Sell on Walmart Marketplace with BigCommerce

BigCommerce and Walmart Announce Marketplace Partnership

BigCommerce has established a partnership with Walmart, enabling its clientele to offer their products on the retailer's e-commerce platform. The announcement was made earlier today, and subsequently, the stock price of the Austin-based BigCommerce experienced a notable increase in pre-market trading.

Specifically, shares rose by approximately 10% before the market officially opened.

Walmart's E-commerce Success

Despite its historical strength in brick-and-mortar retail, Walmart has demonstrated significant success in the e-commerce sector in recent years. Recent quarterly reports indicate an overall growth of 7.3% for Walmart, with e-commerce sales surging by an impressive 69% during the same period.

BigCommerce's Growth Trajectory

BigCommerce has also been experiencing robust growth, partially fueled by strategic partnerships. Last year, the company launched an integration with Wish, mirroring the collaborative approach seen with the new Walmart agreement.

Insights from BigCommerce CEO Brent Bellm

During an earnings discussion prior to the Walmart announcement, Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce, shared with TechCrunch his company’s positive assessment of customer adoption of the Wish integration. In a subsequent interview, Bellm indicated that the Walmart partnership was a long-awaited development for BigCommerce.

He expressed curiosity regarding the number of platform customers who will choose to sell on Walmart and the speed at which they will do so, drawing parallels to the success of the Wish collaboration.

Walmart's Perspective on the Partnership

Jeff Clementz, a Walmart executive, highlighted the substantial size of their online customer base – 120 million monthly active users – and the extensive range of their purchasing demands. He suggested that BigCommerce sellers could contribute to a greater diversity of products on Walmart’s platform, potentially sustaining its rapid expansion.

Incentivizing Adoption

To encourage participation among BigCommerce customers, both companies are offering incentives. Walmart is providing a “new-seller discount,” marking the first instance of such an offer, and waiving certain fees for retailers who sign up to sell on their marketplace for a limited time.

BigCommerce: A Company to Watch

TechCrunch has been closely monitoring BigCommerce since its initial public offering in 2020. The company’s earnings reports offer valuable insights into the growth dynamics of independent digital retailers within the e-commerce landscape.

Shopify, a primary competitor to BigCommerce, provides a comparable perspective on the broader e-commerce market.

Previous Integrations

It’s worth noting that Shopify previously integrated with Walmart in mid-2020.

The Competitive Landscape

The Walmart partnership’s impact on BigCommerce’s revenue growth will be closely observed. The company is engaged in a market share competition with Shopify.

While Shopify has demonstrated impressive growth through integrated solutions, such as its payment services, BigCommerce emphasizes its more open approach.

For instance, Shopify levies a percentage-based fee on transaction volume when customers utilize third-party payment solutions instead of Shopify Payments, a practice described by Bellm as a “tax.”

Revenue from Merchant Solutions

In 2020, Shopify’s “Merchant Solutions” revenue, primarily derived from “payment processing fees from Shopify Payments,” increased by 116% to exceed $2 billion.

A Clash of Philosophies

With BigCommerce now mirroring Shopify’s Walmart integration, we are witnessing a competition not only between two e-commerce platforms striving to maximize market access for their customers, but also a contest between distinct business philosophies. This rivalry, much like the one between Microsoft Teams and Slack, is compelling to observe.