Just like regular car maintenance to keep your ride running smoothly, keeping an Amazon seller account healthy requires consistent attention and care. Think of it as the digital upkeep of your e-commerce space by ensuring everything is efficient and optimized.
As a new seller, your focus has likely been the growth of your business, so you may not be aware of what it takes to maintain a healthy Amazon seller account. But, without routine hygiene, your Amazon store could be left vulnerable to policy violations and suspensions that can shut down your business altogether.
What does Amazon seller account health refer to?
Amazon seller account health describes the overall condition and performance of your seller account on the platform. Just as you’d assess the quality of your automobile by its performance, mechanical condition, and even cleanliness, Amazon seller account health is determined by similar factors that affect your ability to sell effectively and maintain a positive reputation.
A healthy Amazon seller account meets the platform’s standards and guidelines, operates smoothly without interruptions, and maintains good standing in terms of customer satisfaction, order fulfillment, and policy compliance. It’s like taking your car in for regular oil changes, using the right fuel, and keeping the interior and exterior clean.
Your Amazon seller account contains a section entirely dedicated to account health. In this section of your account, you’ll find several metrics that help indicate if your store is in good standing and discover account-level warnings that require your attention.
How to access the Amazon seller account health dashboard
To access your Amazon Account Health dashboard in Amazon Seller Central, open the performance tab and follow these steps:
- Step 1: Select Account Health
- Step 2: Select Seller Central
- Step 3: Select the Performance Menu, then Account Health
Once in this section, you’ll discover an overview of compliance with Amazon policies.
Amazon seller account health comprises three metrics:
- Customer Service Performance
- Product Policy Compliance
- Shipping Performance
You can review negative feedback and chargeback claims on the Amazon Health page.
What’s a good account health rating on Amazon?
Much like striving for a well-performing car or a clean bill of health from your doctor, achieving and maintaining a high account health rating is crucial to thriving in the competitive Amazon arena.
Statuses, colors, and scores represent Amazon’s account health rating (AHR). These indicators help you quickly assess your Amazon seller account health and evaluate the necessary actions needed to sustain or improve your standing on the platform.
- If your AHR is “Healthy” (green), it signifies that your account is in good standing and you have a score ranging from 200 to 1,000 points. This status indicates that you meet or exceed Amazon’s performance metrics and operate within their guidelines.
- If your AHR shows “At Risk” (yellow), your account’s health is in jeopardy, and you have a score ranging from 100 to 199 points. This status serves as a warning that there are issues that must be addressed to prevent further deterioration of your account health.
- If your AHR displays “Unhealthy” (red), it indicates a critical situation where your account score is 99 or lower. At this stage, your account may be eligible for deactivation or may have already been deactivated by Amazon. This status demands immediate attention and remedial actions to resolve outstanding issues and regain compliance with Amazon’s policies and standards.
Regular monitoring and prompt action can help maintain a healthy account and avoid potential disruptions to your operations. Amazon evaluates the health rating of a seller account through various metrics and indicators, including but not limited to:
Order Defect Rate (ODR): This metric measures the percentage of orders that have defects like negative feedback, A-to-z Guarantee claims, and chargebacks. A lower ODR indicates better account health, with Amazon typically recommending a rate below 1%.
Late shipment rate: Timely order fulfillment is crucial to customer satisfaction. Amazon expects you to ship orders promptly, aiming for a late shipment rate of less than 4%.
Valid tracking rate: Providing valid tracking information for shipped orders offers buyers transparency and accountability in the delivery process. Amazon recommends maintaining a valid tracking rate of at least 95%.
On-time delivery rate: Meeting delivery promises is essential for customer trust. Amazon expects sellers to achieve an on-time delivery rate of at least 97% to maintain good standing.
Policy compliance: Adhering to Amazon’s policies, guidelines, and terms of service is fundamental for maintaining a healthy account. Violations can lead to account suspension or restrictions, severely impacting sales and reputation.
By consistently meeting or exceeding Amazon’s performance metrics, you can establish customer trust, enhance your brand reputation, and unlock opportunities for growth and success in the competitive ecommerce landscape.
5 ways to improve your Amazon seller account health rating
Maintaining a healthy seller account requires ongoing attention to stay on top of Amazon policies and metrics.
Creating a systematic process for addressing account hygiene starts with a solid procedural foundation. First, focus on optimizing your catalog of products, then address stranded inventory and negative feedback. By developing a standard operating procedure for managing account hygiene, you help guarantee a higher quality of account health.
#1 Review Your Entire Catalog
As an Amazon business grows, it’s common for the product catalog to grow along with it. While this is great for a store’s scalability, in many cases adding more products can mean inadvertently overlooking older products not intended for sale.
In some instances, sellers will add new products to their store without the intention of selling them; this is one way sellers understand if they meet ungating requirements or if their listings would abide specific permissions or compliances. However, if these test-only products remain on the Manage inventory Page, Amazon assumes you intend to sell that product.
