Amazon rates you as a seller to ensure that you are providing the best possible customer service experience. It's very important to pay attention to these metrics because they can affect your sales either positively or negatively. Each metric has a certain grading period and performance target. Each consecutive period that you meet the performance targets will increase your overall seller rating while consecutive periods of bad metrics, especially the same metric, will lead to suspension. It's important to start strong and maintain your metrics if you want a good sales ramp. Let's go over each metric and how you can maintain a good seller rating.
Late Shipment Rate
(Graded over a 30-day period)
Target: under 4%
When a shopper orders something from you, they are given a date that specifies when they will receive their order. For each order you will have a set amount of time to ship it. That's called handling time. If you don't ship the order within the handling time you promised then it will count as a late shipment. Amazon's default handling time is 2 days but can be increased or decreased depending on your needs. Note that weekends and holidays do not count toward your handling time.
When you receive an order you'll see a ship by date like in the screenshot below.
Order Cancellation Rate
(Graded over a 7-day period)
Target: under 2.5%
This metric looks at the amount of orders you cancel. Customer cancellation requests do not count against this metric. This metric is especially dangerous because it has a small grading period with an unforgiving target percentage. That means you only have 7-days worth of orders that weigh into the percentage. So, in a 7-day period you can only cancel 1 out of 40 orders and you will have to wait another 7 days for that cancellation to 'roll off' the metric. However, it's likely in the beginning as a new seller that you won't have 40 orders every 7 days making it imperative that you avoid cancelling orders. For example if you have 1 order and you cancel it, then you will immediately reach the 2.5% target, and if you cancel any other orders you will go over the target. This can also come into play if your store has been on vacation mode for some time.
Valid Tracking Rate
(Graded over a 30-day period)
Target: over 95%
This metric ensures that you are entering the correct tracking numbers when you confirm shipment of your orders. If you use the 'buy shipping' option in your Amazon store, then you shouldn't have any issues with this. If you purchase your shipping from a third party like UPS or stamps.com, make sure to copy and paste the tracking numbers so they are accurate. Changing the tracking number after the ship-by date may count against your late shipment rate and valid tracking rate. Only do this is you have genuinely made a mistake.
Order Defect Rate
(Graded over a 30-day period)
Target under 1%
This metric consists of three other metrics explained below.
Negative Feedback
When a shopper leaves a seller review that is under 3 stars it will count against your order defect rate. Make sure you are responding to customer messages in a timely manner and providing good customer service.
A-to-z Guarantee Claims
These are claims that shopper can file with Amazon when they believe something has gone wrong with their order and the seller has not been responsive to resolving the problem. We see this happen most often when sellers neglect return requests and outreach from the shopper. Staying on top of those will avoid most A-to-z claims. For more information on A-to-z claims click here.
Chargeback Claims
This is the unicorn of claims. You will most likely never see one of these because Amazon handles the payment processing so they will generally respond to the claim on your behalf.
Messages
Target: under 24 hour response time
This metric may not directly impact your account as much as the prior ones but it's still important to pay attention to. Messages from shoppers should get a response within 24 hours. This metric comes into play more if all your other metrics are excellent. It can also indirectly affect negative feedback and A-to-z claims.
