What Is Walmart’s New Collect Pickup Program App?

What is the Collect Pickup Program? 

Walmart's Collect Pickup Program was announced in early July of 2022 and put into place a month later on August 1st, and the fees were sent out a month after that on September 1st. The program was designed to hand off Walmart's losses due to major shifts in the transportation industry to Collect suppliers.

These changes consisted of but were not necessarily limited to truck driver shortages, inflation, fluctuating shortages and overstocks, and macroeconomic changes that put a strain on Walmart's EDLP (Every Day Low Prices) axiom.

Even though some of these changes were timely situations relevant more to the original launch of the CPP than they are now, the CPP is a permanent process, not a temporary solution.

This program involves two major fees: the pickup fee and the fuel surcharge.

The size of the pickup fees is determined by department number, but this cost changes from month to month. Initially, Walmart sent out a document identifying what the charges would be by each department (see this article to get a sense of what those are like), but as they have changed since then, the original document is no longer accurate. Most of the charges for those departments have increased since the original costs at launch in September of 2022.

The fuel surcharge is calculated by a third party, Breakthrough Fuel, based on distance traveled and fuel costs.

For a more in-depth explanation of the program, see our article on the subject. 

What Does the Collect Pickup Program App Do? 

The Collect Pickup Program App, as of this stage in its development, has only two major tabs on the left-hand side of the home screen display: Charge % and PO Details. When entering the app, it automatically navigates to the Charge % portion. 

Charge % Tab

This tab shows the price range of the pickup charge. This number is in the form of a percentage--usually in the neighborhood of 1%--of total COGs. This number is labeled the "Estimated Charge Range %," and it consists of two numbers with one or two decimal places included (i.e., 0.49% - 0.76%).

These charges can be sorted by 6 Digit Supplier number, Supplier Name, and Department Number. The charges change from month to month, from supplier to supplier, and from department to department. So, a given supplier shipping Department 2 CPGs in May will likely have a different pickup fee than a different supplier shipping in the same department and a different fee from what the charge will be in June. 

PO Details Tab

The PO Details tab contains a much larger range of information. The tabs available for view in this section are: 

• OMS (Order Management System) PO Number

• Host PO Number

• 6 Digit Supplier Number

• Supplier Name

• DC Number

• Order Date

• MABD

• Received Date

• PO Freight Terms 

• SBU (Supplier Business Unit)

• Department Description

• Buyer ID

• DC Network

• Year Month Number

• COGS Received

Most of these columns are capable of being sorted by, but, at the time of writing (August 2023), some of the date range columns (i.e. Order Date and MABD) are not actively capable of delimiting by custom date ranges.

Other Details In-App 

As of now, it appears that this app is designed only to give insight into the cost of these fees for Collect suppliers. In the top right-hand corner of the app, there is a dropdown menu reading "CPP." Within this menu are three other apps:

• OTIF

• SQEP

• ASN

The OTIF or SQEP links lead to those compliance programs' central insight apps: the OTIF Scorecard and SQEP Dashboard, respectively. The ASN link has been broken for some suppliers, leading only to the Retail Link home, but for others it has worked to direct to the ASN Dashboard. From the same dropdown display in the OTIF Scorecard, all four options (OTIF, SQEP, ASN, & CPP) are also viewable. The other apps are not all as built-out as of yet, with some displays remaining incomplete.

This likely simply means that the CPP app isn't completely operational or up to speed yet, even if it may contain useful and accurate data on the CPP for Collect suppliers. 

Are Collect Pickup Program Fees Disputable? 

No. As is the case with most fees, they are determined, not based on supplier performance but set fee structures based on the given CPG's department number.

The association of the CPP app with the OTIF Scorecard and the SQEP Dashboard may lead some suppliers to think of these charges along similar lines to compliance fines, but Walmart, in official documentation, has only really led suppliers to view these charges as categorically different from performance-based charges. 

A Note on Collect Shipping, Freight Pickup, and Pricing

With the Collect Pickup Program fee, Walmart is also charging Collect suppliers with a specific and official charge for freight pickup, which is a recent development. This is partially due to short term transportation challenges, but it is likely to remain a permanent change.

For years, Walmart expected to pay less on items if they were the party responsible for picking up the freight (i.e. suppliers were shipping Collect). Now that Walmart has started officially charging for transportation in a separate charge, suppliers may want to ensure that their item pricing no longer contains a transportation fee. Although negotiating this change could certainly prove difficult.

How SupplyPike Can Help with Supply Chain Insight

Interested in improving your supply chain?

SupplyPike for Walmart helps suppliers save time by automatically harvesting shipping documents. Our shipping document integration then automatically performs validity checks on deductions and chargebacks, enabling suppliers to dispute invalid deductions automatically.

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