440: Is Selling On Walmart Worth It And How Much Can You Make? With Daniel Solid And Ryan King

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Selling on Walmart is worth it for a mature Amazon brand doing high six or seven figures with roughly 10+ SKUs, a US entity, and a price-competitive product. Expect to add 4 to 12 percent of your Amazon revenue in the first year, break even after paying for management, ads, and inventory, and walk away with a review-count moat, control of your brand on Walmart’s marketplace, and a pathway to Walmart’s brick-and-mortar shelves that Amazon can never offer. If your best sellers are premium-priced or ultra-niche, Walmart is not for you right now.

In this episode of the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, I sat down with Daniel Solid (a longtime friend, seven-figure Amazon seller, and founder of Solid Strategic) and his BlueRyse partner Ryan King. BlueRyse is a Walmart-only agency that has moved hundreds of third-party (3P) SKUs onto walmart.com, including a 300-SKU migration for one large aggregator.

Below is the honest breakdown they shared: who Walmart actually works for, the numbers to expect, how the review economy still leans wide open, and what the setup process now looks like after Walmart quietly loosened its approval filters.

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Key takeaways

• Mature brands should model 4-12 percent of their Amazon revenue on Walmart within 12 months. Outliers hit 20 percent. Very new brands under six months of sales history will typically get rejected at the application stage.
• Walmart shoppers are more price-sensitive and search with broader keywords than Amazon shoppers. Mid-range, everyday products win. Premium and ultra-niche products struggle.
• Your Amazon hero SKU is often NOT your Walmart hero. In a 300-SKU migration BlueRyse ran, entirely new products emerged as best sellers on Walmart while top Amazon products underperformed.
• Walmart’s review economy is still permissive. Incentivized reviews via Bazaarvoice Spark or Field Agent (at roughly $15 per review + product cost) are white-hat and endorsed by Walmart.
• If you already collect reviews on your DTC site through Yotpo or Bazaarvoice, you can syndicate them straight to Walmart. Average review counts on Walmart’s page one are in the 20s-30s (Bluetooth earbuds average about 780 vs. 40,000 on Amazon).
• Walmart applications got much easier in late 2022. A single form now covers marketplace access, Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), and Walmart Connect ads. There is no monthly professional-seller fee.
• Advertising is roughly a third cheaper. Average CPC on Walmart runs about $0.80 versus $1.24 on Amazon.
• Strong Walmart marketplace performance is a real on-ramp to in-store distribution. A single Walmart retail deal, even in a subset of the 4,200 US stores, can add $5M+ in annual revenue.

How much revenue can you actually make on Walmart vs Amazon?

For a mature Amazon brand, plan for 4 to 12 percent of your Amazon revenue on Walmart within a year. Ryan defines “mature” as a brand doing high six or seven figures on Amazon, past its early growth phase, with 10+ SKUs (variations included).

Daniel’s own shooting-sports brand hit about 5 percent of revenue in Q4 2021 shortly after launching on Walmart, then settled into the 3 to 5 percent range as competitors moved in. Outliers exist in the 20 percent range, but those are the exception.

That is why Walmart is best framed as diversification, not a replacement channel. A 5 to 12 percent lift is not enough to warrant your best operator’s full attention, which is exactly why the agency model exists.

Who Walmart is (and is not) a fit for right now

Walmart is a fit for established Amazon or DTC brands that already have sales history, US entity status, and a mid-priced product with broad appeal. Walmart is not a fit for brand-new sellers, ultra-premium brands, or ultra-niche products that rely on long-tail keywords.

Ryan’s fit checklist looks roughly like this:

• At least six months of sales history on Amazon or your own site, ideally six figures in aggregate revenue.
• A US, UK, or Canadian entity. Walmart does not accept sellers without one, which structurally screens out most Chinese direct sellers.
• Around 10+ SKUs. Walmart’s new sponsored-brand banner ad requires at least three SKUs to run.
• A product that fits Walmart shopper intent. If the shopper thinks “I could grab this at Walmart, I wonder if they have it online,” you are in the zone.
• A price point within roughly 50 percent of the current top sellers in your Walmart category. Much higher and conversion collapses.

What kinds of products win on Walmart

Products that win on Walmart are mid-priced, broadly searched, everyday staples, plus consumables like supplements. Premium, ultra-niche, and long-tail-keyword products that thrive on Amazon typically underperform on Walmart because Walmart’s search volume drops off sharply beyond the top few keywords.

Ryan gave a clean example. A “bamboo coffee filter for pour overs” can do well on Amazon on long-tail search. On Walmart, “coffee filter” (the broad head term) is where the volume sits and where you have to compete.

Supplements are a category worth calling out. A Walmart food-and-consumables rep told Ryan at Sell and Scale that supplements now account for about 33 percent of walmart.com revenue in that segment.

Why your Amazon best sellers are probably not your Walmart best sellers

Your Amazon best sellers are often not your Walmart best sellers because Walmart’s shopper profile, price sensitivity, and category dynamics reward a different subset of your catalog. Middle-tier products and products that have become commoditized on Amazon frequently get a second life on Walmart.

