Walmart fulfillment services for orders you ship yourself
Selling on Walmart Marketplace gets you in front of a huge audience. It also gets you a stream of orders that somebody has to pack. Our Walmart fulfillment services are for sellers who ship those orders themselves (seller-fulfilled, in Walmart's terms) and want that work done from a real warehouse instead of a spare bedroom. We do it from 5673 W Howard St in Niles, just outside Chicago.
Let's clear up the name right away, since it confuses people. We are not Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), which is Walmart's own fulfillment program, and we're not affiliated with or endorsed by Walmart. If you want inventory labeled and prepped to send into WFS, that's a separate service: Walmart WFS prep.
This page is about the other route. Your stock stays on our shelves. When a Walmart order comes in, our team picks it, packs it, puts the shipping label on and hands it to the carrier. The customer gets their parcel, you get the tracking, and nobody in your household has to tape another box at midnight.
Seller-fulfilled vs. WFS: picking the right path
Plenty of sellers use both, so it's worth spelling out the difference.
With WFS, you send inventory into Walmart's network and Walmart ships the orders. Our role there is inbound prep: labels, bagging, carton builds and getting the shipment out the door in the shape Walmart's current inbound requirements call for.
With seller-fulfilled orders, Walmart never holds your inventory. It sits here, and we ship each order as it comes in. That suits products that are bulky, slow-selling, seasonal or simply better off under your control. It's also a sensible backup if a WFS inbound shipment is running late and you don't want the listing to go dark.
A common setup looks like this: fast movers go to WFS through our prep team, while slow movers and oversize items stay here for seller-fulfilled Walmart order fulfillment. Both come from the same receiving dock, so you don't pay to receive stock in two different places.
Which split works for you depends on your product, margins and sales speed. That's your call, and the team is happy to walk through the options during the quote.
What our Walmart warehouse services include
Pretty much everything between "inventory arrives" and "carrier drives away."
- Receiving cartons and pallets, with counts checked against what you told us to expect.
- Storage by the box, bin or pallet, so your stock is ready to pick when orders land.
- Picking the right SKU and quantity for each order (yes, we check the color and size).
- Packing with the right box and padding for the product, plus inserts or packing slips if you want them.
- Applying your legally purchased shipping labels and staging parcels by carrier.
- Scheduled carrier pickups Monday through Saturday for GOFO, UPS, USPS and FedEx.
Need something extra, like bundling two items into a set for a Walmart listing? Our kitting and bundling team builds them before they go on the shelf. Returned items can come back here too, and we'll grade them through returns and refurbishment so sellable units go back into stock.
How Walmart order fulfillment runs, start to finish
Every account follows the same four steps. It's not complicated, but skipping one causes most of the headaches we see.
- 01
Share your Walmart catalog
Which SKUs you ship seller-fulfilled, rough monthly order volume, product sizes, and any packaging or insert preferences. Mention if you also want WFS prep.
- 02
Confirm the work order
We agree on packaging, carriers, storage and how orders reach the team. The order handoff method is confirmed during onboarding, since we don't advertise software integrations.
- 03
Send your inventory
Boxes and pallets arrive in Niles, get counted in and go into storage. Stock bound for WFS can be split off for prep at the same time.
- 04
Orders go out daily
Each order is picked, packed, labeled and staged for the carrier. Same-day fulfillment is available for qualifying orders.
One rule we're firm on: don't send inventory until onboarding is approved and inbound instructions are confirmed. We'll need verifiable U.S. company information first, including an EIN or registration and an authorized U.S.-based signer.
Shipping on time without babysitting the packing table
Walmart Marketplace holds sellers to its own shipping and tracking standards, and those standards change from time to time. Keep an eye on your Seller Center for the current version. Your account settings and performance stay your responsibility. What we can do is make the warehouse side reliable.
Here's what that looks like in practice. Carrier pickups run six days a week, Monday through Saturday. Same-day fulfillment is available for qualifying orders, and the team confirms what qualifies for your account based on order size and packaging. If you need an order out after the cutoff, rush processing is +$1.00 per order when capacity allows.
