Walmart Marketplace’s Alleged Seller Poaching Campaign Is Rattling Amazon’s Top Vendors

Something unusual is happening inside Walmart’s Bentonville commerce offices, and it’s making Amazon’s seller relations team uncomfortable. According to three sources close to the matter — all of whom requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly — Walmart’s U.S. marketplace division has been running what insiders are calling an aggressive, structured outreach campaign targeting Amazon sellers who generate more than $2 million annually in gross merchandise value.

The alleged campaign, which sources say began quietly in Q1 2026 and accelerated after Walmart Connect posted its 41% retail media revenue surge in late 2025, reportedly involves dedicated outreach from Walmart’s seller acquisition team offering onboarding fee waivers, reduced referral rates in select categories, and — most controversially — dedicated category account managers, a level of support Amazon famously stripped from most mid-market third-party sellers in its 2023 Seller Partner Services restructure.

What Exactly Is Walmart Allegedly Offering Amazon Sellers?

The alleged pitch, according to one agency owner who claims to have seen the outreach materials firsthand, is surprisingly detailed. Sources say Walmart representatives have been presenting a tiered incentive structure to sellers in high-margin categories including home goods, pet supplies, and sporting equipment — three areas where Walmart has historically struggled to compete with Amazon’s depth of selection.

• Referral fee reductions of 1-2 percentage points for the first 12 months in select categories
• Expedited WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) onboarding with dedicated logistics coordinators
• Early access to Walmart Connect sponsored product placements at discounted CPCs during the ramp period
• Guaranteed review of listing suppression appeals within 48 hours — a stark contrast to Amazon’s notoriously slow support response times

“The deck they showed me was polished in a way I hadn’t seen from Walmart’s seller team before,” said one multi-channel agency founder who manages accounts doing over $15 million annually across Amazon and Walmart. “It read like someone senior had signed off on a real budget for this.” The founder asked not to be named for fear of jeopardizing their Walmart account standing.

“Walmart is doing something Amazon hasn’t done for mid-market sellers in years — they’re picking up the phone and actually talking to them. That’s more powerful than any fee discount.” — Agency founder managing $15M+ in annual marketplace GMV

💡 Article Summary

Key Insights

1

What Exactly Is Walmart Allegedly Offering Amazon Sellers?

2

Is Amazon Aware, and How Is It Responding?

3

Which Sellers Are Actually Being Targeted?

4

What Does This Mean for Walmart Fulfillment Services Capacity?

5

Could This Signal a Larger Structural Shift in Marketplace Power?

Source: Ecommerce Times

Is Amazon Aware, and How Is It Responding?

If Amazon’s vendor and seller relations teams weren’t aware before, they almost certainly are now. Sources close to the matter say at least a dozen Amazon account managers have reached out proactively to high-volume sellers in the past 60 days — an unusual pattern for a company that has systematically reduced one-on-one seller support over the past three years. One seller operating in the kitchen and dining category, who asked to remain anonymous, said they received an unsolicited call from an Amazon seller success team member in mid-May offering a free audit of their PPC structure through Amazon’s internal Ads optimization team.

“I haven’t heard from a human at Amazon in probably 14 months,” the seller said. “Suddenly I get a call offering me free ad support. It’s not hard to connect the dots.”

Amazon declined to comment on any structured retention initiative. A spokesperson said in a written statement that the company “continuously works to support selling partners through a range of programs and resources” but did not address specific outreach activity.

Notably, Jungle Scout’s 2026 State of the Amazon Seller report, released in March, found that seller satisfaction with Amazon’s account support had dropped to its lowest recorded level, with 61% of respondents rating Amazon’s seller support as “poor” or “very poor.” That data point, sources say, is reportedly circulating inside Walmart’s marketplace strategy team as a recruitment talking point.

Which Sellers Are Actually Being Targeted?

Not every Amazon seller is getting the Walmart call, reportedly. Sources describe a highly filtered outreach list — sellers who rank in the top 5% of BSR (Best Seller Rank) in their respective categories, carry strong review velocity (typically 4.4 stars or above with more than 500 reviews on their primary ASIN), and have demonstrated multichannel capability, either through existing Walmart.com listings or Shopify storefronts.

Sellers who rely heavily on Amazon-exclusive tactics — like heavily bundled FBA parent-child variation structures or Vine-dependent review strategies — are reportedly less likely to receive outreach, since Walmart’s team has learned through experience that those sellers struggle to translate their Amazon playbooks to the Walmart catalog architecture.

