Walmart offers third-party sellers funding via new partnership

Walmart is collaborating with a provider of financing solutions for e-commerce sellers.

The discount behemoth is adding Austin, Tex.-based e-commerce funding specialist Onramp to its Walmart Marketplace third-party online sales platform. As a result, independent sellers and small retailers on Walmart Marketplace will now have access to flexible funding packages to help drive scale.

With this integration, Onramp can offer online sellers on Walmart Marketplace growth capital funding for business functions like inventory management, marketing, and shipping, with repayment terms that are directly aligned with their sales performance.

"As an approved Walmart Marketplace Solutions Provider, Onramp can now help sellers on Walmart Marketplace secure funding to grow their business faster," said Eric Youngstrom, Onramp CEO. "We're thrilled to be helping sellers on Walmart Marketplace scale their businesses and achieve success. The opportunities for growth available to eCommerce sellers are phenomenal. We're honored to be a partner to eCommerce business owners in facilitating the access to cash necessary to grow."

Existing Onramp customers that already sell on Walmart Marketplace can now take advantage of this integration. Onramp customers not currently selling on Walmart.com can also leverage this offering by joining Walmart Marketplace.

Walmart provides incentives to third-party sellers

Walmart has been steadily expanding and adding new perks to Walmart Marketplace. In January 2023, the retailer launched a  limited-time program on Walmart Marketplace called New-Seller Savings, which granted new sellers based in the U.S. up to a 25% commission rate reduction for 90 days when trying Walmart Marketplace’s tools and services.

Hosted solutions include Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), a fee-based program provides a wide array of services, including storing, picking, packing and shipping, along with the handling of returns and customer service, and the Walmart Connect retail media platform. 

In terms of international expansion, the discount giant, which began inviting select Indian sellers to apply to join Walmart Marketplace in January 2022, started reaching out to select U.K sellers to apply to join Walmart Marketplace n June 2022.

And in August 2022, leveraging the Canada-United States-Mexico free trade agreement (CUSMA), Walmart opened its U.S. supply chain services and infrastructure to offer participating Canadian sellers delivery across the contiguous U.S. in as fast as one to two days.

Walmart is giving third-party retailers more reasons to participate in Walmart Marketplace as chief rival Amazon actively assists third-party retailers (primarily small-to-medium-sized businesses) to sell on its Amazon Marketplace e-commerce platform with at least 150 tools and services. 

Based in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart Inc. operates more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites in 20 countries.