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Setting up a Walmart API

Do you want to learn interactively all basics related to the creation of an API export, or how to make an advanced setup for an API in Channable? Learn how to create a Channacademy account in the Channable platform and start with the Basic APIs or Expert APIs course.

Walmart is one of the largest American supermarket chains, with more than 10,000 stores in 27 countries today.

This Help Center article will help you navigate the setup of your Walmart API.

Table of contents

  1. Preparation
  2. Create a new connection
  3. Create the API
  4. Create your product listings
  5. Send your product listings to Walmart
  6. Check your product listings for errors

Preparation

  • Setting up Walmart API access

    1. Create client credentials: You can start by generating a client ID and secret through the Walmart Developer Portal. Select Channable as the integrator, and you will be prompted to grant the access permissions we require. You must grant at least the minimum highlighted permissions as shown in the screenshot below.

    2. Receive credentials: Once you've configured the permissions correctly, Walmart will issue your client ID and secret. These are essential for creating the connection with Walmart in the next step.

Step 1: Create a new connection

To create a new Walmart connection, follow the steps below:

  1. Start by navigating to the API page within your project and click on the "+Add new API" button. This action will redirect you to your company's connections page.
  2. On the connections page, select "+Add a new connection".
  3. Search for the 'Walmart' connection by clicking through the pages, after finding the 'Walmart' connection, provide the following:
    • Label
    • Client ID
    • Client Secret

  4. Click on "Create" to finish creating your Walmart connection. Afterwards, you will be brought back to the API setup. 

Step 2: Create the API

When you are back at the API selection screen, you can now select your new connection with Walmart and continue setting up your API.

  1. Configure API settings:
    • Name your API
    • Choose the unique ID per item. (We recommend the 'ID' field)
  2. Create API: Click on "Continue" to create the new Walmart API.

Step 3: Create your product listings

Note: We're gradually rolling out Marketplaces V2. If you're still using Marketplaces V1 your steps might look a little different.

Follow these steps to set up your channel:

1. Categorize your products

To set up your product data, assign categories to your products.

  • Smart Categorization: Automatically assigns product categories through our algorithm.
  • Manual Categorization: Manually assign product categories with custom rules. You can create detailed filters to map each product to the correct category.
  • Uncategorized Items: Products that still need to be reviewed and categorized

Learn more about categorizing for marketplaces

2. Set up rules

Rules help you quickly optimize your product data for the marketplace you want to sell on.

  • Rule templates: Commonly used rules you can adjust for your use case.
  • Rules setup: Set up rules to refine your product data. This can include filtering, modifying, or enhancing data fields to meet marketplace requirements.

Read more about using rules for marketplaces

3. Build your listings

The Build step is where you configure your product listings to match marketplace requirements. It’s an essential step for getting your products live and avoiding errors.

Mandatory and optional fields: 

  • Mandatory fields : Required to list your products on this marketplace
  • Recommended : Recommended to avoid errors
  • Optional : Not required to list

Shared attributes

Shared attributes are the common fields that apply across your products, such as EAN, prices, and titles. This step ensures uniformity in basic product information across your listings.

  • Use static or dynamic Values:
    • Static values: Fixed values that don’t change (e.g. brand name, manufacturer)
    • Dynamic values: Fields that automatically change based on the linked data (e.g. stock, prices)

Category-specific attributes

Category-specific attributes fields that specifically apply to the category for your products .This step helps in fine-tune your listings to meet category requirements for your marketplace.

Fill in attributes that are specific to the selected category (e.g. such size for clothing or dimensions for furniture.) 

Tip: Click Auto-map fields to automatically map categories with information previously provided in the same channel. Learn more.

Learn more about the Build step for marketplaces

 

4. Check the quality of your set up

The Quality step provides feedback on your channel before you activate it. It highlights mandatory and optional errors to ensure your product data meets requirements to list on the marketplace.

