Walmart Eases Shopping, Returns through 3rd-Party Online Vendors

Walmart is looking to dramatically ease both shopping for and returning items – from everyday goods to gifts – through its online marketplace sellers, beginning next month, just in time for the holiday season.

Working with hundreds of its marketplace sellers, the Bentonville, Ark.-based mega-retailer is making millions of products available for free two-day shipping without a membership fee. It's also simplifying the return process for items purchased from marketplace sellers, even allowing shoppers to return the products they purchased online at any of the retailer's stores.

"Two years ago, we launched free two-day shipping with no membership fee on millions of items that customers buy the most on Walmart.com," said Scott Hilton, Walmart Ecommerce U.S., on the retailer's website. "Customers love the offer and the ability to get products quickly without having to pay an annual fee. In the coming months, you will see millions of additional items with the two-day free shipping label as we work with hundreds of our high-performing marketplace sellers to extend the offer to their eligible items."

Customer satisfaction and, thus, repeat purchases, are heavily reliant on a great experience when returning purchased goods. And with 90 percent of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart store, shoppers can simply:

• Package the product for return
• Bring it to the services desk at any Walmart location
• Have the store ship the item back to the seller
• Receive their refund from the seller

Customers can also take advantage of free returns by mail: Shoppers just log into their account, print a return label and ship the product back to the seller.

Walmart operates more than 11,200 stores under 55 banners in 27 countries. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company is No. 1 on Progressive Grocer's list of the top grocers in the United States.