In April 2019, fans of the makeup influencer Jaclyn Hill noticed her new eyeshadow palette, normally $38, on Walmart.com for the unbelievably low price of $16.39. Many rushed to buy; others were skeptical: Hill had announced that the palette would be available only through certain retailers, and Walmart wasn’t one of them. Soon, Hill confirmed …
In April 2019, fans of the makeup influencer Jaclyn Hill noticed her new eyeshadow palette, normally $38, on Walmart.com for the unbelievably low price of $16.39. Many rushed to buy; others were skeptical: Hill had announced that the palette would be available only through certain retailers, and Walmart wasn’t one of them.
Soon, Hill confirmed their suspicions. “It is not my palette,” she said on Twitter. “They are FAKE!”on TwitterTNW Couch Conferences
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The counterfeit palette had infiltrated Walmart’s website, but it wasn’t being shipped from Walmart warehouses. Instead, it was “sold and shipped by Mallroom Global Inventory LLC,” one of tens of thousands of “third-party sellers,” independent businesses that list their wares on Walmart’s app and website.
Walmart is famously hands-on with the merchandise in its physical stores, working with manufacturers on design, packaging, and pricing. Its website and app are different. There, more than 35,000 third-party sellers are listed alongside the carefully vetted Walmart products. Third-party sellers were responsible for 92.5 percent of Walmart’s online inventory at the end of 2019, according to Marketplace Pulse, which tracks marketplace data.according to Marketplace Pulse
You can see this in action on Walmart.com. Search for “toothpaste,” and you’ll get more than 500 options “sold and shipped by Walmart” plus more than 500 from places like #1 DEAL,55Dental, and a seller called “**SAME DAY SHIPPING**”—all third party sellers, like Mallroom Global Inventory LLC. If you make a purchase from one of these third-party sellers, your deal is with them. If the product never arrives, arrives broken, or turns out to be counterfeit, you can’t get a refund from Walmart. You’ll have to talk to Mallroom Global Inventory LLC.
Walmart.com’s capacity as a meeting ground for buyers and outside sellers to do transactions among themselves is called the marketplace model. Walmart did not return The Markup’s request for comment.
Amazon’s marketplace, launched in 2000, enabled the site to grow to more than half a billion product listings in the U. S. As of April 2018, the Amazon marketplace made up 58 percent of Amazon’s sales. “Third-party sellers are kicking our first party butt,” Jeff Bezos wrote in a 2018 letter to shareholders.letter
Many of the biggest brand-name retailers have added marketplaces to their websites, including Target, Sears, Office Depot, Crate & Barrel, Urban Outfitters, J.
