Overview
The purpose of these standards is to support Walmart sellers who sell National Brands, Private Label Suppliers, and Third Party Marketplace products. Product reviews are a valuable and efficient way to increase the conversion rate of online sales. As a result, they are subject to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulation and have to abide by relevant regulations. Links to the FTC guidelines for marketers to abide by these regulations can be found in the Resources section.
Legal Requirements
Laws that forbid deceptive marketing and advertising are enforced by the FTC. It has concluded that asking for internet testimonials, ratings, and endorsements might be dishonest, and it has advised marketers to stay away from this. Failure to comply may result in fines and lawsuits from the FTC.
Any third party that posts reviews is required to abide with the FTC’s Endorsement Guides, FTC staff guidance on ratings and reviews, and FTC staff guidance on endorsements (see Resources). This is especially true if the third party is trying to solicit reviews through a sampling effort.
The following enumeration comprises the legal prerequisites for every online review:
- Refrain from requesting feedback from those who haven’t used or experienced the good or service.
- Refrain from asking employees to submit reviews of your company.
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- Don’t limit your request for reviews to those you believe will be positive.
- Avoid requesting reviews from friends and relatives
- Don’t compensate clients for leaving reviews.
- Don’t ignore unfavourable reviews, even if you believe they are unjust or false.
- If you supply product samples via a vendor for product reviews that Walmart has authorised, the review needs to state very clearly and conspicuously that it is “compensated.”
- • The required disclosure statement in the review is automatically provided by the system if you use vendors for Walmart-approved product reviews.
Walmart Requirements
Every incentive-based sampling programme needs to be administered by a vendor who has been licenced by Walmart to conduct product reviews. The approved merchants’ list as of right now consists of:
- Bazaarvoice’s Walmart Spark Reviewer
- Private Brands
- National Brands
- Field Agent
- Home Tester Club
- Sellers cannot use Walmart branding when soliciting reviews
Consequences for Violating Requirements
Walmart maintains the power to act right away to make sure that there are no misleading ratings or reviews on its marketplace. If it finds that a seller has broken this rule, it may take action against them, which may include deleting misleading reviews and removing, suspending, or banning Third Party Marketplace Sellers from the Walmart Platform.
Consequences for Violating Requirements
Concentrate your sampling efforts on seasonal products and/or new product releases to guarantee that reviews are in place when the items go on sale.
Give yourself eight weeks to prepare your evaluations for publication, taking into account any time needed for legal review or possible technical difficulties.
Samples must to be identical to what would be bought at a store. Test packets or trial sizes are not recommended.
For the sampling community to provide sufficient involvement, set your demographic target as wide as you can.
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Terminology
Now, let’s take a look at some of the top multi-channel marketplaces for eCommerce in 2023.
Third parties: A group participating in reviews that is not affiliated with your company. This encompasses advertising agencies, suppliers, vendors, and brands, among others.
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- Refrain from requesting feedback from those who haven’t used or experienced the good or service.
- Incentivized Reviews: These are reviews in which the customer is compensated financially for providing an honest assessment. This comprises free product(s), coupons, gift cards, loyalty reward points, and special discounts, among other things
(source: https://sellerhelp.walmart.com/s/guide?language=en_US&article=000009016)
