How to find products to sell on Walmart

How do you find products to sell on Walmart? Pick a sourcing method (retail and clearance stores, online arbitrage, or wholesale), build a shortlist of items that already sell on Walmart.com, then check each one with numbers: profit after Walmart's fees, a sales estimate, how many sellers and how much stock are on the listing, who wins the Buy Box, the price history, and whether you're allowed to sell it. Buy only what passes, and start with a small quantity.

This guide covers where to look and how to check what you find. For category ideas, see what sells best on Walmart; for the full product checklist, see how to know if a product will sell on Walmart. Margenos, a Walmart reseller tool (Chrome extension and Android app), shows whether a product is worth selling on Walmart Marketplace: fees, profit, ROI, sales estimates, every competing seller with stock, the Buy Box winner and the product's price and Buy Box history. We'll point out where it helps, but every step below works by hand too.

Three ways to find products to sell on Walmart

Most Walmart resellers use one of three sourcing methods, and many mix them. Each trades effort, cash and repeatability differently.

Retail and clearance

Clearance aisles at big-box stores, drugstores and home stores are where most resellers start. Scan anything discounted and compare it to the Walmart.com listing. The finds are often one-offs, but you learn quickly what sells. A phone barcode scanner turns a slow aisle walk into a fast one; see the Walmart scanner app and how to resell Walmart clearance.

Online arbitrage

Online arbitrage is the same idea from a laptop: watch retail sites for sales, coupons and cashback stacks, then check whether the item is profitable on Walmart. You can check far more products per hour, but so can everyone else. A browser extension that shows Walmart numbers on the listing saves the copy-paste. See online arbitrage for Walmart.

Wholesale

Wholesale means buying by the case from a brand or its authorized distributors. You get repeatable stock and invoices that prove where the goods came from, which matters if a brand or Walmart asks. Margins are usually thinner, so the numbers have to be checked carefully. See Walmart wholesale.

Bonus: borrow ideas from other sellers

Sellers who already win on Walmart have done some research for you. Open a listing, look at who else sells it, and browse their storefronts for items you could source cheaper. Margenos's seller lookup shows a competing seller's products with profit for each.

What to sell on Walmart Marketplace: what to look for

Whatever the source, profitable products to sell on Walmart tend to share a few traits:

• New condition. Walmart's resold products policy prohibits items that aren't new unless you've been invited to its Resold program. Used and open-box items are out for most sellers.
• An existing listing with steady demand. Selling on a listing that already moves is easier than creating demand. Look for steady sales, not one spike.
• Room after fees. The price has to cover the referral fee, fulfillment, prep and your cost, with profit left over. See Walmart seller fees and WFS fees.
• Few sellers, stock that moves. A handful of sellers whose stock sells down beats a crowd sitting on months of inventory.
• Walmart not on the listing, or at least not at a price you can't match.
• Small and light if you plan to use WFS, since fulfillment fees rise with weight and size.
• Open to you. Not prohibited, and not in a category or brand that needs approval you don't have.

Red flags: products to pass on

• Walmart sells it cheaply. When Walmart is on the listing at a low price, winning the Buy Box usually gets much harder.
• Months of stock already listed. Add up the sellers' stock and compare it to monthly sales.
• Today's price is a spike. If the item usually sells for less, your profit math is wrong. See Walmart product history.
• A price war. Frequent small drops mean sellers are undercutting each other.
• Approval categories. Walmart requires pre-approval for categories including books, ingestible and topical products, fragrances, luxury brands, software and custom content. See Walmart restricted brands.
• No proof of purchase. Keep receipts and invoices; you must own what you sell and have the right to sell branded goods.
• A plan to dropship from another retailer. Walmart's packaging policy doesn't allow buying from another retailer and having it ship straight to your Walmart customer.

How to check each product with numbers

Here's one product run through the checks. The numbers are made up to show the method, not real Walmart data.

1. Profit. The item sells for $29.99 on Walmart. You look up the referral fee for its category and the WFS fee for its weight; say together they come to $9.00. Prep is $1.00. That leaves $19.99 before your cost. Buy at $12.00 and profit is $7.99, a 67% ROI.
2. Max buy cost. If you want at least a 30% ROI, the most you can pay is $19.99 ÷ 1.30, about $15.38. Anything above that, pass.
3. Sales. Suppose an estimate says about 60 sales a month. Ask where the estimate came from; if a tool says "not enough data", treat demand as unproven. See the Walmart sales estimator.
4. Your share. Four sellers rotate the Buy Box at similar prices, so expect roughly 15 sales a month for you, if you match their price.
5. Stock. The four sellers hold 300 units between them, five months of sales. Your units would wait in line. This one fails, even with good profit. Try a small test buy or pass.
6. Price history and restrictions. For items that pass the stock check, confirm the price is stable and that you can list the item in Seller Center.

The math is the same whether you do it on paper, in our Walmart profit calculator or in a tool. More detail in how to calculate Walmart profit.

A simple weekly sourcing routine

1. Choose one method for the week. A store route, a list of retail sites, or a supplier price list.
2. Shortlist fast. Scan or open everything that might work and keep only items with profit at today's price.
3. Run the full checks on the shortlist: sales, sellers and stock, Buy Box, history, restrictions.
4. Buy small. Test two to five units of anything new before buying deeper.
5. Track what you bought. Watch price and seller changes so you can react before your margin disappears.

Walmart product finder tools

A Walmart product finder won't hand you winners, but it makes each check faster. Margenos does it on one screen: open any Walmart.com product with the Chrome extension, or scan a barcode with the Android app, and you see fees, profit, ROI, max buy cost, a sales estimate labeled with its source, every competing seller with stock counts, total stock, the Buy Box winner, and price and Buy Box history charts. Track a product and you'll get alerts when prices move, sellers sell out, or sellers or Walmart join or leave. No Walmart seller account is needed. See Walmart product research and the best Walmart reseller apps to compare options.

Sources: Walmart: Prohibited products policy overview · Walmart: Resold products policy · Walmart: Packaging policy. Walmart changes its rules; confirm in Seller Center.