Walmart launched the Walmart Marketplace in 2009 in an attempt to combat Amazon's quickly accelerating growth. However, Walmart's core business was very concerned that third-party sellers might erode the quality of its customer service and delivery. To mitigate those concerns, Walmart created stringent application criteria that made it onerous for new sellers to join the marketplace. Most sellers couldn't meet Walmart's standard, and many of those who might have didn't bother. As a result, five years later Walmart's Marketplace only had a few thousand sellers at a time when Amazon's Marketplace had millions. Walmart was a couple of orders of magnitude off where it needed to be.