Walmart Marketplace’s Alleged Seller Poaching Operation Is Rattling Amazon’s Top Sellers

Something unusual has been landing in the inboxes of Amazon’s top-tier third-party sellers over the past six weeks. According to four sellers who spoke with Ecommerce Times on condition of anonymity, Walmart Marketplace’s seller acquisition team has been making direct, personalized outreach calls — sometimes referencing specific ASINs and estimated revenue figures — and offering what one seller described as “deals you don’t see in any public rate card.”

The alleged program, which sources close to the matter say is being orchestrated at the direction of Walmart Marketplace’s VP of Seller Growth, Manish Joneja, represents a meaningful escalation in the quiet war between Walmart and Amazon for third-party seller inventory. Joneja, who joined Walmart from Amazon in 2022, has reportedly restructured the seller acquisition org twice in the past 18 months and is now, according to insiders, pushing an aggressive “seller conversion” metric that has his team working off lists sourced through third-party data providers.

What Exactly Is Walmart Allegedly Offering These Amazon Sellers?

The reported offer structure — unconfirmed by Walmart — is said to include referral fee reductions of between 1% and 2.5% for the first 12 months across specific high-volume categories including Home & Garden, Sports & Outdoors, and Pet Supplies. One seller operating a roughly $4.2M annual run rate on Amazon told us he was offered a dedicated seller success manager, free Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) onboarding for up to 500 SKUs, and a guaranteed placement test in Walmart’s sponsored product algorithm for 90 days.

“They knew my top three ASINs by name. They knew my category. They had clearly scraped my Amazon storefront data or bought it somewhere. It wasn’t a cold call — it was a pitch,” said the seller, who asked to be identified only as a sporting goods operator based in Columbus, Ohio.

A second seller, running a home goods brand doing approximately $6.8M across FBA, confirmed receiving similar outreach and said the Walmart rep referenced her brand’s Amazon Best Seller Rank in two subcategories during the initial call. She declined the offer but said she found the specificity “unsettling and honestly impressive at the same time.”

Is Walmart Buying Seller Data to Run This Program?

This is where it gets complicated. Three separate sources suggest that Walmart’s acquisition team has been working with at least one third-party Amazon data aggregator — with two sources naming Jungle Scout’s commercial data licensing arm as a suspected provider, though this is unconfirmed and Jungle Scout has not responded to a request for comment as of publication. A fourth source mentioned a lesser-known data broker called Mercantile Analytics, which reportedly licenses scraped seller storefront and product ranking data to enterprise clients.

It’s worth noting that Amazon’s terms of service prohibit the scraping of its marketplace data, and using such data for competitive seller acquisition would put any data provider in legally murky territory. Walmart, for its part, has not confirmed or denied the existence of a targeted outreach program of this nature.

• Alleged fee concessions: 1%–2.5% referral fee reduction for 12 months in select categories
• Reported free WFS onboarding for up to 500 SKUs per seller
• Unconfirmed 90-day sponsored product placement test guarantees
• Dedicated seller success managers reportedly assigned to accounts above $2M annual GMV on Amazon
• Outreach reportedly targeting sellers with Amazon BSR rankings in the top 500 of major subcategories

How Is Amazon Responding Behind the Scenes?

Sources familiar with Amazon’s Seller Experience org say that internal alarms began going off in late May when seller churn data in specific categories showed an unusual uptick in sellers activating Walmart Marketplace accounts — not abandoning Amazon, but going multichannel in a way that was redirecting new inventory launches to Walmart first. That’s a meaningful behavioral shift, and reportedly triggered an emergency review within Amazon’s third-party seller retention team.

“Amazon noticed the pattern before sellers even started talking about it publicly. Their data is good. The question is what lever they pull in response — and that’s what everyone is waiting to see,” said one Amazon agency owner who works with sellers doing over $10M annually and asked not to be named.

