Role Overview
The Wholesale Store Manager at the Strategist level is responsible for steering the client’s Walmart wholesale operation with business-driven judgment. Clients hire for this role because they need someone who sees the full picture — brand relationships, product approvals, pricing control, and the actual effect of sourcing on profit. This is not a task taker role. It’s an operator’s seat, built for someone who can think in margin, monitor risk, and move inventory with strategic intent. The client expects you to make calls that protect capital and expand opportunity.
This role is not about chasing product lists, reacting to price changes, or waiting for somebody to tell you what to do. Clients are not paying for basic store upkeep — they’re paying for someone who can make wholesale investments make sense. That means knowing how supply ties into account health and how every shipment affects cash flow. Get it right, and you scale a store that grows. Get it wrong, and the client eats high returns, late shipments, suspended listings, and frozen funds.
Standards You Must Meet
- You’re expected to defend margin with every sourcing choice — weak product decisions that drain profit or cash flow won’t be excused.
- Clients need to see steady, strategic inventory movement — stalls in sales or dead stock without justification signal poor planning.
- Every buy must map to pricing control — if listings tank or trigger MAP violations, you didn’t vet the deal hard enough.
- You’re trusted to safeguard store health — shipments must go out clean, on time, and within policy to avoid suspension risks.
- Expect to be judged on outcome, not effort — clients care if it profited, not how many suppliers you emailed.
- Brand and distributor connections should lead to product approvals that expand catalog, not sit idle.
- Financial sense must back every action — if the purchase strains cash or blocks reorders, the strategy failed.
- This role leads, not follows — waiting on permission, hoping for clarity, or blaming price drops will lose client trust.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Evaluate, approve, and prioritize product deals based on margin targets, MAP compliance, and sell-through data.
- Manage active supplier accounts to secure replenishable SKUs, resolve pricing conflicts, and unlock catalog growth.
- Maintain inventory flow by aligning purchase volumes with sales velocity, storage limits, and cash availability.
- Monitor listings before and after launch to catch pricing violations, suppressed offers, or unexpected profit drops.
- Coordinate labeling, prep, and shipment timing to meet Walmart delivery standards and avoid shipping penalties.
- Identify and address performance risks tied to late shipments, return surges, or account-level warnings in Seller Center.
- Track financial impact of sourcing decisions using sales reports, order costs, and settlement timelines.
- Use market signals and competitor activity to inform smarter buy windows and avoid overstocking or underpricing.
What You’ll Hand Over
- A validated, margin-safe product list with pricing control and shipment reliability confirmed — ready for client purchase approval.
- A sourcing cycle report detailing unit cost, projected net profit, estimated sell-through, and replenishment timing.
- A clean tracker of approved supplier accounts with active lines, product approvals, terms, and order history.
- A current inventory and cash flow pacing sheet — showing what’s in stock, what’s inbound, and how it aligns with capital available.
- A deal log showing all rejected or accepted offers, with reasons tied to risk, ROI, or account compliance.
Tools You’ll Need to Use
- Walmart Seller Center — Central dashboard for managing listings, pricing, orders, and performance on Walmart Marketplace.
- Google Sheets / Microsoft Excel — Essential for bulk uploads, inventory tracking, pricing audits, and supplier data organization.
- Keepa (or Helium 10 for Walmart) — Critical for product research, pricing history, and assessing resale viability.
- InventoryLab (or comparable inventory management system) — Supports listing workflow, profitability analysis, and SKU performance tracking.
- Skugrid — Helps monitor supplier pricing and stock levels to maintain accurate Walmart listings.
- ShipStation (or equivalent shipping tool) — Manages order fulfillment workflows across multiple suppliers and tracks delivery performance.
- QuickBooks Online (or similar accounting software) — Used for tracking profit margins, expenses, and reconciling transactions for wholesale operations.
Why Work Smarter
If a VA cannot automate simple, repetitive tasks — syncing reports, updating sheets, delivering alerts — then the client is paying for hours that could have been saved. This is no longer optional for growing wholesale teams. Time is leverage, and those who use automation win that time back.
We don’t require full automation mastery today. But being functionally unaware is no longer acceptable. At OES, we teach and expect baseline competency in automation because the market already demands it. We set this standard because serious clients do too.
Why Your Work Matters
Walmart wholesale is not a set-it-and-forget-it operation — it’s a capital-backed, margin-sensitive business that lives or dies by the quality of sourcing and inventory judgment. Clients aren’t asking this role to maintain a store; they’re hiring someone to drive real outcomes that protect their cash, grow their catalog, and move sellable inventory without bleeding profit. Every sourcing delay, margin miscalculation, or shipping issue is a direct financial hit. Every smart market read, deal validation, or risk flag is money earned or losses avoided. This role is where the store either scales or stalls — there is no neutral.
Right now, clients need operators, not assistants. The moment you step in, you are making calls that either hold or burn client trust. There’s no extra credit for effort — only profit, pace, and protection. If you can’t plan buys with financial logic, enforce execution around delivery and compliance, and keep inventory moving on purpose, you’re not doing the job. If you can, you become the reason the store stays liquid, smart, and growing — which is exactly what the market demands today.
What We Expect From You
As a Strategist-level Wholesale Store Manager in the Walmart + Wholesale division, you’re expected to lead with informed risk and operational discipline. You’ve demonstrated you can identify opportunity without compromising compliance, and execute with profitability in mind. At this tier, we don’t need you to be told what to do—we need you taking initiative, using judgment, and making store-level decisions that align with client goals and platform standards. You understand the bigger picture, and you manage suppliers, sourcing, and pricing strategy with intention, not guesswork. Every SKU, policy update, and buyer interaction runs through the filter of long-term sustainability.
We’re looking for someone who owns outcomes. You know numbers don’t lie, and you treat profit loss, suppressed listings, or sourcing risk as your direct responsibility. This isn’t just about running successful accounts—it’s about building stores that perform predictably and scale confidently. Your role impacts real client capital, so your ability to balance speed, accuracy, and business foresight isn’t optional. At this level, you’re not just managing a store—you’re managing a business for someone who expects results.
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$630 – $1,730
OES salary standards reflect real market benchmarks, tier and experience level, ensuring fair pay for VAs and realistic expectations for clients.
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