Tensions between the two biggest U.S. marketplace operators are quietly boiling over. According to multiple sources close to the matter, Walmart Marketplace has been running what insiders describe as a structured, data-driven outreach program specifically targeting Amazon sellers generating between $2 million and $20 million in annual GMV — a segment Walmart has historically struggled to crack. The alleged campaign, which sources say began ramping up in late Q1 2026, is reportedly being overseen out of Walmart’s San Bruno, California office and is tied directly to the company’s broader ambition to close the third-party seller gap with Amazon ahead of the holiday selling season.
“They’re not just cold-emailing anymore,” said one Amazon agency founder who manages over 60 active seller accounts and asked not to be named. “We’ve had three clients contacted in the last six weeks with personalized decks showing their exact Amazon BSR, estimated revenue, and a side-by-side fee comparison. Someone is scraping data and using it to build a very specific hit list.”
What Is Walmart Allegedly Offering Amazon Sellers to Switch?
The pitch, according to sources who have reviewed the outreach materials, reportedly includes a combination of financial incentives and operational sweeteners that go well beyond Walmart’s standard onboarding package. Sellers claim to have been offered reduced referral fees for the first 12 months — reportedly as low as 6% in categories where Amazon charges 15% — along with preferential placement in Walmart’s sponsored search auction during a 90-day “launch window.”
- Referral fee discounts reportedly ranging from 6%–8% in select categories for the first year
- Waived Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) storage fees through Q3 2026
- Dedicated seller success manager for accounts above $500K projected annual volume
- Early access to Walmart Connect’s new audience targeting tools, reportedly still in beta
- Co-op advertising credits of up to $15,000 for sellers who migrate at least five SKUs
Walmart has not publicly confirmed any such campaign. A spokesperson declined to comment beyond a boilerplate statement about the company’s “commitment to growing a competitive and diverse seller ecosystem.” But the specificity of the outreach — and the number of sellers reportedly receiving it — has drawn significant attention inside Amazon’s third-party seller communities on platforms like Seller Central forums and several private Slack groups tracked by this publication.
Is Amazon Aware — and How Is It Responding?
Sources close to Amazon’s Marketplace Growth team suggest the company is very much aware of what’s happening. According to one individual with direct knowledge of internal discussions, Amazon account managers have been quietly instructed since early May to proactively schedule “business reviews” with sellers flagged as high churn risk — a category that apparently includes anyone who has recently opened a Walmart seller account or attended Walmart’s Open Call event in Bentonville last March.
“Amazon is not panicking, but they’re not ignoring this either. There’s a list. If you’re on it, you’re getting a call from your account manager with retention talking points. Fee rebates are apparently on the table in some cases — which is genuinely unusual.” — Senior strategist at a top-10 Amazon agency, speaking on condition of anonymity
Unconfirmed reports suggest Amazon has also fast-tracked several feature rollouts originally slated for Q3, including expanded Brand Analytics access for mid-tier sellers and improvements to the New Seller Incentives program that would extend the fee waiver window from 90 days to six months for sellers launching new parent ASINs. Whether those decisions are directly connected to the alleged Walmart campaign is unclear, but the timing has not gone unnoticed.
Which Sellers Are Actually Biting on Walmart’s Offer?
The more nuanced story, according to agency operators tracking this situation, is that the response from Amazon sellers has been mixed — and highly dependent on category. Sellers in home goods, sporting goods, and consumables are reportedly the most receptive, largely because Walmart’s customer demographic skews toward value-conscious buyers who over-index in those verticals. Apparel and electronics sellers, by contrast, are said to be far more skeptical.
Jason Harra, founder of Cascadia Brands — a Seattle-based aggregator that manages roughly 18 Amazon brands across health, home, and outdoor categories — was reportedly among the sellers approached. Harra, who has spoken at Prosper Show and is well known in aggregator circles, declined to confirm whether he received the outreach directly but offered this pointed assessment when reached for comment:
“Anyone running a serious Amazon business who isn’t at least testing Walmart right now is leaving meaningful diversification on the table. The question isn’t whether Walmart’s marketplace is ready — it’s whether the sellers are organized enough to execute on two platforms simultaneously. Most aren’t.”
