How To Get Reviews On Walmart Marketplace

As a third-party seller on Walmart Marketplace, obtaining customer reviews is crucial for your success. Reviews not only build trust with potential buyers but also significantly impact your visibility and sales on the platform. Customers who read reviews are significantly more likely to make a purchase. In fact, 89% of shoppers look at ratings and reviews when making a buying decision. In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore effective strategies to help you get more reviews and boost your presence on Walmart, while complying with marketplace policies.

The Importance of Reviews

Reviews can help you increase brand awareness and boost customer confidence, leading to better SEO results and conversion rates. Before diving into specific tactics, it’s essential to recognize why reviews matter so much on Walmart Marketplace:

• Increased Visibility: Walmart’s algorithm favors product listings with higher seller review ratings, giving them more prominent positions in search results.
• Customer Trust: Positive reviews demonstrate your reliability as a seller, and will encourage customers to choose your products over competitors.
• Sales Growth: Products with more reviews tend to sell better, as they provide social proof and reduce buyer hesitation.
• Feedback for Improvement: Reviews offer valuable insights into customer satisfaction and areas where you can enhance your products or packaging.

Types of Reviews on Walmart

Walmart offers various types of reviews to help customers make informed purchasing decisions. Here are some of the types of reviews you can find on Walmart:

• Native Reviews: Native reviews are those submitted directly by customers on Walmart.com. These reviews are from verified users and indicate actual post-purchase experiences, providing genuine insights into the product’s performance.
• Syndicated Reviews: Syndicated reviews are imported from other platforms, such as a brand’s website, onto Walmart.com. This allows sellers to showcase existing positive feedback to a broader audience, increasing the number of reviews and enhancing the product’s credibility.
• Incentivized Reviews: Incentivized reviews are collected from customers by offering rewards in exchange for their feedback. Walmart’s Review Accelerator program facilitates this process, ensuring that all incentivized reviews are clearly marked for transparency.
• Verified Purchase Reviews: Verified purchase reviews are those left by customers who have actually purchased the product from Walmart. These reviews are marked with a “Verified Purchase” badge to indicate their authenticity, helping to build customer trust and confidence in the product.

Ensure Compliance with Walmart Review Policy

Walmart’s review policy is designed to ensure that shoppers have access to authentic and trustworthy reviews from verified purchasers. The policy aims to promote transparency, fairness, and accuracy in the review process. While implementing review strategies, it's crucial to adhere to Walmart's Ratings and Reviews Policy and maintain ethical practices:

• Never manipulate or coerce buyers to give reviews.
• Avoid offering incentives in exchange for positive reviews specifically.
• Ensure all review requests comply with Walmart's guidelines for soliciting feedback.
• Don't ask friends or family to leave reviews, as this can risk your account status.

Strategies to Increase Your Walmart Marketplace Reviews

1. Focus on Product and Service Quality

The foundation of receiving good reviews is delivering high-quality products and exceptional customer service. Ensure that your products and packaging meet or exceed customer expectations, and prioritize prompt, professional communication with buyers.

Outstanding customer service can naturally lead to more positive reviews:

• Respond promptly to customer inquiries and concerns.
• Address issues professionally and aim for satisfactory resolutions.
• Follow up after resolving problems to ensure customer satisfaction.

2. Leverage Walmart's Review Accelerator Program

Walmart offers a Review Accelerator Program designed to help sellers boost their review count quickly. This can be particularly beneficial for new sellers or those launching new products, as it helps build initial credibility and visibility on the platform.

• How it works: Enroll eligible items in the program. You can identify eligible items on your Review Accelerator dashboard in Walmart Seller Center. Set a target number for how many reviews you want to get from the program, anywhere from 5-20 reviews.
• Incentive: Choose an incentive from $5 to $50, or 25% off the item price, to incentivize customers. When a customer buys an enrolled item, they are asked to write a review one week after delivery. Buyers will receive a $5 promo code to use on their next purchase in exchange for their honest feedback.
• Cost: The seller is charged a $5 service fee for each new review generated through this program.
• Transparency: Reviews obtained through this program are badged as "Incentivized Reviews" for transparency.

3. Syndicate Reviews from Your Website

If you already have reviews or your own direct-to-consumer website, you can leverage those existing reviews with Walmart's Review Syndication Program. This free service allows you to import reviews from your website to your Walmart listings. By enrolling in the Review Syndication program, Walmart sellers can quickly increase reviews, enhancing the quality of the listing, and boost traffic and sales.

In order to be eligible for this program, you need to collect reviews organically and display them prominently on your website. And, you need to be committed to moderating the reviews on your website for fraudulent or inappropriate content.

Sellers can work with an approved third-party solution provider, to seamlessly syndicate existing product reviews to the Walmart Marketplace, while also helping to generate new reviews.

