Are you an Amazon seller and worried about keeping your account healthy without being deactivated? Success on the platform requires understanding the Seller Performance Standards that Amazon sets.
Amazon has over 1.9 million active sellers striving to meet its strict performance requirements. Understanding these standards is necessary to determine how your account is viewed in search results and how visible the platform is to other users. Here is what you should know:
What are Amazon’s Seller Performance Standards?
Amazon has set certain standards and measures to ensure that sellers meet service quality standards and prioritize customer satisfaction.
Amazon evaluates sellers based on the following key areas of Amazon seller performance metrics:
- Order Defect Rate (ODR): Reflects orders with defects, such as negative feedback, A-to-Z claims, or credit card chargebacks. Your ODR should always be below 1%; exceeding this limit can result in suspension.
- Policy Compliance: Measures adherence to Amazon’s policies, where violations harm account health.
- Shipping Performance: Evaluates the quality and punctuality of the seller’s shipping and tracking services, focusing on timely delivery and accurate tracking.
How Can You Improve Your Amazon Account Health?
Maintaining a healthy Amazon seller account involves proactive measures and attention to detail:
- Monitor Metrics Regularly: Keep checking your Seller Dashboard to monitor your seller performance.
- Customer Communication: It’s important to reply to customer queries quickly and resolve them promptly enough to avoid bad reviews.
- Inventory Management Optimization: You can avoid order cancellations and shipment delays by keeping your inventory level accurate.
- Utilization of FBA Services: Take advantage of Fulfillment by Amazon for faster and more reliable delivery to improve customer experience to a greater extent.
- Stay Policy Compliant: Regularly review Amazon’s policies and ensure your listings and practices align with them. Avoid prohibited practices, such as incentivizing reviews or manipulating search rankings, which can trigger policy violations.
- Optimize Shipping Performance: Meet or exceed Amazon’s expectations for on-time delivery, valid tracking rates, and low cancellation rates. Use reliable carriers and ensure your processing and dispatch times are accurate to avoid late shipments and poor shipping metrics.
- Proactively Resolve Issues: Regularly review the Account Health page to catch and address issues early. Respond promptly to Amazon notifications about potential issues. Use Amazon’s “Appeal” function effectively by providing clear, factual explanations and corrective actions if issues arise.
- Leverage Account Health Assurance (if eligible): If you’re part of the AHA program, respond within 72 hours to any outreach from Amazon account health specialists. Their guidance can help you quickly address account issues before they escalate.
- Stay Updated on Amazon’s Best Practices: Participate in Amazon’s webinars and read updates on seller forums to stay informed about new compliance requirements and performance standards.
- Maintain High-Quality Listings: Ensure accurate product descriptions, quality images, and clear specifications to avoid misleading customers and reduce returns or complaints.
- Set Up Alerts for Account Health Metrics: Enabling notifications for changes in your AHR can help you address issues immediately and keep your account in the “Healthy” range.
What Happens If Your Amazon Seller Account Health Declines?
Understanding the consequences of poor account health is essential for mitigating risks:
- Warnings and Notifications: Amazon notifies sellers of performance issues and provides opportunities to improve.
- Account Suspension: Continued poor performance can lead to temporary or permanent suspension of selling privileges.
- Appeal Process: Sellers can appeal for account reinstatement by submitting a plan of action (POA) highlighting the corrective measures. The Amazon team reviews the POA and reinstates the account if they are satisfied with the response.
How can Amazon Seller Account Health Assurance Help?
Amazon Account Health Assurance (AHA) is a free program designed to help sellers avoid account suspension. Under the Account Health Assurance (AHA) program, an Amazon team member will proactively collaborate one-on-one with sellers whose accounts are potentially at risk. Instead of an immediate suspension, a time frame of 72 hours is provided to the sellers to resolve the issues.
Professional sellers who have been active for at least a year and have a valid emergency contact number are eligible for the AHA program. To be enrolled in this program, the sellers need to maintain an AHR score of 250 or higher for at least six months, with no more than 10 days falling below 250.
Can You Recommend Tools to Measure Amazon Seller Performance?
For tracking and analyzing your Amazon business performance, you can use tools available in Amazon Seller Central as well as third-party tools.
Amazon Seller Central Tools
Customer Reviews Tool: The Customer Reviews tool helps you monitor product feedback and address customer issues quickly. Actively managing reviews not only improves customer relationships but also reveals valuable insights for product improvement. Access requires a Professional selling account and Brand Representative status for a brand enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry.
Account Health Dashboard: Available under the Performance tab, the Account Health Dashboard tracks key performance metrics related to customer service, shipping, and policy compliance. Regularly reviewing this dashboard helps ensure your account remains in good standing and eligible to sell on Amazon.
Sales Dashboard: Your Seller Central homepage provides a high-level snapshot of sales and units sold. For more detailed analysis, visit Business Reports under the Reports tab. The Sales Dashboard allows you to track performance trends, download reports, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your sales strategy.
Brand Analytics: Brand Analytics offers advanced insights into customer behavior, including search terms, demographics, and purchasing patterns. You can access downloadable reports on repeat purchases, multi-unit orders, and more.
FBA Dashboard: The FBA Dashboard delivers a consolidated view of your Fulfillment by Amazon operations, including sales, inventory levels, shipments, and optimization opportunities. Amazon’s streamlined navigation also makes it easier to manage inventory-related tasks across key pages.
Third-Party Tools
Third-party tools extend Amazon’s native reporting by offering deeper analytics, automation, and profitability tracking, especially useful for competitive analysis and financial clarity.
Helium 10: An all-in-one platform for keyword research, product discovery, listing optimization, and profit tracking. Its Profits tool provides detailed financial metrics such as revenue, margins, ROI, and refunds, while Market Tracker helps analyze competitors.
Jungle Scout: A popular solution for product and market research. Its Sales Analytics feature tracks sales, expenses, and profitability in real time, delivering actionable insights to support scalable growth.
Sellerboard: Known for highly accurate profit analytics, Sellerboard breaks down Amazon fees and expenses to reveal true net profit at the SKU level. It also includes inventory management tools and automated review request features.
eComEngine: eComEngine offers flexible tools to help sellers save time and increase profitability, including solutions for generating reviews, analyzing FBA operations, and managing inventory efficiently.
Final Thoughts
It is really important to maintain compliance with Amazon’s Seller Performance Standards when it comes to long-term success on the platform. With thorough awareness of these standards, close attention to your metrics, and an active approach to enhancing performance, securing your seller account would be easy as a trusted seller on the online marketplace.
Ready to improve your Amazon account health? Start monitoring your metrics today and implement strategies to enhance your seller performance. Your success on Amazon begins with maintaining a healthy account!
Remember, being cautious and responsive is important for surviving in today’s highly competitive e-commerce environment.
Got More Questions?
These are benchmarks set by Amazon to evaluate the performance of sellers in their marketplace. Meeting these standards ensures a healthy Seller Account and continued selling privileges.
Each metric contributes to your overall Account Health Score. Consistently exceeding performance targets reflects positively, while falling below them can lead to warnings, account restriction.
The following are the benefits of consistently meeting Seller Performance Standards:
- Reduced risk of suspension: Maintain uninterrupted selling privileges and avoid account restrictions.
- Increased buyer trust: Customers are more likely to purchase from sellers with a strong track record.
Amazon Seller University offers a comprehensive onboarding program specifically designed for new sellers. These resources explain performance standards, best practices, and essential information to help you navigate the platform effectively.
