Walmart Seller Center Business Value
Walmart Seller Center Analytics
Growth Opportunities
Cheat Sheet
Listing Quality
• We’re now going to look at the Growth Opportunities reports on your Seller Center account, starting with Listing Quality.
• But what is Listing Quality?
• Well, in order for your sales to experience growth and growth opportunities, one of the most important things to ensure is that your listings are phenomenally fantastic!
• The quality of the content – be it the title, the key features, the product description, the images, etc. – should all be exceptional.
• Remember that people are shopping online respond to visual stimuli as well as well-written, catchy, and informative content.
• Great listings usually translate to great sales.
• As this is an Analytics Course and not a Catalog Management Course, the Listings Quality Dashboard gives you insight on how your listings are performing based on the different items that influence a customer’s purchasing choice.
• To locate your Listing Quality Dashboard, click on the “Growth Opportunities” option under the “Analytics” Heading on your Seller Center Dashboard.
• On the next page, ensure you are on the “Listing Quality” tab page.
• The first thing you will see at the top of your Listing Quality Dashboard is the option to Select “Trending Items” only or not.
• If you deselect the “Trending Items” you will see all the products in your catalog.
• If you select “Trending Items” you will see those products that are in demand.
• In some accounts, where you are selling via Walmart Fulfilled as well as Seller Fulfilled, you will also have the option to select or deselect the “Walmart Fulfillment Items” in your reports.
• Below this, you will see these three blocks:
* Listing Quality;
* Post-Purchase Quality; and
* Pro Seller Badge.
• We’ll go through each of these in more detail next by starting with the “Listing Quality” block.
• The “Listing Quality” block will show an overall percentage as well as the number of listings that are contributing to this percentage.
• Click on the “View Breakdown” Link in this block and you will see a little pop-up window appear showing you the following information in percentages:
* Content & Discoverability;
* Offer; and
* Ratings & Reviews.
• The next block is the “Post-Purchase Quality” block which shows again a percentage of your catalog with these issues and the number of items with these issues.
• When you click on the “View Items” link in this block, the table below will show only these items with these types of issues.
• You can then remove this filter by clicking the “X” alongside the “Active Filters” name at the top of the table.
• The table at the bottom of the page shows all these factors per listing.
• This table also has available search options from the Drop-Down Menu provided, namely:
* Title;
* SKU; and
* Item ID.
• Along with a text block alongside where the relevant information can be inserted.
• You can further filter the information in the table by selecting the relevant options from the Drop-Down Menu alongside “Showing”, these being:
* All Items;
* High Priority;
* Medium Priority; and
* Low Priority.
• To the left of the table, you can filter this list even further by clicking on the “Filter” icon.
• You can then choose from the Drop-Down Menu provided and the percentages between which you are trying to locate an item, these being:
* Listing Quality;
* Content and Discoverability;
* Offer;
* Ratings and Reviews; and
* Post-Purchase Issues, which results in needing a number greater than or equal to another number.
• You can then choose to apply or clear the filter options.
• Alongside the “Filter” Icon is the “Export” Icon, which, when clicked, allows you to download the details in the table as the whole page or only items in the table.
• The fields of the table contain the following information:
* Your Item with its title, main image, SKU, Item ID, and the priority level;
* Listing Quality for that item as an overall percentage; and
* The Breakdown for that item as individual percentages for Content and Discoverability, Offer, Ratings and Reviews and Post-Purchase issues.
• When you click on the “Details” button to the right of a particular listing, you will be taken to a new page where you will find the following individual data points, all of which can be exported by clicking the “Export” Icon in the top right side:
* Item Details, which again shows your product name, main image, SKU, and Item ID with the available action being to “View on Site”, that is, view your item as it appears on the Walmart website.
* Product Type, which refers to the Item Product Type, which is automatically assigned by Walmart during item setup. Each item is assigned a Product Type which is used to determine commission rates (also referred to as Referral Fees) and Listing Quality recommendations. You will see a “Report Issue” beneath the “Product Type” bloc, which is used when you believe the Product Type Walmart has assigned is incorrect. Once you click on the “Report Issue” link, a pop-up window will appear where you can select one of the available Product Types for this category from the Drop-Down Menu provided, and then click the “Submit” button. Walmart will investigate this issue and provide a resolution within two to three business days. To check on the progress of your submission, click the “Report Issue” again to see the status of the investigation. Once you report an issue, you will not be able to submit another for that item for 30 days.
