Your Guide to Walmart Marketplace Product Bundling

Customers often associate bundles with a good deal. Despite its undeniable potential, there is a common misconception that bundling is disadvantageous for retailers. However, what it really does is give the customer an opportunity to try a product they might not have bought in the first place. In short, product bundling is the process of offering multiple items as one.

Bundling comes in different forms; here are the most popular:

• Pure bundling is when you offer the customer the entire bundle (with no option of selling products individually).
• Joint bundling is when two products are presented together for one bundle price.
• Leader bundling is where a primary item is offered with an optional accessory at a discount. Another form (mixed-leader bundling) is when multiple products could be sold individually but are complementary.
• Mixed bundling occurs when the customer can buy an individual item or an entire set of things at a discounted rate.

Regardless of where you sell your products, earning more money is crucial to meeting short- and long-term business goals. If you can work towards people’s natural perceptions of bundling, bundling can work for you. Simply put, product bundling works well because it is considered a low-pressure form of upselling. It enables the seller to sell complete solutions in the form of “item kits.”

Everyone hates a pushy salesperson that pressures you into buying something you may not necessarily want or need. Unlike a pushy salesperson, product bundling is not forceful, the consumer has control, and it is up to them to click the “buy now” or “add to cart” button.

“People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy.”

The way you structure it is crucial, and usage of the word “free” is powerful. The classic “Buy One Get One” (BOGO) bundle promotion is one of the most famous examples. Hot Topic provides one of the best examples of this. They continuously offer some BOGO promotion. Check out this image as an example:

Being in the male cleanliness niche as a subscription service enables them to send their customers deals directly. The deals typically include some additional pamphlets that teach men about aspects of cleanliness they may not already know. In many cases, these pamphlets contain details on cleaning while referring to their products. So it combines valuable data with a potential upsell of one of their lesser-known items.

DSC also sends product samples, another excellent strategy for sharing the quality of their items. The idea is to give them just enough to see how these bodily care products can be part of their daily routine. The best part of DSC is their starting price, as you can see, is about $5. With this, people see a low barrier to entry with the “club,” joining and making it a part of their regular life.

Much of this comes from Walmart’s definition of a bundle: “Multiple items combined by partners but not made by the manufacturer.”

You can find the explanation on Walmart’s Marketplace Quickstart guide. The guide indicates that you cannot be the manufacturer if you create a bundle. It also states you need a unique product I.D. for your product listings. If you make your products, you will need to be under the “custom” item type. However, this does not apply if you are a private label seller, as you are not the manufacturer.

Regardless of what item category you need to select, you will need to create a new product listing for each item. This means that Walmart disallows you from using a mixed strategy. The closest being you showing up as “suggested” under the alternative purchases.

If your bundling is ineffective, you can remove the product listings, separate the grouping, and relist them as individual items. This process can be tedious, which is why Amazon’s more robust eCommerce platform is preferred when it comes to selling items as optional sets.

A parent item, or product, is the primary product that acts as your main draw. For example, people buying a set of hair cutting equipment will most likely gravitate to the electric razor. Other items (the tiny scissors, the plastic attachments, etc.) are likely secondary.

To determine the draw of your bundle, you have a couple of different options:

• You can perform small-scale A/B testing to see if switching out an accessory or product changes the amount of buzz it generates.
• Tweaking your product listings to prioritize different items within your product bundle might change the sales count.
• You can compare your bundle sales to individual item sales under different listings to see what gets the most considerable attention.

The crucial point in comparing performance is to see how your profit margins change due to creating your bundle. If you see a faster turnaround on your product, none of that matters if you are taking a loss. The same priorities can be seen on Amazon, and you can track those priorities using our financing tools.

At Walmart, it is vital to establish a break-even point on your products. When tracking the SKUs, you should be able to sell a small portion of your inventory to hit your break-even point. An excellent online retailer’s profit margins should be between 20 and 45% (depending on what you sell).

To avoid this, you want to be sure that your products are differentiated. Target keywords that include the word “bundle” so people know what they are getting. Make sure the two have no crossover keywords. When paying for PPC, you will want to utilize your negative keywords to exclude some words. For example, excluding the word “bundle” on your products will be necessary.

Walmart is a cost leader compared to other providers, meaning you are expected to have the lowest price compared to similar providers. If you include the idea that customers will expect some discount for buying multiple products, you might lose potential profits.

This is especially true if you focus on one of the primary benefits of bundling: removing unwanted inventory. If you are at the stage where you are just trying to get rid of your unwanted inventory, it is most likely going to come at a cost.

If you want to avoid this, be sure that you create a situational analysis of each decision. Create your bundle with the understanding that you still want a solid profit. Keeping alternatives in mind when choosing between bundling or not is one way to ensure you get the best possible outcome.

With Walmart being similar to Amazon in customer interaction, you need to establish a social media presence. When using social media as a small provider, you can ask your customers what they want. If you believe your product combo of a shaving razor and cologne product works well, you will likely receive some suggestions on how to improve it. You might take a page out of Dollar Shave Club’s book and include additional cleanliness items, creating the “ultimate kit.”

People love to share their opinion, which is why there are so many survey sites out there. So, if you have yet to establish a social media customer base, getting a good idea of your demographics and using them to target your customers is an excellent secondary option.