“They’re not recruiting Amazon sellers. They’re recruiting Amazon sellers who already know how to operate outside of Amazon’s ecosystem. That’s a very specific and smart filter.” — Senior strategist at a top-10 Amazon agency, speaking on background

Kevin Sanderson, a well-known Amazon seller educator and co-founder of Maximizing Ecommerce, commented publicly on a recent industry Slack thread that the outreach pattern matches what he’s hearing from sellers in his community. “Multiple people in my network have been approached,” Sanderson wrote. “Walmart is clearly making a strategic push and they’ve done their homework on who to target.”

What Does This Mean for Walmart Fulfillment Services Capacity?

Here’s where the story gets more complicated. If Walmart’s alleged seller recruitment campaign succeeds at scale, it raises a real operational question: can WFS actually absorb a meaningful influx of high-volume Amazon FBA sellers without service degradation?

WFS currently operates out of a network of roughly 31 dedicated fulfillment nodes, according to public Walmart infrastructure disclosures, compared to Amazon’s domestic FBA footprint of over 200 sortation, fulfillment, and delivery station facilities. The gap is substantial, and sources say at least one large home goods brand that made a major WFS commitment in early 2026 has already experienced inbound processing delays of 6-9 days during peak periods — delays that directly impacted their Walmart listing’s “2-day delivery” badge eligibility, which is widely understood to be the single biggest conversion driver on the platform.

• WFS two-day badge loss can reduce conversion rates by an estimated 18-25%, according to internal Walmart seller documentation reviewed by sources
• WFS storage fees, currently $0.75 per cubic foot for standard items, are competitive but carry fewer category exemptions than FBA’s complex tiered structure
• Inbound freight routing for WFS requires sellers to use Walmart-approved carriers or the platform’s own freight program — a constraint some Amazon FBA sellers find operationally limiting

Unconfirmed reports suggest that Walmart’s logistics team is aware of the capacity tension and is allegedly in late-stage discussions with at least two regional 3PL operators — names not confirmed — to create a WFS-adjacent overflow network that would preserve the two-day badge even when primary WFS nodes are constrained. Walmart has not confirmed any such arrangement.

Could This Signal a Larger Structural Shift in Marketplace Power?

Industry observers are split on whether this represents a genuine inflection point or a well-funded but ultimately limited recruiting push. Dave Vermeulen, VP of Marketplace Strategy at Pattern, a global marketplace accelerator, told a panel audience at CommerceNext in late May that the competitive dynamics between Amazon and Walmart have “never been more fluid” at the seller acquisition level.

“Amazon built its third-party seller base on the promise of infrastructure and reach. Walmart is now offering relationship and margin. For the right seller profile, that’s a compelling trade.” — Dave Vermeulen, VP Marketplace Strategy, Pattern

What nobody is publicly disputing is that Walmart’s marketplace GMV trajectory — reportedly crossing $85 billion globally in fiscal 2026 — is creating real pressure on Amazon’s third-party seller team to defend relationships it had previously taken for granted. Amazon’s 3P seller base generates an estimated $140 billion in annual revenue for Amazon’s services segment through fees, FBA charges, and advertising — meaning even a 3-5% churn of high-volume sellers would represent a multi-billion-dollar exposure.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that several major marketplace aggregators — including Thrasio, which has been quietly rebuilding after its 2024 restructuring, and SellerX, which expanded its U.S. operations in early 2026 — are reportedly evaluating whether a Walmart-first or Walmart-primary acquisition thesis makes financial sense for new brand targets. If aggregators shift their sourcing criteria even modestly toward Walmart-proven brands, it could reshape the entire Amazon exit multiple market.

What Should Amazon and Walmart Sellers Be Watching Right Now?

For operators trying to read the competitive tea leaves, sources suggest watching three specific signals over the next 90 days. First, any changes to Walmart’s WFS storage fee structure or inbound processing SLAs — a loosening of constraints would suggest the capacity investment is real. Second, whether Amazon announces any formal expansion of its Selling Partner Support tiers, particularly for sellers in the $1-5M annual GMV band who are most vulnerable to competitive poaching. Third, movement in Walmart Connect CPC rates in home, pet, and sporting categories — if Walmart is subsidizing early placement costs for incoming sellers, it will show up in auction data that sophisticated operators track through tools like Pacvue or Perpetua.

For now, the alleged Walmart campaign remains officially unconfirmed. But the number of Amazon sellers quietly hedging their multichannel exposure appears to be growing. As one eight-figure seller put it bluntly in a private industry forum: “I’m not leaving Amazon. But I’m listening to everyone who calls me.”