Pending Dispatch, Walmart Marketplace

Pending Dispatch for Walmart Marketplace stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Key Metrics • Category: Marketplace

At a glance

Pending Dispatch is the live count of paid Walmart Marketplace orders that have not yet been shipped. It is your real-time fulfilment backlog and the single most direct lever on whether you meet Walmart’s on-time dispatch SLA. Let it climb and you risk late-dispatch penalties, order defects, and a hit to your Pro Seller standing.

What it counts	The number of seller-fulfilled Walmart Marketplace orders awaiting shipment right now.
Sample type	Backend API data from Walmart Marketplace, refreshed on the standard data refresh.
Why it matters	Orders sitting unshipped move toward the dispatch SLA deadline, so a rising backlog directly threatens on-time performance and Pro Seller status.
Reading the value	Lower is better; a count well above your normal baseline means the queue is outpacing your shipping capacity.
Currency	count
Time window	RT
Alert trigger	>2x 30D avg
Sentiment key	wal_pending_dispatch
Roles	owner, operations

Calculation

Vortex IQ counts the seller-fulfilled Walmart Marketplace orders that are paid but not yet marked shipped at the current moment. Because the window is real time, the figure reflects the live backlog rather than a historical period, and the alert compares it against your trailing 30-day average. As noted in the At a glance summary, the unit is a plain order count. The worked example below shows how a backlog past the alert line drives an immediate action.

Worked example

A representative reading of Pending Dispatch for a typical merchant on Walmart Marketplace. On 12 Mar 26 a seller whose 30-day average pending queue is around 25 orders sees the live count hit 60, past the 2x alert line. A weekend promotion combined with a short-staffed warehouse let the queue build overnight. With the dispatch SLA clock running on each order, the action is to triage the oldest orders first, pull in extra packing help, and confirm carrier pickup so the backlog clears before any order breaches its deadline. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to trace upstream causes; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why merchants reach for it
wal_sla_compliance	A growing backlog is the leading driver of SLA misses.
wal_late_dispatch_rate	Shows how many orders have already shipped late.
wal_orders_per_day	A daily order spike often precedes a dispatch backlog.
wal_cancellation_rate	Unworked backlog can turn into cancellations.
wal_revenue_at_risk	Quantifies the revenue exposure when dispatch slips.

Reconciling against Walmart Seller Center

Where to look in Walmart Seller Center:

Verify against the Order Management area, filtering for orders that are unshipped or awaiting fulfilment. The count of orders in that state should line up with this card.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Period boundary. Vortex IQ uses RT rolling by default; Seller Center may use calendar periods.	Variable	Match the period range.
Time zone. Seller Center uses the account time zone; Vortex IQ aligns to the merchant reporting time zone.	Marginal	Confirm time zone match.
Filter scope. Profile-level filters (fulfilment type, test orders) may narrow the Vortex IQ view.	Variable	Match filter settings.

Cross-connector reconciliation: complement with sibling cards in the same category for the full diagnostic picture. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Q: How often does Pending Dispatch update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). For real-time signals, force a manual refresh from the dashboard.

Q: Why does my Walmart Seller Center show a different number? There can be a short lag between an order being marked shipped and that status reaching the data feed, so a recently dispatched order may still appear pending for one refresh. Time-zone and fulfilment-filter differences can also shift the live count.

Q: Does this include WFS orders? The backlog focuses on seller-fulfilled orders, where you control the shipment and the dispatch SLA. WFS orders are fulfilled by Walmart, so they are not part of your dispatch queue.

Q: Can I customise the alert threshold? Yes, alert thresholds are configurable per profile in the Alert Rules tab. Adjust to match your business baseline rather than relying on the generic default.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Pending Dispatch is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Walmart Marketplace and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

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