* Your “Stats at a Glance” block shows you your GMV, Page Views, Units Sold and Conversion Rate for that particular item from the last 30 days. If you click on the “View Item Trends” link within this block, you will be shown further details for each of this data in a pop-up window.
* The Ratings and Reviews block measures an item based on the number of customer ratings and reviews it has. To read your item-level reviews, simply click “# Reviews”. You’ll have the option to filter by star ratings to see a quick summary of your item’s ratings and reviews.
* The recommended score section is based on whether customers on Walmart.com selected a review as recommended or not. Please be aware that review data may be delayed from Walmart.com to this dashboard.
* You will again see your little “Listing Quality” block for this specific listing. Something to take note of is that “Post-Purchase Quality” does not affect your “Listing Quality” score, however, try to aim to keep the number of items with issues low. The items being flagged are based on the same reporting dates as the seller scorecard (90-Days, calculated from 120 days ago to 30 days ago, so orders within the return window are not included). Beneath these initial blocks of information, we will see the following tabs, which we will go through in detail now:
* Content and Discoverability, which presents itself as a table containing the following fields:
* Attribute, which pertains to Item Name, Description, Key Features, and Images;
* Issues, which lists t
he number of issues alongside each of these Attributes, and, where there is more than one issue for a specific attribute, there will be a clickable link “Multiple Issues” with a number inside the brackets. When clicked, you will see a list of all of these issues as they pertain to that one attribute;
* Score, which is the percentage of the issues; and
* Action, which is normally a clickable “Edit” button which will allow you to edit that specific attribute of your listing by taking you through to the “Edit Listing” page. If there is no “Edit” button there will be a lock icon instead, meaning you are not the content owner and cannot edit this attribute.
* Let’s pause a little here to look at some of the issues there may be with your Content, starting with your Product Name:
* Not Capitalized Properly: The first letter of each word should be capitalized except for articles, conjunctions, prepositions, acronyms, and brands.
* Missing Key Attributes: The title should contain attributes that are important to the subcategory chosen.
* Not Relevant to The Assigned Product Type: The title should contain subject word(s) that are relevant to the subcategory.
* Too Long: The title is longer than the average character count of popular items in the product subcategory.
* Too Short: The title is shorter than the average character count of popular items in the product subcategory.
* Should Not Be in All Caps: The product name should not be written in uppercase.
* Contains Prohibited Special Characters: Special characters [~, *, $, ^, & `, @, +] are not accepted.
* Contains Prohibited Promotional Phrases: Titles should not contain any form of marketing claim such as “best seller”, “free shipping”, or another sale-related claim.
• These are the potential issues with your Description:
* Too Short: The description is shorter than the average character count of popular items in the product subcategory.
* Too Long: The description is longer than the average character count of popular items in the product subcategory.
* Missing Keywords: There are fewer keywords in the present description than found in the average for this item type and subcategory.
* Written Poorly: The description provided is too simple. Well-written, informational descriptions that provide relevant product details and features tend to perform better. Try adding more information and details that will help customers to make purchase decisions.
* Contains spelling errors: The Walmart system detected spelling errors.
* Written with bullet points: The description field should be written in paragraph format.
* Missing: The description field is empty or does not contain meaningful text.
* Contains prohibited phrases: Words or phrases that mention other retailers/eCommerce platforms (such as “Amazon, Target, or eBay”) are not allowed.
• Some possible issues with your Key Features can be:
* Not enough bullet points: The ideal number of key feature bullet points is determined by the average of popular items in each subcategory.
* Missing keywords: Missing the quality and quantity of your keywords based on the item type and subcategory.
* Contains spelling errors: The Walmart system detected spelling errors.
* Missing: The key feature field should not be blank.
* Contains prohibited phrases: Words or phrases that mention competitors (“Amazon, Target, or eBay”) are not allowed.
• Some potential issues with your images can be:
* Image Count Too Low: The listing has fewer images than the average number of images for the bestselling items in this subcategory.
