Walmart announced earnings on Thursday and credited third-party sellers and high-income customers for the 20% growth in its US ecommerce sales in its 4th quarter of Fiscal Year 2025 ended January 31, 2025, its eleventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.
Walmart’s US Marketplace grew by 34% in the 4th quarter, and it pointed to several initiatives in Fiscal Year 2025 that may have contributed to that growth. One was making it easier to sell internationally across US, Canada, Chile, and Mexico from Seller Central. And secondly, it added Walmart Cross Border to its fulfillment program for sellers, calling it “a new ocean freight service for full-container-load shipments from ports of origin in Asia to WFS facilities across the U.S.”
Two other initiatives mentioned were collectibles and refurbished items:
Collectibles
Our Collector shop sets the stage for you to connect with the growing audience of enthusiasts. And an application-based program now allows you to offer pre-orders for upcoming collectible releases. Products that fall into this category may include dolls, action figures, trading cards, memorabilia, comic books, and musical instruments.
Restored and Pre-Owned items
Should you qualify, you can now offer high-quality refurbished items across multiple categories from fashion to electronics on Walmart.com under several available conditions.
Manish Joneja, Senior Vice President, Walmart Marketplace and Walmart Fulfillment Services, told sellers in a post on Thursday: “On behalf of our entire team, thank you for your trust and confidence in us. Like the millions of customers who shop with Walmart to discover items they need, want, and love, we’re grateful for all you do. Together, we’re reimagining what a marketplace can be.”
Joneja’s full post is available on the Walmart Marketplace seller blog, and the Q4-FY2025 earnings press release is on Walmart’s corporate website.
Because…” there is no money selling to people with no money.”
And this is why Etsy will eventually fail. Etsy has done nothing but support lower priced items for the consumer with no real money, while eBay decided to promote luxury goods while having a much stronger balance sheet, because of it.
What people don’t understand about the Walmart situation is that they’re double dipping on collectibles. When Hasbro releases some TransFormers or Marvel Legends, reseller bots scoop most of them up. So Walmart makes their standard retailer margin on those sales. But then the reseller bots relist those items at 2-5 (or more) times MSRP. And Walmart takes something like 30% of that.
Margins for toys can be all over the place depending on who you are. I paid through the nose while Walmart likely gets them for literal pennies on the dollar. But if you guessed and said 25%, on a $20 figure that gets (re)flipped for $80, Walmart walks away with $29 profit on a $15 investment. Crazy.
The website, though, has become virtually unusable in the process. Walmart is the last place that I look for anything. The stores won’t have it at all but the website won’t have it for under triple MSRP so the result is the same. Retailers shouldn’t have these 3P marketplaces for a dozen reasons but they’re not going to give up the ability to take several bites of the same apple.