BlueRyse moved 300 top-performing SKUs onto Walmart for one large aggregator client. The Amazon heroes largely underperformed. New heroes emerged from the middle of the catalog.

Practical implication: prioritize SKUs that have been squeezed by Amazon competition, not the ones still winning there. Walmart’s optimization gap gives those “tired” SKUs room to rank again.

Walmart vs Amazon: side-by-side comparison

How to sell on Walmart: the setup process

The Walmart setup process is now a single application that covers marketplace access, Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), and Walmart Connect ads, followed by listing setup, brand registry, and inventory inbound. The whole flow can be up and running in about a month for a seller already familiar with Amazon.

Here is the step-by-step BlueRyse walked me through.

Step 1: Apply as a Walmart marketplace seller

Fill out the single unified application. You will be asked for your EIN, projected SKU count, business history, and category mix. Walmart wants at least six months of sales history and prefers six-figure aggregate revenue, so brand-new sellers should build history on Amazon or their own site first.

The application filter used to be brutal. Walmart quietly loosened it in late 2022 after over-correcting for bad actors leaving Amazon. If you were previously rejected by a robo email, the door is open again.

Step 2: Register your brand with Walmart Brand Portal

Walmart Brand Portal is Walmart’s version of Brand Registry. It protects your intellectual property on the marketplace and unlocks the new sponsored-brand banner ad, which as of October 2022 rolled out to 3P sellers. Match your paperwork exactly to your legal selling entity so registration goes through the first time.

Step 3: Prepare your product data (with scannable UPCs)

Walmart requires a scannable GS1 UPC on every unit. If your Amazon units only carry an FNSKU label, you need to add a real UPC before shipping into WFS. GS1 now sells individual UPCs for about $30 each, and WFS also offers a per-unit labeling service if you prefer to keep your existing packaging.

Do not simply syndicate your Amazon content over. Walmart’s algorithm ranks with different character counts, different bullet formatting, an extra description paragraph, and heavy weight on backend attributes.

Step 4: Ship at least one unit into WFS

Onboarding completes only after you have created at least one live listing and connected at least one unit of inventory. Inbound to WFS is typically faster than FBA right now. Walmart has also negotiated FedEx inbound rates that are competitive with Amazon’s UPS deal, and they currently offer a one-to-many warehouse distribution service at no extra charge.

Step 5: Generate initial reviews (this is where Walmart is still wide open)

Walmart still permits incentivized reviews through approved partners. That means a well-prepared launch can hit 4.5+ stars quickly and out-review most of your category on page one.

How Walmart reviews work: three legitimate ways to build review count fast

There are three legitimate, Walmart-endorsed ways to build reviews quickly: syndicate from your existing DTC review platform, upload historical DTC reviews by CSV via brand-level application, and generate new reviews through Bazaarvoice Spark or Field Agent. Incentivized reviews are allowed on Walmart in a way they no longer are on Amazon.

Syndicate reviews from Yotpo or Bazaarvoice

If your DTC site already runs Yotpo or Bazaarvoice, both platforms can push those reviews directly to your Walmart listings for the length of your contract. Yotpo tends to be cheaper and often includes syndication in existing packages. Ask your rep to switch it on.

Ryan gave the clearest illustration of the leverage. A DTC site sitting on 100 organic reviews can push all 100 to Walmart on day one and immediately jump above the category average.

Bluetooth earbuds on Walmart’s page one average about 780 reviews versus 40,000 on Amazon. Most categories average in the 20s to 30s.

Upload historical reviews by CSV (brand-level)

If your organic DTC reviews are not hosted in Yotpo or Bazaarvoice, apply at the brand level through Walmart’s marketplace team to upload them by CSV. Walmart runs filtering questions (are these your own site’s reviews, are they not from another marketplace) and if you pass, they ingest them permanently. Once uploaded, they are yours to keep, with no ongoing contract dependency.

Reviews from Amazon do not qualify. Walmart specifically asks whether reviews originated from another marketplace and rejects those.

Generate new reviews through Field Agent or Bazaarvoice Spark

Bazaarvoice Spark is Walmart’s answer to Amazon Vine. Field Agent (fieldagent.net, sold via Plum Marketplace) is a gig-worker network that will fulfill a purchase-review flow at about $15 per review plus product reimbursement.

Both are white-hat and endorsed by Walmart. The Field Agent flow directs the tasker to a canonical URL, requires them to complete the purchase, walks them through survey questions, and prompts a review that gets tagged as incentivized (which Walmart displays and counts).

The three-part Walmart listing quality score explained

Walmart’s Listing Quality Score is a 0-100 metric that unlocks more search traffic, and it is weighted across three components: Offer (heaviest), Reviews and Ratings, and Content and Discoverability. At 80 percent quality, you get a search-visibility bump. At 95 percent or higher, Walmart’s algorithm will also serve your listings on Google Shopping for free.