* Low Zoom Resolution: At least one side* of zoom-capable images must be 1000 pixels or greater. *Walmart recommends a 1:1 image ratio for all images (1000 x 1000, 1200 x 1200).
* Low Image Resolution: At least one side* of the image must be 500 pixels or greater. *Walmart recommends a 1:1 image ratio for all images.
* Excessive Whitespace: The product must comprise at least 50% of the image.
* Has Placeholder : The image must be of the product, not a “coming soon, not available”, placeholder, or any image that doesn’t show the actual product.
• Beneath this section is the Discoverability section, which has the same fields in the table and the same option to edit these attributes or not and pertains to the attributes in the listing that drive discoverability when searched.
• The next tab is the Offer Tab, which presents itself again as a table containing the following fields:
* The Attribute, which can be:
* Price; this displays your price next to the competitive price (if your current price is not competitive). Clicking here will show you the comparably priced item in a new tab. This data may not be present for all items. If there is no data available, the dashboard will state “Not enough data”. Item price will not affect your overall score.
* Shipping Speed; this Measures the offer based on how fast the seller can deliver the item. For most items, strive for offering free expedited shipping such as NextDay, TwoDay, or ThreeDay. Please note that Walmart’s algorithm is programmed to recognize when certain items are not eligible for expedited shipping. If an item is not eligible for expedited shipping, the shipping component will not affect your overall score.
* Published and Transactable, which is how often your item is published and in stock for customers to purchase. This score is based on the last seven days and provides insights on each day that Walmart scores the item.
* You will see the usual fields of Issues, Score and Action where an “Edit” button will be if you are able to edit this field.
• The final tab is the “Post-Purchase Quality” tab and appears as a table containing the following information or fields:
* Attribute, which can be:
* Delivery Defects – Orders that were delivered after the Expected Delivery Date.
* Cancellation Rate – Orders that are cancelled after receiving the order from Walmart.
* Return Rate – Orders that have been returned because of problems with the product delivered to the customer.
* Issues; and
* Rate.
* You’ll be able to click into any of the issues to deep dive into specific orders that caused a low score.
* If you have no issues with a specific defect, the section will show “No Issues” with a score of “N/A”.
* The goal is to reduce your defects to have no issues.
* This data is based on the same reporting dates as the Seller Scorecard, that is, 90-Days, calculated from 120 days ago to 30 days ago, so that orders still within the return window are not included.
• Before we finish off on this page, let’s look at some of the potential cancellation reasons or reason codes:
* Customer Changed Mind: A customer chose to cancel an order or item at their discretion.
* Pricing Error: The price provided to Walmart was incorrect.
* Out of Stock: There was no inventory available to fulfi
l the order.
* Fraud Stop Shipment: Walmart sent a “Stop Shipment” notification.
* Address is Not Serviceable: A customer provided an incorrect ship-to-address.
• The final block on the “Listing Quality” tab is the “Pro Seller Badge” which gives you a score for eligibility and a status on your eligibility.
• Great, but what is the Pro Seller Badge?
• The Pro Seller Badge is an indicator next to your business name that will appear throughout the pre-transaction customer experience to highlight top-performing sellers.
• The Pro Seller badge appears on Walmart’s Search results, item page, additional sellers page, add to cart confirmation page and in the cart.
• This badge is designed to help sellers build customer trust and drive conversion for those who qualify.
• Essentially, the badge says “Best Seller” alongside the product.
• It goes without saying that some of the benefits of being a Pro Seller, are increased exposure to your brand and product, improving customer confidence in your products and the supply thereof and obviously driving conversion due to these two things.
• The Pro Seller badge is currently available to all sellers.
• To qualify for the Pro Seller badge, sellers must meet high performance standards, including:
* Seller’s 90-day Delivery Defects rate is less than or equal to 10%.
* Seller’s 90-day Cancellation Defects rate is less than or equal to 1% for seller-related cancellation reasons.
* 100% of the seller’s offers are participating in free online or in-store returns. At least 60% of the seller’s trending items have a listing quality score of greater than or equal to 50%.
* The Seller is compliant with Walmart’s Marketplace policies and other performance guidelines.
• This means that your “Pro Seller Badge” block on the “Listings Quality” tab can have one of the following statuses:
* Not Eligible: You are not meeting the minimum criteria and do not qualify for the badge.