"The fastest way to boost Walmart reviews is by syncing existing reviews from your eCommerce site. With TargetBay’s Walmart Review Syndication, brands can instantly transfer reviews from their DTC store to Walmart.com, building credibility and accelerating conversions—without waiting for new reviews. Plus, future reviews sync automatically, keeping listings fresh, relevant, and optimized for trust and sales." - Ford Crane, Director of Partnerships, TargetBay

4. Partner with Approved Sampling Vendors

Sending samples of your product is another effective way to encourage customers to leave reviews. Brands can partner with Walmart’s approved vendors to conduct product sampling, and collect and share user-generated content (UGC) on Walmart.com. UGC can help you optimize your ratings and reviews, and increase sales. This strategy is great for launching new products, seasonal items, or products that have low ratings. However, sellers are only permitted to run a product sampling campaign with one of Walmart’s third-party sampling vendors. Approved vendors include:

• Bazaarvoice
• Field Agent
• Wholescale
• The Brand Power Company
• PowerReviews

5. Optimize Your Product Listings

Well-optimized product listings can lead to more satisfied customers and, consequently, more positive reviews:

• Provide accurate and detailed product descriptions.
• Use high-quality images that accurately represent your products.
• Clearly state shipping times and any potential limitations or requirements.

6. Leverage Seasonal Opportunities

During peak shopping seasons, you have more opportunities to gather reviews:

• Enroll popular seasonal items in the Review Accelerator Program.
• Consider offering special promotions that can drive more sales and, subsequently, more reviews.

7. Proactively Manage and Respond to Reviews

Actively managing your reviews can build your brand credibility and encourage more customers to leave feedback. When a customer leaves a review, it will be sent to your Ratings and Reviews manager in Seller Center, where you can read the reviews and respond publicly. You can create your own custom response or use one of Walmart’s templates. It’s important to note that once you submit your response, you cannot edit or delete it, so be sure to review your content carefully. Your response will show on the Walmart site on the Items page within 72 hours. 

Here are some additional tips for managing reviews on Walmart Marketplace:

• Respond to negative reviews professionally and empathetically, offering solutions or additional help.
• Thank customers for positive reviews, showing that you value their feedback.
• Use feedback to improve your products, packaging, and fulfillment processes.
• Demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

8. Request to Remove a Review (If Eligible)

A few negative reviews can really hurt your product's overall rating. That's why monitoring customer reviews for any comments that violate Walmart's guidelines is an important review strategy. Keep an eye out for irrelevant or inappropriate product review or customer feedback on your listings, as it may qualify for removal, if it meets one of the following criteria: 

• Incorrect star rating: If the stars do not align with the sentiments left in the review.
• Incorrect product: The review does not match the product.
• Inappropriate comments: The content contains defamatory comments, profanity, or vulgar verbiage.
• Item update: If the product specs are updated and the reviews no longer match the item. The seller must provide documentation to prove this. In this situation, all previous reviews will be removed.

If the review meets the removal criteria, you can submit a Product Feedback Removal Request and share your findings.

Conclusion

Gathering Walmart customer reviews is a smart strategy for increasing sales on the marketplace. However, it requires a multifaceted approach combining quality products, exceptional service, and strategic use of Walmart's tools and programs. By implementing these strategies consistently and ethically, you can significantly increase your review count, improve your visibility, and drive more sales on the platform.

Remember, the key to sustainable success lies in genuine customer satisfaction. Focus on delivering value to your customers, and the positive reviews will naturally follow. With patience and persistence, you'll build a strong reputation on Walmart Marketplace, setting your business up for long-term growth and success.

FAQs

Can I include a product insert to request reviews?

No. Walmart strictly prohibits including any promotional inserts in packages. Failure to comply may result in account suspension or termination.

Can I contact buyers to leave a product review on Walmart?

Soliciting feedback and reviews from customers is not permitted unless it’s through a Walmart-approved reviews provider.

How does Walmart calculate the overall product rating?

Walmart uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate the overall star rating for each product. Various factors that go into this algorithm include the quantity of 1 to 5 star ratings, the recency of reviews and community feedback. For items with less than 50 ratings and reviews, Walmart calculates the overall star rating using a simple average.

What is the difference between product ratings vs. reviews?

Customers can rate a product by only selecting the number of stars without writing a detailed review. This is considered the product rating. The product review is the written review sentiments.

How long does it take for a new review to post on Walmart Marketplace?

New product reviews typically appear within 5-7 business days. If the review is not posted within a week, then it could be due to a violation of Walmart’s guidelines.

What is a critical review?

A critical review is a sentiment with a 1-3 star rating. These reviews provide valuable feedback for sellers to improve their products and services. Honest feedback, whether positive or negative, is essential for continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

Why do some reviews have a strikethrough?

Reviews related to a negative experience caused by Walmart fulfillment on items sold by third-party sellers, are marked with a strikethrough. They typically have a message that states that Walmart fulfilled the order, and the issues weren’t the seller's fault. These reviews are not factored into the product's overall rating.