• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 14, 2022

Walmart on Wednesday announced new ways for authorized third-party sellers to connect with Walmart customers across its marketplace through self-service options, giving companies alternatives to Amazon and eBay.

The company’s expansion into automation for sellers will help them to capitalize on Walmart Search advertising, Mike Greenberg, head of marketplace at Walmart Connect, wrote in an email to Search & Performance Marketing Daily.

“Sellers that own their brand will soon be able to own the top of search results pages with a module that advertises select products," he wrote, adding that "it especially benefits smaller brands, new brands and brands with new products that may not yet have high organic search rankings at Walmart.

Search Brand Amplifier in October will become a self-service feature to eligible marketplace sellers, available in the Walmart Ad Center.

The feature boosts advertised products to the top of search results. The company says it will provide benefits for all, particularly smaller brands, new brands and brands with new products that may not yet have high organic search rankings at Walmart or across Google and Bing search engines.

The technique has been used as a sponsored listing at search engines including Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, where the seller pays to boost products or brands in organic search queries.

Search Brand Amplifier -- previously limited to managed suppliers and a small number of managed sellers -- will become available for the first time to marketplace brand owners registered with Walmart’s Brand Portal. Sellers also can access Search Brand Amplifier through Walmart Platform Partners.

Walmart surveyed its customers to learn more about how and when they purchase from third-party sellers on the site and app. 

Customer reviews and pricing are top considerations for customers, driving their decisions to purchase goods and services. Some 81% compare prices among different retail websites, while about 90% have become more price conscious, spend less on non-essential items.

A new onboarding experience makes launching Sponsored Products campaigns even easier, the company says, reducing a previous three-day enrollment process to seconds. New sellers are now automatically onboarded to Walmart’s self-serve ad platform. And later this month, Ad Center will have a new look and step-by-step instructions to reduce the guesswork for launching and optimizing Search campaigns.  

The platform partner community will expand to support sellers globally. The company says it will add more API partners that offer global support, with a focus on countries where sellers are, like China. These new partners will begin joining us before the end of the quarter.  

Along with the expansions comes education. Walmart also will add Marketplace Insights Guide,, and Walmart Connect Holiday Search Guide.