* Eligible: You meet the minimum criteria, and you should receive the badge pending an internal review. This status indicates that Walmart are in between the refresh cycles (twice a month on the 5th and 20th). If you do not see the badge after the next refresh cycle despite meeting all four criteria, please reach out to your Account Manager or create a case with Partner Support.
* Badged: You meet all the criteria and are currently badged on Walmart.com. You will also see the date that you received the badge.
* Badged with Alert: You received the badge during their last refresh cycle, but you are falling below their criteria and may no longer qualify for the badge after their next refresh cycle.
• Click the “Learn more” button at the bottom of the section to see the thresholds that you must meet to qualify, where you currently stand and what actions you can take to improve.
• You can download the list to see which items or defects to fix for each criterion except the Listing Quality at this stage.
• Here are a few ways in which you can improve your performance:
* Maintain or Lower your Delivery Defects rate by choosing appropriate carrier service levels to deliver the order to the customer on or before the Expected Delivery Date indicated on the Walmart.com Marketplace orders.
* Maintain or improve your cancellations rate by making sure you do not initiate cancellations after customers placed their orders.
* Review your returns settings in Seller Center to make sure all your items qualify for free online, or in-store returns. You should only have a return exception if necessary.
* Increase your percent of trending items that have a listing quality score above 50% by first locating the items that are scoring below 50% and editing the attributes in need of fixing.
* Fix any policy violations you may have as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Unpublished Items
• The Unpublished Items dashboard allows you to view which SKUs are unpublished on Walmart.
• Your listings are presented in a table and allows you to view:
* The total count of unpublished items organized by the top four unpublished reasons.
* Your total inventory count of unpublished items.
* The total value of your unpublished items.
• The Unpublished Items Dashboard provides details on the top five unpublished reasons and allows you to make updates immediately by clicking the “View Items” button to the right of each of these reasons so your items can go live.
• These top five unpublished reasons are:
* End Date Issues.
* Reasonable Price Not Satisfied.
* Primary Image Missing.
* Start Date Issues.
* Price Missing.
• When you click on the “View Items” button to the right of each of these reasons, you will be taken to a page with another table that you can fix directly from the table by first selecting one of the following options from the Drop-Down Menu at the top of the page:
* End Date Issues.
* Reasonable Price Not Satisfied.
* Primary Image Missing.
* Start Date Issues.
* Price Missing.
• Beneath this will be three blocks containing a summary total of your unpublished items, inventory, and value for the selected code.
• You will then have the option to search by Item Name, SKU, or Item ID in the search functionality at the top of the table.
• You can then select or deselect to “View Items with Inventory” or “View Items with a Single Issue”.
• By default, the page will list items that are only affected by the selected reason code.
• By toggling the option to View items with a single issue off, you will be shown all items under the selected reason code, even if they are also affected by additional codes.
• When viewing items with multiple issues, you will be unable to make changes in bulk.
• However, you will be able to see how many codes are affecting an item and individually edit the items for each applicable reason code.
• You will also be able to filter items based on:
* Time, these being to view all, last 7 days, last 14 days, last 30 days, last 60 days and last 180 days;
* Item Status, these being all, active, or retired; and
* Market Trending, which is selecting the “Yes” option or not.
• You can also export the details on the page by clicking the “Export” icon in the top right side of the table. The table itself displays the following fields of information:
* Item Details, which is your product name and SKU;
* Page Views;
* Inventory on hand;
* GMV;
* Price;
* Unpublished Reason; and
* Action.
• You can then choose to edit the issue right on the listing table by clicking the field or live link under the “Actions” field, entering the new data, and clicking the “Update” button alongside it.
• By selecting Edit Full Item under a specific listed item, you will be taken to the Edit Item page in Seller Center.
• You also have the option to fix your unpublished listings in bulk by selecting all items in the table and clicking the “Bulk Actions” button in the top right side of the page and selecting the “Fix Selected Items” option.
• This option is only available for start/end date issues.
• You may also choose “Get Excel template” from the “Bulk Actions” button.
• This will provide you with an adjusted spec sheet for all items under the selected reason code.
• From here, you will be able to review the spec sheet and make the necessary changes.
