Walmart will have three-quarters of its new sellers China-based!

It is expected that in 2024 at least three-quarters of new sellers in Walmart's marketplace will come from China, surpassing records set against the previous month, all with a clear goal: to sell what Temu is selling.

According to Marketplace Pulse research, 73% of new sellers active on Walmart's marketplace in April were based in China, surpassing the previous record of 67% set in March. Thousands of new sellers apply monthly, but only 10-20% of signups are approved (approved and active sellers, as reported on Walmart.com).

Walmart added the same number of U.S. vendors in April 2023 and 2024, but while they represented 91% of the total in 2023, they dropped to 23% this year. The decline was due to a massive increase in new vendors from China; in April, nearly as many were added as during all of 2023; Walmart began allowing international vendors in March 2021, but, except for small groups of vendors from India, Canada, the U.K. and Vietnam, all are from China. "Two-thirds of what we sell in the U.S. is made or grown in the U.S.," said Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO, in an interview in Stratechery.

Amazon is also betting on China-based sellers 

Amazon has followed a similar path for nearly a decade: China-based sellers account for nearly 50% of the top sellers on Amazon. This year, Amazon acknowledged the market share of Chinese sellers on its platform for the first time, calling it "significant."

Walmart hosted the first seller meeting in Shenzhen in March this year; in February, it launched a Chinese version of the Seller Central dashboard and began allowing sellers to submit support cases in Chinese. It is also running a beta program to simplify imports into WFS, its fulfillment service.

Walmart and Temu, the new disruptor that has caught everyone's attention, are becoming more similar than different, Walmart and Amazon allow direct shopping from China with fast shipping enabled by Walmart and Amazon warehouses that store sellers' imported products. AliExpress, Shein and Temu allow buying from China without fast shipping but at lower prices, often, being the same seller behind each platform.