What is the Walmart Review Program?

Ever purchased a Walmart product without going through its reviews? It’s as risky as bungee jumping without double-checking the bungee cord. Or going on a blind date without even checking the other person’s socials.

Nowadays, customers are like detectives. They scour the internet (Google, Quora, Communities, Reddit, niche-specific forums) to find the tiniest of details about a product they’re looking to purchase. And when it comes to finally making a purchase, they’re like FBI agents. From product reviews to seller ratings, they will examine every aspect of the retailer to make sure they’re not being scammed.

As a Walmart seller, we understand that you want to:

• Be more discoverable.

• Appear credible. 

• Position yourself as trustworthy.

• And increase your sales.  

If that’s what you’re looking for, you need reviews on your Walmart product listings. Throughout this post, we’ll not only be explaining why Walmart reviews matter but also dive deep into the Walmart-approved Review Program that allows retailers to get authentic paid Walmart reviews powered by Plum. 

Let’s dive in.

Why Do Walmart Reviews Matter?

Storytime –

Ben was looking to purchase a smartphone but didn’t know which one. He reached out to his friends for recommendations. Alongside, he scoured the internet to get people’s opinions. With a lot of options to choose from, he couldn’t make up his mind and got really picky. He:

• Checked out dozens of smartphone reviews, comparison, and top X under budget X articles. 

• Watched a lot of YouTube videos.

• Scoured eCommerce marketplaces to read authentic customer reviews for different smartphones. 

After a few days, he finally decided on the smartphone he wanted to purchase. Next step in his journey – visiting eCommerce marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon as well as smartphone company’s website to find the best deal. Across eCommerce marketplaces, he compared a lot of seller options in terms of pricing, quality, shipping and delivery, customer service, and reviews. 

He explored the same smartphone’s product listings across both Walmart and Amazon. Why? He wanted to make sure that the seller he was purchasing from is credible and reliable. To know more, he even hopped onto sellers’ marketplace storefronts to look at their overall ratings. 

Just like Ben, we have a lot of options today. And we’re really picky about the products we purchase and who we purchase them from. 

Your customers will read your Walmart reviews thoroughly to make an informed decision. Not only do you need to deliver superior quality products, but you also need to offer top-notch customer experience. 

Your Walmart product listings have no reviews at all, and you need a boost? There are several proven strategies you can apply to increase sales like running Walmart ads, offering better pricing, investing in keyword research, using Walmart’s marketing tools, and more. Also, don’t be afraid to ask your customers for Walmart reviews. 

Walmart understands how competitive its marketplace is and how hard it is to get customer reviews. They don’t want sellers resorting to black hat tactics like paying for fake reviews. To help their sellers and tackle the fake reviews problem, Walmart announced its brand-registered sellers about the Walmart Review Program powered by the Plum Field Agent softwarre. Walmart along with other popular retailers like Target, Walgreens, and many more are a few of their other popular retailers.

What’s this rating and reviews program all about? And how can Walmart sellers use it to get paid authentic reviews?

Let’s find out.

How to Get Reviews on Your Walmart Product
Listing Using The Walmart Review Program

Walmart, recently, told its marketplace sellers that they can use the Walmart Review Program to gain authentic reviews for their marketplace products. What’s the Walmart Review Program about?

The Walmart Review Program powered by the Plum Field Agent is a program that allows retailers to get reviews from real shoppers in a quick and easy manner. The platform mobilizes real Walmart shoppers to purchase your products, try them at their homes, and drop honest feedback.

We reached out to Will Gasner, the CMO at Stack Influence, for his comments on Walmart’s announcement to which he responded, “Online reviews are almost as powerful as a recommendation from a friend and more than 84% of online shoppers trust them. Reviews are obviously extremely important for online marketplaces like Walmart but are also even critical on your own D2C website and will help you elevate your social media presence. Walmarts move to provide sellers with new ways to generate reviews continues their push to compete with Amazon – who is the master of reviews.”

Suppose you sell toys on the Walmart marketplace and want to give a jumpstart to your new toy product listing. To do that, you can use this program – where real shoppers will be encouraged to purchase your toy. These shoppers, upon receiving your product, will try (check the quality in this case) it at their homes. And once they’ve tried and tested your product out, they’ll be dropping their feedback on your listing. This way, Walmart reviews are 100% guaranteed. 

The reason the Walmart Review Program came into existance is due to guaranteed honest reviews. Here, you are not paying for guaranteed five-star reviews. Instead, the shoppers mobilized are real and will genuinely try out your product and post about their experiences on your product listing. 

Amazon has a similar in-house program called Vine. 

Interested?

Follow these steps to enroll in the Walmart Review Program:

1. Visit the  Walmart Review Program page.
2. Select one of the options depending on whether you’re looking for an online purchase or an in-store one. We’ll select online purchase here

    

• Walmart.com Ratings & Reviews (Online Purchase)
• Walmart.com Ratings & Reviews (In-Store Purchase)
3. The price is currently set as $15/review. Please note that you’ll be charged product reimbursement fees while checking out. This means – you’ll be sending free products to people. Here’s how it works:

 4. Click on “Let’s Get Started.”

5. Now, you’ll be asked to:    a. Name your project and add start and end dates.

6. Add audience demographics – you can also choose “No      Audience Preference.” For now, I didn’t add any audience preference.

7. Add your product.

8. Add the number of reviews you’d like. Let’s say I want to collect 10 reviews.

9. Purchase the project. Here’s the final costing Plum gave me:

As you can see, I’ve been charged:

• $15/review. For 10 products, it’s $150.
• Estimated Product Reimbursement – $109.84. For 10 products, considering my $9.51/piece price, the final price should have been $95.1. If you’re wondering what the rest $14.74 I’m being charged for – it’s reviewers’ (agent’s) fees and taxes. Plum has to pay its reviewers. 
• Activation fee – but Plum has deducted it for me. Thanks, Walmart Review Program!

And that’s how this program works.