Walmart is now enabling marketplace sellers using its cross-border ocean freight service to get merchandise shipped from Vietnam, adding on to options that already allow merchants to get products directly from China.
This would benefit sellers who source or manufacture goods in Vietnam. With the addition of the Southeast Asian nation into its ecosystem, sellers can now use the Walmart Cross Border service to book full-container ocean freight from ports in either Ho Chi Mihn City or Hai Phong before having it shipped to Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS) facilities across the U.S.
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With the two Vietnamese ports in tow, users can position inventory from seven ports in total across the two Asian countries. Walmart already offered the service from Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Qingdao and Xiamen.
The retail giant first made the announcement on July 31, with the company also unveiling that it was waiving peak season storage fees for WFS sellers from October through Dec. 31. That move is designed to let sellers move more inventory during the holiday demand surge without adding extra inventory costs.
Once containers are shipped from their origin ports in either Vietnam or China and clear U.S. customs, Walmart’s logistics network takes care of the remaining process by moving most inventory to one of four fulfillment centers near Los Angeles; Dallas-Fort Worth; Topeka, Kan.; and Sacramento, Calif.
Standard-sized inventory is distributed to fulfillment centers close to customers, while oversized inventory is fulfilled directly from the destination facility.
With the holiday season approaching, Walmart suggests most cargo-ready full container loads to be shipped out of the Asian ports by mid-August to ensure that they reach a fulfillment center by the in-yard inbound cutoff date of Oct. 1.
Under normal market conditions, Walmart says it takes 35 to 60 days from the cargo-ready date to when the container arrives to the place of delivery. This estimate depends on origin port, destination, mode of transit and other factors.
The total average time for shipments to the West Coast is 44 days, while shipments to the Midwest and East Coast are 50 and 55 days, respectively.
Walmart’s move to incorporate Vietnam in its cross-border shipping program follows the growing role the country has in sourcing and manufacturing, particularly as companies seek out alternatives to China.
Now with President Donald Trump’s tariffs in the mix, Vietnam plays a more pivotal role for sellers not seeking to pay duties for China-made goods. While China’s tariffs are currently placed at 55 percent when including a 25 percent duty imposed due to fentanyl trafficking, Vietnam’s tariffs currently stand at 20 percent.
Ahead of the tariffs, Vietnam became even more of a destination for U.S. businesses that had sought to jump out in front of any new duties. Exports to the U.S. from January-to-July soared 27.8 percent from the seven-month period in the year prior to $85.1 billion, according to Vietnam’s customs department.
After a preliminary trade deal between the U.S. and Vietnam was struck on July 2, goods kept flowing at a frenetic pace. In July alone, exports to the U.S. rose 26 percent to $14.2 billion.
Vietnam’s imports from the U.S. rose 22.7 percent to $10.5 billion during the stretch, with the country cutting duties on goods from the U.S. as part of its trade negotiations.
Walmart had planted its seeds for a bigger Vietnam push in September 2023 when it sent representatives to the Vietnam International Sourcing Expo to interact with more suppliers in the country. One year later, the Bentonville behemoth hosted an event in Hanoi to educate more than 200 Vietnamese sellers on the Walmart e-commerce platform.
Cross-border shipping isn’t the only experience Walmart has sought to improve for its marketplace sellers ahead of the holiday season.
In its July announcement, Walmart also unveiled it would offer sellers using the Multichannel Solutions “fulfill from anywhere” feature a 30 percent discount through Oct. 1. The service helps businesses fulfill items from an array of sales channels, including Walmart, Amazon, eBay, Shein and Temu.
