Dive Brief:
- Amazon is temporarily waiving a fee that sellers shipping to Walmart customers incurred for using its Multi-Channel Fulfillment service, the company announced June 10.
- Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment offers shipping services for orders placed on other e-commerce channels. The 5% surcharge levied on Multi-Channel Fulfillment shipments delivered by non-Amazon carriers will be waived through Jan. 14, 2026, for orders originating from Walmart Marketplace.
- Walmart Marketplace's policy bars sellers from shipping orders in competitors' boxes or packaging. The retailer's website said Multi-Channel Fulfillment users must instead ship their items in a neutral box and block Amazon Logistics as a carrier to ensure Amazon-branded vehicles don't deliver the orders.
Dive Insight:
Due to Walmart's rules, Multi-Channel Fulfillment users had to incur the 5% charge to ship their Walmart orders to customers. This fee had been a barrier for sellers using the Amazon service, Vanessa Hung, CEO of Online Seller Solutions, said in a LinkedIn post.
"If you’ve held off on MCF for Walmart, this is the window," Hung said of the surcharge being waived.
Amazon's move comes in the midst of the two retail rivals fighting to win more users for their respective cross-channel fulfillment services. Walmart Multichannel Solutions, which is comparable to Multi-Channel Fulfillment, recently highlighted its free unbranded packaging services while calling out a "5% or more" charge levied by other platforms.
Multi-Channel Fulfillment users can fulfill Walmart orders by using an Amazon-supported order management app, or by manually submitting orders on Amazon Seller Central that follow Walmart's shipping policies, per the June 10 announcement.
Walmart used to be even stricter on sellers who used Amazon for items sold on its marketplace, according to Ravi Patel, director of i.e.rare, an e-commerce marketing and advertising agency.
"Even if they used plain boxes, Walmart’s system could detect orders coming from Amazon (like through USPS tracking), and some accounts were suspended," Patel said on LinkedIn. "But now, Walmart says: yes, you can use Amazon MCF — just do it right."
