Improve Your Amazon Seller Account Performance
Many different things can affect your performance metrics. The pages below can offer you guidance on how to improve your overall metrics.
See all your metrics across marketplaces or Amazon accounts in a single spreadsheet tab, auto-updated by Hopted.
Reduce claims and chargebacks
If claims and chargebacks are affecting your seller performance (and your Order Defect Rate), here are some suggestions to help you avoid them:
Answer all email messages from buyers within 24 hours.
Refund orders proactively. Promptly respond to return requests, and refund buyers when appropriate.
List your products with accurate descriptions and images. All offers must be matched against the correct ASIN and must be classified in accordance with our condition guidelines.
Monitor your listings to ensure that they remain accurate.
Never use condition notes as a method to describe omissions or differences from the product listed on the detail page (such as, "Like new but missing lens cap"). All listings must match the product detail page exactly.
Ship only to the address provided to you by Amazon.
Use high-quality product images.
Ship with care. Use careful packaging, traceable shipping methods, and signature-required methods for high-cost items.
Update your inventory regularly to avoid running out of stock.
Cancel orders promptly if you receive an order for a product you cannot ship.
Monitor the progress of your orders while they are in transit.
Notify buyers immediately of any delay.
Be proactive in resolving any delivery problems related to the delivery method you use.
Never solicit or accept payments outside of Amazon Marketplace.
Your seller performance can be negatively affected by A-to-z Guarantee claims, chargebacks, and negative feedback, which are components of your Order Defect Rate. Make sure you respond to notifications from Amazon about claims and chargebacks within three calendar days of the email notification date. If you don't respond within that time frame, you may automatically be found at fault. If Amazon writes to you a second time, asking for additional information, make sure you reply within the given time frame.
Minimize negative feedback
Your seller performance and your Order Defect Rate are negatively affected when you receive one-star or two-star feedback ratings. The most frequent causes of negative feedback are problems with your product listing or order fulfillment process.
Here are a few things you can do to help prevent negative feedback:
Maintain a minimum stock level.
Synchronize your back-end systems to make sure you can match stock availability to ship times.
Provide accurate product descriptions and include images with your listings. It's important that buyers receive the product as described on the product detail page.
Make sure your customer service phone number and email address are correct in your online Amazon Help pages.
Ensure that every communication with buyers is courteous, relevant, and appropriate.
Best practices to maintain positive feedback and rating
Respond to buyer messages
Respond to buyer messages within 24 hours, including weekends and holidays. Auto-responders are not considered a valid response.
If your message response time is affecting your overall seller performance, the following suggestions may help ensure that you respond to buyer messages within 24 hours:
Make sure that buyer messages are not being blocked by your email program's spam filter.
Even if you can't resolve a buyer's concern immediately, you still need to respond to their email within 24 hours to let them know you are investigating their request. Provide a date by which they can expect a resolution.
If a message does not require a response (for example, a "thank you" message), then make sure you mark it as "No Response Required."
Avoid late shipments
It’s important to confirm the shipment of your orders by the expected ship date so that buyers can see the status of their shipped orders online.
An order is considered to have been shipped late when confirmation occurs after the expected ship date.
If late shipments are affecting your overall seller performance, here are some steps you can take to help you ship on time and improve your Late Shipment Rate:
List only those items you will be able to ship by or before the expected ship date.
Ship orders and confirm with Amazon by the expected ship date provided in the order details.
Confirm a shipment promptly to notify Amazon and the buyer of the shipment. The longer you delay confirming shipment, the greater the risk that you'll forget. Unconfirmed shipments will be cancelled, and even if you did ship the order, you will not be paid.
Review your order fulfillment processes to identify and resolve any deficiencies that can result in late shipments.
Adjust your handling times when necessary to provide buyers with realistic delivery times. Learn more about handling and delivery times.
Use Amazon's shipping and label services to buy shipping and print packing labels.
Be prepared for an increase in order volume during key sales periods, such as the run-up to the holiday season. Learn more about managing orders.
If you think your listing may be eligible for the Buy Box, make sure you have enough stock on hand to meet potential increases in order volumes.
Avoid cancelling orders
Avoid cancelling orders unless requested to do so by buyers. Orders that are cancelled for any reason other than by buyer request will negatively affect your Cancellation Rate.
Some percentage of stock-outs may be unavoidable in normal business practice. However, Amazon expects you to minimize such issues.
If cancelled orders are affecting your overall seller performance, here are some steps that you can take to improve it:
Update your Amazon inventory regularly to avoid receiving orders for items that you can't ship by the expected date (stock-outs). You may have to update your inventory multiple times per day if you are selling through other channels.
Check and re-check price submissions. Price errors can lead to increased order cancellations.
If you think your listing is eligible for the Buy Box, make sure you have enough stock on hand to meet the potential increase in order volumes.
If you have to cancel an order, do so as soon as you know that you can't fulfill it. Buyers may be more forgiving if you cancel an order immediately, rather than after the expected ship date. Always follow up the cancellation with an apology to the buyer.
Eliminate expired orders
An expired order is one that has been cancelled by Amazon because you have not fulfilled or confirmed shipment for an extended period of time after the order date.
It’s important to avoid order expiry. When you let an order expire, it results in an extremely poor buyer experience.
If expired orders are negatively affecting your pre-fulfillment cancel rate, here are some steps you can take to avoid them:
Don't rely on order confirmation emails. These can be accidentally deleted or blocked by your spam filter. Instead, check your orders in Manage Orders.
Fine-tune your fulfillment processes to ensure you don't lose track of orders.
Always cancel an order as soon as you know that you will be unable to fulfill it. Buyers may be more forgiving if you cancel immediately rather than after the expected ship date. Follow up the cancellation with an apology to the buyer.
Set your listing status to "inactive" if you are going on vacation or are temporarily unable to manage your account for any reason.
Be prepared for an increase in the order volume during key sales periods, such as the run-up to the holiday season. For more information, visit managing orders.
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