Sarah Chung, a multichannel consultant who advises mid-market DTC brands on marketplace expansion and previously led seller growth at ChannelAdvisor before its CommerceHub merger, put it more bluntly in a LinkedIn post last week that has since been screenshotted widely in seller communities: “Walmart is finally playing offense with real budget behind it. If you’re Amazon-only and you got a call this spring, take the meeting.” Chung did not respond to a request for additional comment before publication.
Are Third-Party Tools and Aggregators Fueling the Poaching Intelligence?
Perhaps the most provocative angle in this story involves how Walmart is allegedly identifying its targets. Several sources speculate that Walmart’s marketplace team may be cross-referencing publicly available data from tools like Helium 10’s Xray, Jungle Scout’s sales estimator, and third-party ASIN databases to build profiles of high-volume Amazon sellers before initiating contact. This would not require any breach of Amazon’s terms — all of the underlying data is either scraped from public product pages or derived from publicly observable rank and review signals.
“It’s the same playbook Amazon used to identify top eBay PowerSellers back in 2008,” noted one longtime marketplace consultant who has worked with both companies. “You don’t need insider data. You just need a good analyst and access to the same tools every seller is already using.”
- Helium 10 and Jungle Scout both offer competitor intelligence dashboards that are publicly accessible with a paid subscription
- Brand Registry data and storefront pages expose seller-level SKU counts and category depth
- Amazon’s own “Sold by” and fulfillment disclosures make it trivial to identify FBA-dependent sellers
- Review velocity tracking can approximate recent sales momentum at the ASIN level
Neither Helium 10 nor Jungle Scout responded to requests for comment on whether their platforms have seen unusual institutional activity that might suggest enterprise-scale competitive scraping.
What Does This Mean for the Buy Box and Multichannel Pricing Dynamics?
There’s a wrinkle here that several PPC and repricing specialists flagged when contacted by Ecommerce Times. If a meaningful number of Amazon’s top third-party sellers begin listing the same SKUs on Walmart — even with discounted fees as part of an introductory offer — the downstream effect on repricing dynamics could get complicated fast. Amazon’s pricing parity algorithms are well documented: if a seller’s Walmart listing drops below the Amazon price, Amazon will suppress the Buy Box. That creates a structural conflict for any seller trying to take advantage of Walmart’s rumored fee incentives without triggering Amazon’s automated penalties.
“The sellers who will actually win in this environment are the ones who understand that you can’t just copy your Amazon catalog to Walmart and call it a multichannel strategy. You need differentiated SKUs, or at minimum differentiated bundles, or Amazon will punish you automatically and you won’t even know why your Buy Box disappeared.” — Derrick Volpe, founder of RepricerPro and regular speaker at the Amazon Accelerate conference
Volpe’s comments reflect a concern that is showing up with increasing frequency in seller forums: that Walmart’s aggressive recruitment may actually create a short-term mess for sellers who aren’t operationally prepared to manage pricing parity across two marketplaces simultaneously. Several repricing tool vendors — including Feedvisor, BQool, and Informed.co — have reportedly seen a notable uptick in inbound inquiries specifically about multichannel parity rule configuration since April, which may be a leading indicator that the outreach campaign is generating real seller movement.
Is This a Turning Point for Marketplace Competition in 2026?
The broader context here matters. Walmart Marketplace crossed an estimated 150,000 active third-party sellers in early 2026, up from roughly 100,000 at the end of 2024 — real growth, but still a fraction of Amazon’s reported 2.5 million active sellers globally. For Walmart to close that gap in any meaningful way before Q4 2026, it needs a different approach than organic onboarding. Targeted poaching of proven, mid-tier Amazon operators — sellers who already know how to manage inventory, write optimized listings, and run profitable PPC — is arguably the most efficient path to improving GMV per seller on the platform.
Whether Amazon takes more aggressive countermeasures remains to be seen. But if even 5% of the sellers reportedly targeted by this campaign shift meaningful GMV to Walmart before Peak Season, the knock-on effects for Amazon’s seller services revenue — estimated at over $37 billion annually — could be measurable. For now, the sellers themselves appear to be the ones with the most leverage they’ve had in years. Whether they use it wisely is another question entirely.
Ecommerce Times has reached out to Walmart Corporate Communications, Amazon’s Seller Experience team, and several of the named individuals for official comment. This story will be updated as responses are received.
