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Walmart Marketplace Warns Sellers to Expect More Returns

Walmart
Walmart Marketplace Warns Sellers: Expect More Returns

Walmart Marketplace warned sellers to expect higher return volume throughout the year related to COVID, and it made some adjustments to its policies as a result.

“eCommerce volumes have seen an unprecedented spike and now retail is anticipating another less welcome surge, which will more than likely mimic the post-holiday return period,” it wrote in a post on Thursday.

“Navigating the forest of options for managing refunds and disputes can be daunting. However, we are glad to share an exciting update: recently we’ve initiated new efforts to revamp our returns policies and tools with the goal to help you manage your customer refunds more effectively. Ultimately, you’ll have a lot more freedom to handle these cases, especially for fraudulent claims, which lets you keep your profits in the bank and not in dispute limbo.”

Among the changes the marketplace is making are the following:

  • Beginning effective August 4, sellers will have 48 hours to respond to inquiries initiated by the customer or by Walmart Customer Care, instead of the previous 24-hour window.
  • The new Payments Dashboard shows sales, refunds, and reimbursements for individual purchase orders in one place, with the added option for sellers to dispute a refund right from the dashboard.
  • Currently when high-value items are returned, they are automatically refunded, and sellers must dispute refunds if they suspect fraud. Now, sellers can pause the 48-hour auto-refund if they suspect fraud, and the case will routed to a specialized dispute team for review. If the dispute is approved, the return will be cancelled.

You can find the full announcement on the Walmart Marketplace blog.

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Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

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