Fulfillment or lead time is the time between the order placement and delivery. On Walmart, all orders must be delivered before the Expected Delivery Date, which is calculated based on these three factors:
Sellers can change all three components to increase their fulfillment time. Below, you can find a breakdown of each component with instructions on how to change it.
Order Cutoff Time
This setting is available on Walmart Seller Center > Settings > Seller Fulfillment tab. You can set separate cut-off times for each of your fulfillment centers. For example, you can set up the cutoff time to the early hours of your daily operation. This way, you will not have to fulfill the orders placed during your working hours until the next day.
- By default, the timezone is Eastern Standard Time (EST)
- To set it up, you need to edit your fulfillment center settings and scroll down to Operating schedule
Fulfillment Lag Time
You can add this value to your products to indicate the number of days needed to prepare the item for shipping.
- By default, it is set to 0.
- Any seller can apply one day of fulfillment lag time to any product.
- To apply for more than one day seller need to request permission from Walmart through the lag time exemption request.
- On Walmart, lag time has to be updated through the spec sheet. On GeekSeller, you can update it on the product page or through the CSV/XLS file.
Transit Time
This value is expressed based on your shipping method settings. Transit time includes only business days.
You can change the transit time for Freight, Value, and Standard shipping through the shipping templates.
Example
Here is a breakdown of this information based on a real example:
Let’s say that the customer:
- Placed an order Wednesday, Dec 1st at 2:30 PM EST.
- Selected Standard shipping.
Your settings:
- Order Cutoff Time is set to 2:00 PM EST, so the order processing day will start on Thursday, Dec 2nd.
- Your fulfillment lag time assigned to the ordered SKU is set to 1 day, so the Expected Ship Date (ESD) will be set to Friday, Dec 3rd.
- Your Standard shipping transit time is set to 4 business days in the shipping template.
Given the above data, your Expected Delivery Date will be set to Thursday, Dec 9th.
