time you shouldn't have to to put extra
work I manage these separately which
build in a rule that says you know use
USPS priority flat rate for this
particular type of shipment and then
maybe flag that has a flat rate box can
be a really quick part of the operation
similarly another question around actual
marketing material going in the delivery
so to maintain a you know consistent
customer experience on Walmart I'd avoid
any confusion no more getting material
in your Walmart orders but again this
can be really easily accomplished within
shipstation so you can set up a rule
that says hey you don't include you know
package slip for example that may be
necessary on other orders things along
those lines can be easily built-in be a
great question for the Walmart order
specifically you would skip the the
marketing material and I shouldn't have
to be done one at a time you can just be
built in as an automation rule on that
front so a great question
easily accomplished within shipstation
no problem there then we have another
question come in around managing
inventory I know Chris had a couple of
great points around handling that
upfront a lot of different options in
the space we see successful merchants
accomplishing that one of two ways
within shipstation you are going to have
a native inventory management solution
so a lot of merchants are taking
advantage of that it comes included with
the ship station subscription so you're
getting a great value not only for your
fulfillment but then also for managing
your SKUs your stock levels your reorder
thresholds that meet maybe some where to
start if you have an inventory
management platform that you already
have in place I would look into it
because shipstation
integrates with almost all of the
leaders in that space or if you're
evaluating new options you ever reach
about shipstation we can give you our
view of the space so you know different
tools and at this point there ton of
options out there we integrate with
nearly all of them so you should be able
to seamlessly connect that into
shipstation
have this all be you know one contained
ecosystem that again it doesn't require
you to jump back and forth or do extra
work so if you don't have a system in
place I'd invite you to check out ship
stations native system if you do have
one in place I would definitely
recommend looking into integrating that
with ship station because chances are we
already connect alright this is mark
again on the back end that's all the
time we have for today we have tons of
questions coming in and thank you
everyone for joining and we hope this
has been an informative webinar we've
taken note of all the questions that
have come in should you have any further
questions that you didn't type in the
box email us at webinars at ship station
comm so we can route it for the best
answers and we'll try to get to all of
your questions as well a recording of
this webinar will be sent out within the
next few days with that have a great day
and thank you again for taking the time
to join today and happy selling