Unconfirmed reports suggest Amazon is in the early stages of piloting a “Seller Loyalty Program” — internally code-named Project Anchor — that would offer fee rebates and early access to new advertising products to sellers who maintain a minimum percentage of their total marketplace GMV on Amazon. The program has reportedly not been formally announced and may still be in feasibility review. Amazon declined to comment.

What Do the Big Amazon Aggregators Think About This?

The aggregator community — brands like Thrasio, Perch, and Heroes — is watching this dynamic closely, and not just as spectators. Several aggregator portfolio managers have reportedly begun stress-testing their brand portfolios for Walmart-first launch scenarios, particularly in categories where Amazon’s fee structure has become punitive at scale.

Brandon Fishman, a former Thrasio executive who now advises a handful of mid-market Amazon aggregators, was willing to speak on record. “The math on WFS versus FBA is genuinely interesting right now for certain SKU profiles — bulky items, heavy goods, anything where Amazon’s dimensional weight fees are eating 8 to 12 percent of revenue. If Walmart is layering fee concessions on top of an already competitive fulfillment cost structure, the ROI conversation becomes real very fast,” he said.

“Nobody’s leaving Amazon. But the era of Amazon-exclusive launches is over for any sophisticated operator. The question is just sequencing — and Walmart is making a credible case to be first,” Fishman added.

Perch, which manages a portfolio of over 90 brands predominantly built on Amazon FBA, reportedly held an internal strategy session in June specifically focused on Walmart Marketplace expansion velocity. Sources close to the company say leadership has greenlit a pilot that would migrate 15 to 20 SKUs per brand quarter to WFS as a parallel-launch test, rather than the previous approach of treating Walmart as a secondary channel afterthought.

Is This Part of a Broader Walmart Marketplace Restructuring?

Context matters here. Walmart Marketplace crossed what the company internally calls its “seller density threshold” in Q1 2026 — meaning it now has sufficient seller count and SKU depth in most major categories to sustain a competitive price and selection environment without relying on first-party Walmart retail inventory to fill gaps. That milestone, sources say, is what unlocked the more aggressive seller acquisition budget that appears to be funding this alleged outreach operation.

Walmart’s advertising business — Walmart Connect — also reported 34% year-over-year growth in sponsored products revenue in its most recent earnings call, a metric that makes bringing high-velocity Amazon sellers onto the platform a direct advertising revenue play, not just a selection play. More sellers with proven PPC budgets means more Walmart Connect spend.

• Walmart Marketplace reportedly crossed internal “seller density threshold” in Q1 2026
• Walmart Connect grew sponsored product revenue 34% YoY in most recent earnings
• WFS capacity has reportedly expanded by roughly 18% following two new fulfillment center openings in Q4 2025
• Walmart’s 3P seller count is estimated by third-party trackers at approximately 135,000 active sellers as of June 2026, versus Amazon’s estimated 1.9 million active third-party sellers

What Should Amazon Sellers Actually Do With This Information?

For sellers who haven’t yet received the alleged outreach, the smart play is to run your own WFS versus FBA cost comparison before anyone calls you. Tools like Teikametrics and Intentwise now have side-by-side fulfillment cost modeling built into their dashboards, and several agencies — including Marketplace Valet and Buy Box Experts — have reportedly built dedicated Walmart expansion practices over the past 12 months specifically to handle inbound demand from Amazon sellers evaluating the move.

The practical advice from agency operators we spoke with is consistent: don’t replatform your hero SKUs, but absolutely test Walmart with second-tier inventory where you have margin room to absorb any ranking volatility during launch. If Walmart’s alleged fee concessions are real and accessible, the 90-day window to lock them in may be worth the operational lift.

As of publication, Walmart has not confirmed the existence of a targeted seller acquisition program. Amazon has not confirmed the existence of Project Anchor. Both companies were given 72 hours to respond to detailed questions submitted by Ecommerce Times. We will update this story if either party provides comment.