  1. Solve errors, prioritizing mandatory errors first.

Actions

  • View items: See products with specific issues.
  • View in build: Redirects to the Build step to map missing information.
  • Set categories: Directs to the Categories step to categorize items.
  • Show source: Available for ID fields. Directs to the Settings step.

Learn more about the Quality step for marketplaces

5. Preview before activating

The Preview step displays the attributes you mapped in the Build step, helping you check if everything is configured correctly by providing an overview of your products and potential errors.

Filtering:

  • Filter by error: Click the All dropdown and select if you would like to filter to display only products with errors, or products with a specific error.
  • Filter by category: Click the All categories dropdown and select the category you want to filter by.

Before you continue:

  • Review Shared attributes: Ensure all mandatory shared attributes are filled.
  • Review Category-specific attributes: Ensure all mandatory category-specific attributes are filled.
  • Check for errors: Correct any red-marked fields.

Learn more about the Preview step for marketplaces

Additional requirements for Walmart

The following information is specific to Walmart. 

Shipping template tab

  • Shipping template ID:
    To link your products to specific shipping templates, you need to first create the shipping templates for your products on Walmart as explained in this Walmart Seller Help article. When you are done creating a template, Walmart will generate a Shipping Template ID. You will need to maintain or modify your Shipping templates on Walmart's platform.



    Each template you create on Walmart generates a unique Shipping Template ID. Enter this ID in Channable’s “Build > Shipping templates” section.

    To assign different Shipping Templates to various products, utilize dynamic fields and rules in Channable, ensuring each product is matched with the correct Shipping Template ID.

  • Fulfillment center template ID:
    This ID represents the US-based location from which your orders are shipped. Similar to Shipping Templates, you must set up and maintain your Fulfillment Center template on Walmart according to this Walmart Seller Help article to generate the Fulfillment Center ID. Enter this ID in Channable to ensure your products are associated with the correct fulfillment location. 

Note: Both IDs are crucial and must be filled in to utilize these features. Check the Walmart Seller Help for detailed guidance on creating and maintaining these IDs.

Additional information

Creating Variants for Walmart

Managing item variants on Walmart requires careful category selection and specific attribute setup:

  1. Select the correct category: Start by choosing the appropriate category for your items. Some categories may not support variants, so selecting the right one is crucial for variant configuration.

  2. Configure Variant attributes: After category selection, set up the Variant attributes by filling in the following:

    • Variant Group ID: Use a common identifier for all variants in a group, such as parent_id or item_group_id.

    • Variant attribute name: Specify the attribute that differentiates the variants (e.g., color, size).

    • Variant code field: Assign the field associated with the variant code.

  3. Enter Variant codes: Enter multiple variant codes by separating each with a comma (,). Although this might trigger an error message in Channable, you can disregard it as Walmart will still process the entries correctly. Do not end any entered value with a comma, as Walmart will reject the attribute. 

Step 4: Send your products to Walmart

Your product listings should now be ready to be sent. If you have not activated your project, go to your project settings on the left-hand side of the screen and click "Activate project".

After, go back to the APIs overview and go to [Your Walmart API] > Settings, where you can activate the API by clicking "Activate API".

Once you have activated the API, navigate back to the API overview and click on the blue "Run now" button to send your product listings to Walmart.

Updating Walmart listings

After the initial upload, you'll see items marked as successfully pushed in Channable, indicating they've been created on Walmart without price and inventory details. In the next export, Channable will update these items with their respective prices and inventories. Use the Walmart Dashboard to monitor the publishing status of each item.

Note: Walmart needs approximately 4 to 8 hours to update the price of new and existing listings.

Step 5: Check your product listings for errors

After you have sent your product listings to Walmart, go to the Results tab of your Walmart API. 

For errors, click filter on 'error'. Now you can see which product listings have errors and which are not listed. Click on a specific error to see more information on what is causing the error. If you have solved some errors by changing the settings or product information, re-run the Walmart API to see the new results.