Consultants discussed new Walmart and Amazon marketplace policies, with one change garnering praise and the other getting panned. Walmart just put a policy into place for sellers who use its multichannel fulfillment service, and Amazon’s controversial DD+7 policy rolls out in March.
A thumbs up to Walmart:
Sellers who use Walmart Multichannel Solutions fulfillment services will be able to specify which shipping carriers should be used to fulfill orders that come from off-Walmart marketplaces.
GeekSeller co-founder Daniel Sodkiewicz reported on a LinkedIn post on Saturday: “This gives sellers much more control, especially now when some marketplaces are adding new restrictions.” An accompanying post on GeekSeller explained:
“Walmart just introduced a very useful update for Multi-Channel Solutions (MCS). Sellers can now select which carriers they want Walmart to use when fulfilling orders from other channels. This gives sellers much more control, especially because many marketplaces – for example TikTok Shop – place limits on what carriers can be used.”
Sodkiewicz explained TikTok Shop’s new policy was going into effect next month. When creating a new channel in Seller Center, sellers can now pick from three carrier packages:
Package A – USPS, FedEx, UPS, LaserShip, OnTrac
Package B – UPS, LaserShip, OnTrac
Package C – USPS, FedEx, UPS
He called it a great move from the Walmart WFS/MCS team. “A real, practical update that supports sellers at the right moment.”
A thumbs down to Amazon:
Amazon gave sellers time to absorb some bad news coming in March 2026 in a policy referred to as Delivery Date plus 7 (DD+7), but it continues to weigh on people’s minds. Consultant Max Sigurdson-Scott did some back-of-the-envelope calculations (or as he called it, “rough napkin math”), and wrote in a post on LinkedIn on Saturday that he believes holding sellers’ funds for an extra 7 days creates for Amazon an “entirely new profit source”:
“Amazon’s official reason is simple. They say it is to protect buyers and cover returns. That sounds reasonable until you look at the numbers.
“Third-party sellers generate around 350 billion in GMV each year. After Amazon takes its cut, sellers are owed about 500 million per day.
“Hold those funds for an extra seven days and Amazon is suddenly sitting on somewhere between 3-6 billion of seller money. Not for a week. Constantly. A rolling pool of cash that never really leaves their hands.
“If you place that float into conservative funds at 4-6%, Amazon quietly earns somewhere between 200 and 300 million per year. No new product. No new service. No heavy lifting.
“Just… money.
“So when Amazon says they need to hold billions to cover returns, it becomes hard not to smile a little. 6B to cover returns. Sure. The reality is simpler. Amazon shifted the cashflow curve by one week and created an entirely new profit source that sellers will never see.
“Most people will not notice. They will just feel a little more pressure to restock, a little less cushion in their bank account, a little tighter each cycle.”
In informing sellers in late September about next year’s implementation, Amazon acknowledged an impact on sellers, but called it a “one-time cash flow impact.” Consultants who work with sellers clearly don’t see it as having a temporary impact.