• Offer (heaviest weight): price and price parity with other marketplaces, delivery speed (aim for 2-3 days), and zero delivery defects (cancellations or late acknowledgments) in the rolling 7-day window.
• Reviews and ratings: at minimum, one review at 4.5+ stars. The algorithm is not deeply granular here, so hitting the floor is what matters most.
• Content and discoverability: title, description, images, and (crucially) backend attributes. These are where most syndicated-from-Amazon listings fail because Walmart’s format differs from Amazon’s.

Aim for 95 percent or higher. That is the internal metric Walmart itself uses when deciding which listings are worth pushing into Google Shopping and Google Ads for free syndication.

Walmart marketplace as a pathway to in-store retail

Walmart’s marketplace is now an active farm system for in-store distribution because Walmart integrated its retail and e-commerce merchant teams under one omnichannel structure. A brand that performs well on walmart.com can get invited to talk to a Walmart merchant about in-store placement, and Walmart’s June open call event now gives marketplace sellers first-round access.

BlueRyse has sat in on line reviews where the buyer’s opening question to an existing in-store brand was “show us your .com performance.” Walmart is using marketplace data as a de-risking signal before displacing any in-store SKU.

A single Walmart retail deal, even limited to a subset of the 4,200 US stores, can add roughly $5M in annual revenue for the brand. That upside is one that Amazon simply cannot offer.

What it costs to hire a Walmart agency (BlueRyse pricing)

BlueRyse charges a $1,000/month minimum retainer covering up to six SKUs under direct management, with a tiered per-SKU fee beyond that. The economic case they make to brands is to expect first-year breakeven after retainer + ads + inventory, with the moat (reviews, brand control, ranking) compounding into profit in year two and beyond.

Daniel’s honest framing: at a 5 to 12 percent revenue lift over Amazon, Walmart is not worth pulling a strong operator off Amazon for. It is worth outsourcing to a specialist so that your internal team can stay focused on the primary channel.

BlueRyse also runs a 12 to 15-point fit assessment for brands with large catalogs (for example, “of my 500 SKUs, which 20 percent should I list on Walmart?”). They openly tell brands they are not a fit, which is a signal I appreciated.

Walmart’s growth trajectory and why it matters now

Walmart is growing its e-commerce marketplace at roughly 6 percent per quarter with an announced $14 billion earmarked for e-commerce fulfillment infrastructure. The company is converting warehouses to WFS use, hiring aggressively into advertising roles while laying off elsewhere, and exploring using its supercenters as mini-warehouses for last-mile delivery.

The last point is the most interesting. Walmart supercenters are within 10 to 15 minutes of roughly 90 percent of the US population. If Walmart uses that footprint for fulfillment at scale, delivery speed on walmart.com could rival or beat Amazon in many zip codes.

New leadership signals matter too. Seth Dallaire, formerly of Instacart and one of the early architects of Amazon’s global advertising business, joined as CRO and EVP of Walmart US. Walmart is putting the right people in the right seats.

Frequently asked questions

Is selling on Walmart worth it in 2026?

Selling on Walmart is worth it for mature Amazon or DTC brands with US entity status, a mid-priced product, and 10+ SKUs. Plan for a 4 to 12 percent revenue lift over Amazon, first-year breakeven, and a compounding moat in reviews and brand control. It is not worth it for brand-new sellers or premium/ultra-niche products.

How much money can I make selling on Walmart compared to Amazon?

Most mature brands see 4 to 12 percent of their Amazon revenue on Walmart within the first year, with outliers pushing 20 percent. A brand doing $1M on Amazon should model $40K to $120K on Walmart in year one.

Is it cheaper to sell on Walmart than Amazon?

Walmart is slightly cheaper overall. There is no monthly professional-seller fee ($0 vs. Amazon’s $39.99), average ad CPC runs about $0.80 vs. Amazon’s $1.24, and inbound FedEx rates are competitive with Amazon’s UPS deal. Referral fees are comparable at roughly 15 percent.

What is Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) and how does it compare to FBA?

WFS is Walmart’s version of FBA. It handles storage, pick, pack, and shipping for third-party sellers. Inbound times are currently faster than FBA. Walmart does not offer a small-and-light program yet, but it does offer oversized fulfillment and per-unit labeling.

Are incentivized reviews really allowed on Walmart?

Yes, when generated through Walmart-endorsed partners such as Bazaarvoice Spark and Field Agent. Both direct the reviewer to the actual listing, require a genuine purchase, and tag the review as incentivized. Friends-and-family reviews are still prohibited under FTC rules.

Can I import my Amazon reviews to Walmart?

No. Walmart’s brand-level CSV upload process explicitly asks whether reviews originated from another marketplace and rejects any that did. You can, however, import reviews from your own DTC site (via Yotpo, Bazaarvoice, or CSV upload).

How do I get my product into Walmart stores?

The most reliable current path is to build strong marketplace performance on walmart.com and either get invited by a Walmart merchant to discuss in-store placement or apply to Walmart’s June open call, where marketplace sellers get first-round access. Walmart merchants increasingly use .com sales data to de-risk in-store trials.

Do I need a US business to sell on Walmart?

Yes for most sellers. Walmart requires a US, UK, or Canadian entity. UK and Canadian acceptance was added recently. This is one reason Chinese direct sellers are structurally absent from Walmart’s marketplace.

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