Boost your listing rank by adopting the latest Walmart item specifications, which include more granular categories and properties.
Walmart recently launched a new item specification to help sellers more effectively reach shoppers on the marketplace. Previously, Walmart selling categories were higher level, requiring sellers to input as many details as possible to differentiate and identify their product. While sellers are still encouraged to include as much relevant product content as possible, the introduction of more detailed category trees and properties will help listings appear in the right places within the shopper experience.
4.5 item specification categories and properties
5.0 item specification categories and properties
With this launch, any new listings created in SellerActive will use the 5.0 category structure and properties through the creation flow.
If you are interested in migrating your existing catalog of 4.5 listings over, follow the steps below (this is not required today but will be in late Q3/early Q4
when Walmart deprecates their 4.5 item spec):
- Let the team know via email (support@selleractive.com) or in-app chat.
- We will coordinate a time with you to update all your 4.5 listings over to the corresponding 5.0 category. This will be done in bulk on our side. In the case that we were not able to associate a 5.0 category with any products, we will work with you to address those manually (ex. we can send you a list of problem SKUs, you can respond with the desired categories, and we will update them). All existing listing property values will migrate to the new properties, unless the property was deprecated.
- The migration time is estimated to take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours depending on your catalog size.
- During the migration, all inbound and outbound settings will function the same. The only change you may notice is that some listings have a 5.0 category and newly required properties, and others have the old (4.5) category type (if you interact with your catalog before the migration is complete).
- Once we’ve migrated your 4.5 listings over, check the Incomplete filter within the listings workspace to see if any listings have new required properties. If so, fill those out and republish the products. For your best selling products, it’s worth spending some time in the additional properties list to see if there’s any new property data you want to include in your listings.
- You’ve now successfully migrated your catalog to the 5.0 item specification!
A few things to keep in mind:
- If you create an offer for an existing item, it will have a 4.5 category and associated properties.
- The categories displayed in your “Most Frequently Used” categories section may be the 4.5 type, note that if you select one, your listing will be on the 4.5 specification. You can distinguish between a 4.5 vs a 5.0 category based on the structure: if the category is a single high-level value (ex. Clothing) it is the previous version, if the category is a nested leaf style (ex. Fashion / Upper Body Garments / Sweater Vests) it is the 5.0 version.
- Prior to the 4.5 depreciation date, we will migrate any old listings over to the new 5.0 spec. We will notify you once this is complete so that you can check to see if any listings require new property information. The current 4.5 deprecation date estimate is late Q3/early Q4 of 2024, we will update this article with the official date once set by Walmart.