If you receive an IP complaint (Intellectual Property Violation or Restricted Product Warning), you could face a severe ASIN violation without your knowledge. If you were to list this product in the future and were not aware of the ASIN violation, you could experience a negative score against your account. Repeated violations typically result in severe consequences down the line.
Always delete products from your store’s inventory that you do not intend to sell. While it’s a simple fix, this process is often overlooked as stores begin to scale. An added benefit of deleting products you don’t intend to sell is an improved inventory performance score. This score is vital to the amount of inventory you can send to Amazon, so having a positive score is critical.
#2 Deal With Stranded Inventory
Inventory that is in a fulfillment center but does not have an active offer on Amazon is considered stranded. Stranded inventory errors are harmful to seller account health, so regularly resolving stranded listings should be included as a of your hygiene maintenance procedures.
Unsure how to fix stranded inventory issues on Amazon? Go into the stranded inventory page of Amazon Seller Central and reconcile each ASIN individually. You may have to remove stranded inventory from your warehouse or home, or dispose of it through Amazon.
Removing stranded inventory can require a refresh of your screen, a call to Seller Support, or even an Amazon appeal to find resolution.
#3 Check feedback in your storefront
Amazon seller feedback is a metric that evaluates your selling performance. This score is visible to customers and can be left when a buyer submits an order return or through the feedback page on Amazon.
Some negative and neutral reviews are entered by mistake. But these negative reviews can still detrimentally impact your feedback performance score, even when they’re inaccurate or made erroneously.
Previously, you could request negative reviews be removed from the feedback section by clicking a report feedback button. Today, you must open a case file for each incorrect feedback to have them removed. While the process has become more involved, removing all unwarranted negative or neutral reviews from this area is important to increase your performance score and continue selling without issue. If you need support in getting these negative reviews addressed, consider contact us about our Negative Review Removal services.
#4 Amazon listing optimization
Optimizing your product listings is essential for enhancing the health of your Amazon seller account. This includes conducting keyword research to identify relevant keywords for each listing and incorporating them strategically into your title, bullet points, and HTML descriptions.
Important steps to optimizing your Amazon listings include:
- Craft clear, compelling titles and highlight key features and benefits in your bullet points.
- Invest in high-quality images to enhance visual appeal.
- Write persuasive product descriptions that address customer needs.
- Ensure competitive pricing and encourage positive reviews.
- Continuously monitor performance metrics and make data-driven optimizations.
Implementing these strategies will attract more customers and improve your overall store performance on Amazon.
#5 Expert Amazon consultation services
For optimal Amazon seller account health, consider consulting with seller account experts to gain additional insight into store & listing hygiene. Professionals like Riverbend offer tailored strategies and insights to boost sales and account performance. With our guidance, you can streamline operations, increase efficiency, and achieve sustainable growth. Partnering with Amazon experts like us can equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to navigate the most complex ecommerce situations and stay ahead of the competition.
What happens to stores with poor account health?
Poor seller account health typically indicates issues or policy violations that can result in disciplinary action from Amazon. Depending on the severity of the infraction and whether it’s a first-time offense or a repeated violation, the gravity of penalties imposed by Amazon can range from temporary restrictions to permanent account suspension.
Amazon may impose temporary restrictions on your account for minor violations, such as late shipment or a slight increase in order defect rate. These restrictions typically last until you address the underlying issues and demonstrate improvement in your performance metrics. Once the issues are resolved, your account may regain its full privileges.
Typically, violations on the account health dashboard fall off after 180 days. However, it’s important to note that if selling privileges are removed during this time due to the impact on account health, the violations may not disappear automatically. They may remain visible on your account health dashboard until the issues are fully resolved and your selling privileges are reinstated.
More serious violations, such as selling counterfeit or prohibited items, can lead to permanent Amazon seller account suspension or ban. In these cases, the violation lasts indefinitely unless you successfully appeal the suspension and convince Amazon of your commitment to compliance with their policies.
Regular monitoring of your seller account’s health metrics and proactively addressing issues can help mitigate the risk of violations and prevent the need for Amazon disputes.
Maintain good account health Amazon
Just like you keep an eye on your gas gauge and the warning lights on your dashboard, regularly reviewing your Amazon seller account health metrics should be a routine part of your operating procedures. By addressing any ASIN violations or other policy violation warnings in your account health dashboard as they come up, you can maintain good account hygiene and protect the performance of your store.
Poor account health and policy violations can sneak up on you, especially if you don’t know where to look or what warning signs to look for. Avoiding problems out of fear only increases the risk and severity of your issues, and can make appealing violations even more challenging.
Riverbend Consulting’s team of experts can help you understand compliance and violations on an ongoing basis. It can become too easy to sell on the platform and ignore this crucial aspect of business, especially as sales roll in. Creating an ongoing hygiene review within your Amazon seller account can prevent revenue from stopping altogether overnight.
Need help with an ASIN appeal or managing your seller account health? Riverbend Consulting offers essential services to help you mitigate risk and grow your ecommerce business on the world’s largest online marketplace. Contact Us for a quote.
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