• Once completed, you may upload the spec by dragging and dropping the completed file into the top right-hand corner of the page to upload the new spec sheet to update items.
• If your items have multiple issues, you cannot perform bulk actions.
Pricing Opportunities
• The “Pricing Opportunities” tab allows you to view how your items are performing on Walmart.
• Your listings are presented alongside other offers and provides insights into the pricing performance for the items in your catalog.
• This feature allows you to update the prices of items that may be losing the Buy Box.
• Some of the benefits of utilizing the Pricing Opportunities dashboard include:
* Insight into items that are winning and losing the Buy Box;
* Tools to update price to increase your chances of winning the Buy Box; and
* Details of competitors’ winning items to help pricing change.
• At the top of the page, you will be given feedback on how many dollars’ worth of sales you are potentially missing out on and how many items are losing the Buy Box.
• To the right of this notice, you will see a pie graph showing a percentage of your Buy Box win rate.
• When you click on the “Winning Items” link by this graph, a pop-up window will appear showing your “Item”, your “Winning Price” and your “Shipping Price”.
• You will then see a “Pricing Opportunities” heading with the “I want to beat the current winner by this amount” beneath the heading and a text box where you can insert the amount in question and a “Fill Table” button to action this across your entire table.
• How handy is that?
• You can always maintain the Buy Box no matter what pricing your competitors insert for their listings.
• The table below this shows the following details about each item:
* Item Details – The full display name of your item.
* Opportunity – The number of potential sales you’re missing out on based on a 30-day GMV formula (hover over for details).
* Winning Price – The price of the offer that last won the buy box.
* Your Price – The price you have set for your item.
* New Price – You can enter a new price here to remain competitive with other offers.
* Action – Select this button to perform actions (update price).
• To view details for each item, select the arrow to the far right to expand the view.
• The expanded view allows you to see additional details of your offer, the buy box winner’s offer and additional item information.
• You can use the information provided here to quickly compare your offer price to others and adjust your price to be more competitive.
• If you wish to change the price of an individual item, you can enter a new dollar amount in the “New Price” box and click the “Update” button alongside it.
• You can also update multiple items at once by choosing the items you wish to change by selecting the checkbox to the left of the item title. Update the “New Price” box with your desired price for each item, and then click the “Bulk Update” button at the top right of the table.
• After you click the “Bulk Update” button, you will be prompted to review the prices you entered in a pop-up window.
• If a price is incorrect, you can deselect the item by clicking the checkbox to the left of the item before submitting your price changes.
• Once you have reviewed your changes, click the “Confirm price changes on X Items” button.
Assortment Growth
• The last tab in your “Growth Opportunities” report section is the “Assortment Growth” tab.
• This dashboard provides data that will allow you to explore growth opportunities by viewing a list of Walmart’s best-selling items by department.
• You can explore best sellers by narrowing your search from the super department to the department you are interested in expanding your assortment into.
• In the table, you can view item-level information and gain insights into how many sellers are currently selling the item (this information is updated daily), including whether an item is sold as part of the TwoDay program by you or another seller.
• Click on the “View” button alongside the “Walmart Best Sellers” heading.
• Select your “Super Department” from the Drop-Down Menu provided and then select the “Department” from the final Drop-Down Menu provided.
• The table generated will contain the following fields of information:
* Rank;
* Item ID;
* Item Name;
* Brand;
* Category;
* Average Rating;
* # of Live Sellers;
* Offered TwoDay Delivery by Sellers;
* In your Catalog, which is a “yes” or “no”;
* In your TwoDay Catalog;
* Published; and
* Messaging.
• These latter three fields will have no values if the item is not in your catalog.
• You can filter your table by clicking the “Filter” icon in the top right of the table and selecting:
* Time, which can be last 90 days, last 60 days and last 7 days;
* Offered TwoDay Delivery by Sellers, which can be all, yes or no;
* Categories; and
* Catalog, which can be all, items in your catalog, items not in your catalog, items in your TwoDay Catalog and Items not in your TwoDay Catalog.
• You can also Export selected rows, the full page or everything when you click the “Export” icon in the top right of the table.
• And you can also opt to customize your table by selecting “Customize Grid” in the top right of the table.
• You can reset the entire page by clicking the “Clear all Filters” button in the top right side of the page.