Honestly, Saturday pickups help more than people expect. An order placed Friday evening that leaves Saturday morning reads very differently to a customer than one that sits until Monday.
After pickup, the parcel is in the carrier's hands. We're not responsible for carrier delays or damage, so we pack with that in mind. Fragile stuff gets padding. Heavy stuff gets a stronger box. Common sense, but it's where a lot of bad reviews start.
Who hands us their Walmart orders
Usually someone who got accepted to Walmart Marketplace, watched the orders climb and realized packing them was eating every evening.
Amazon sellers expanding to Walmart with the same catalog, who don't want a second warehouse just for one more channel. Private-label brands with bulky products that make more sense shipped from here than stored elsewhere. Wholesale sellers with steady repeat SKUs. Seasonal sellers who need room for a holiday run and then a quiet spring. And sellers who tried shipping from home, got a late shipment warning or two, and decided enough was enough.
What they have in common is pretty simple. They want our Walmart fulfillment services to be the boring, dependable part of the business, so they can spend their time on listings, pricing and ads instead of tape guns.
If you're brand new to Walmart Marketplace and still figuring out your volume, that's fine too. The first tier starts small, and the team will be upfront if your product or volume isn't a good fit yet.
Packaging extras, heavy items and the small stuff
Most Walmart orders are simple: one item, one box, one label. But not all of them.
Items that already arrive ready to ship (a sealed retail carton that just needs a label) are picked at the lower pre-packaged rate of $1.25 per order. Client-supplied inserts or marketing cards go in at $0.20 per order, and printed packing slips or gift notes are $0.30. Heavier orders carry a labor surcharge, +$2.00 for 21 to 30 lb and +$4.00 for 31 to 50 lb, while anything over 50 lb gets its own quote.
And one we'd rather you never need: if an address has to be corrected after the label is printed, re-labeling is $2.00 per order. Double-check addresses on your side and it's money you'll never spend.
Walmart 3PL services that work alongside your orders
Most Walmart sellers also sell somewhere else. Here's how the rest of the operation connects:
- Walmart WFS prep for inventory headed into Walmart's own network. It uses the same rate table as FBA prep.
- Amazon seller fulfillment for merchant-fulfilled Amazon orders from the same stock.
- Shopify order fulfillment for your own storefront.
- eBay fulfillment for listings that share inventory with Walmart.
- Warehouse storage for pallets waiting their turn.
The full channel list, plus how orders reach us, lives on the fulfillment and dispatch overview. And the complete per-order rate breakdown that applies across channels is on our FBM and DTC fulfillment page.
Walmart warehousing just outside Chicago
The warehouse is in Niles at the northwest edge of Chicago. If you're local, you can drop off inventory or stop in during business hours (Monday through Saturday, 10 AM to 4 PM Central) to see how your orders are packed. Our Chicago 3PL page covers what working with a nearby warehouse looks like.
Out-of-state sellers ship freight in and let the team handle the rest. The building processes approximately 1,000+ parcels a day, so a Walmart sales event doesn't catch anyone off guard. We also maintain up to $5 million in insurance coverage for qualifying warehouse operations, subject to policy terms, limits and exclusions. Confirm coverage before you ship.
A quick note on products. We don't accept hazardous materials, chemicals, canned soda, or anything counterfeit, stolen or unsafe. Liquids over 2 lb need prior written approval, and dietary supplements need invoices from a U.S. manufacturer or authorized U.S. distributor.
Rates for seller-fulfilled Walmart orders
Here are the posted per-order rates and the storage rates most Walmart sellers use. Postage is separate. See the pricing page for everything else.
- 1-250 orders/month
- $2.75 first item/order
- 251-500 orders/month
- $2.35 first item/order
- 501-1,000 orders/month
- $2.10 first item/order
- 1,001-5,000 orders/month
- $1.85-$2.00 first item/order
- Additional item / pick
- $0.50/item
- Heavy item, 21-30 lb
- +$2.00/order
- Standard box / bin storage
- $4-$6/month
- Standard pallet up to 72 in.
- $35/month
Want a number for your catalog? Send SKUs and monthly order counts through the quote form.
