What is the one thing you should do each and every day that will keep your mind at ease that your Amazon seller central account is safe and not at risk?

 

Even if you only do one thing today to grow your store – check the account health dashboard report on the performance tab of Amazon Seller Central dashboard!

 

Watch the full video to get a full walkthrough of the Account Health report to fully understand what you need to do to keep your Amazon account in good standing.

HOW TO ENSURE YOUR AMAZON SELLER ACCOUNT NEVER GETS SHUT DOWN

Amazon holds strict policies for selling on the Amazon marketplace. Sellers need to be diligent about following these policies and avoid violating them to protect the privileges Amazon provides to sellers. For Amazon, customer experience matters the most. Amazon has a performance panel in Seller Central to allow the sellers to see if they are keeping up with the Amazon policies and providing the best services possible for Amazon customers. You should review your account health report every day to ensure your Amazon seller account is not at risk of being shut down.

WHAT IS AMAZON SELLER ACCOUNT HEALTH? 

Amazon seller account health shows the seller what their performance targets should be. It contains some crucial metrics for the seller to assess the performance of their account. To ensure your Amazon seller account never gets shut down, you have to manage and keep track of these three main metrics:

• • • Customer service performance
    • Policy compliance
    • Shipping performance

WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF AMAZON SELLER ACCOUNT HEALTH? 

Amazon account health matters a lot. If you ignore the metrics and performance targets available on the account health page, your account is at high risk of being shut down by Amazon. Your Amazon account deactivation results in the withdrawal of your seller privileges and you will no longer be able to sell on Amazon. So, whether you are a successful or struggling Amazon seller, you must keep track of your seller account health to make sure that your account never gets shut down.

HOW TO KEEP TRACK AND MANAGE YOUR AMAZON SELLER ACCOUNT HEALTH

Let’s discuss the targets and metrics available on the Amazon account health page one by one. Here we will give you detailed insights on how to keep track of and manage your seller account health.

To access the Amazon seller health page:

• • • Go to your Seller Central dashboard
    • Hover over the performance tab
    • Click on Account Health

You will be transferred to the account health page.

The following are the three main things you need to manage and keep track of on your Amazon Account Health page.

CUSTOMER SERVICE PERFORMANCE

For Amazon, customer service is always the top priority. In the customer service performance section of the Amazon seller’s account health page, you will find the order defect rate (ODR). The metrics included in order defect rate are:

• • • • Negative feedback
      • A-to-z guarantee claims
      • Chargeback claims

Keep the order defect rate below the threshold to avoid any warnings from Amazon. The most effective way when you are near or above the threshold is to contact Amazon. You should communicate to Amazon and assure them that the customer experience is your foremost preference and you are doing everything you can to maintain the customer service performance metrics. It gives Amazon your perspective about the issue and allows Amazon to understand that you are on the same page as them regarding customer service.

POLICY COMPLIANCE

The policy compliance section of the seller account health page contains many of the Amazon policies that you have to comply with and avoid violating. The policy compliance section contains:

• • • • Suspected intellectual property violation
      • Received intellectual property complaints
      • Product authenticity customer complaints
      • Product condition customer complaints
      • Food and product safety issues
      • Listing policies violations
      • Restricted product policies violation
      • Customer, product review policy violations
      • Other policies violations

In the policy compliance section, you have an account health rating which is helpful and allows you to see your level of  adherence to Amazon seller policies. Avoid violating any of these policies to make sure your Amazon seller account never shuts down.

If you go further down in the policy compliance section, you will see a policy violation warning subsection. It is there to alert you about any potential policy violation that you have committed. In some cases, Amazon does not warn you by an alert or email, so it is crucial to check and review your Amazon account health regularly.

SHIPPING PERFORMANCE

This section of the performance page is about the shipping performance of your seller fulfilled orders. Most of the sellers using a FBM (Fulfilled By Merchant) SKU get hurt here. A lot of sellers don’t realize how closely Amazon monitors the order shipment metrics. The targets in the shipping performance section are:

• • • • Late shipment rate
      • Pre-fulfillment cancel rate
      • Valid tracking rate

·   LATE SHIPMENT RATE

If you are fulfilling your orders by yourself or through a third-party shipper, you need to check that your late shipment rate stays below 4%. This target gives you a rolling percentage for the orders completed in the last 30 days. You need to maintain the late shipment rate below 4% so that you do not get a warning from Amazon that can potentially hurt your Amazon seller account.

Maintain your shipments on time, and if you struggle with that, it’s best to utilize FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) services to avoid any shipping issues.

·   PRE-FULFILLMENT CANCEL RATE:

The pre-fulfillment cancel rate metric tracks the number of times you cancel an order. The threshold for this metric is 2.5% for a rolling period of 7 days. Canceling orders causes a bad experience for the customer, so Amazon does track this. Multiple canceled orders will hurt your account health and ultimately lead to the deactivation of your seller account.

To avoid any trouble, don’t list anything for sale on Amazon if you don’t already have it in your possession or stocked in your warehouse.

·   VALID TRACKING RATE

Amazon monitors valid tracking rates, and the target is over 95% for a rolling period of 30 days. Verify that every seller fulfilled (FBM) order has a valid tracking number so that customers are able to track their shipment.

TAKE ACTION

Managing your Amazon seller account health is essential to continue selling on Amazon. Various metrics available on the performance page help you to know when/if something goes wrong with Amazon policies and seller targets. Going into your Seller Central dashboard and reviewing your seller account health page every day will ensure your Amazon seller account never gets shut down.

Learn More

If you’d like to learn more about selling on Amazon or offering it as a service to others, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel to see the videos I post each week.

I’d also love to see you in the Masters of Marketplace Member Site where we discuss all things Amazon all day long!