Improve your performance

Claims and chargebacks

On this page you will find some suggestions for improving your seller performance.

If claims and chargebacks are affecting your seller performance, 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 and chargebacks. Make sure you respond to claims notifications from Amazon about claims and chargebacks within 3 calendar days of the email notification date. If you do not respond to notifications within that time frame, you may be faulted for the transaction. If we write to you a second time, asking for additional information, make sure you reply within the time frame given.

Learn more about A-to-z Guarantee Claims and Chargebacks.

Expired orders

Avoid letting orders expire. 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. When you let an order expire, the result is an extremely poor buyer experience.

If expired orders are negatively affecting your seller performance, here are some steps you can take to help avoid them:

• Do not 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 fulfilment processes to ensure you do not lose track of orders.
• Always cancel an order as soon as you know you will be unable to fulfil 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 holiday or are temporarily unable to manage your account for any reason.
• 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.

Negative feedback

Your seller performance is negatively affected when you receive 1-star or 2-star feedback comments. The most frequent causes of negative feedback are problems with your product listing or order fulfilment process. Here are a few things you can do to help prevent negative feedback:

• Maintain a minimum stock level.
• Synchronise 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 on your online Amazon Help pages.
• Ensure that every communication with buyers is courteous, relevant and appropriate.

Learn more about negative feedback.

Seller cancellations

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 rating. Some percentage of stock-outs may be unavoidable in normal business practice. However, we expect you to minimise such issues.

If cancelled orders are affecting your overall seller performance, here are some steps you can take to improve:

• Update your Amazon inventory regularly to avoid receiving orders for items that you cannot ship by the expected date (stock-outs). You may want to update your inventory multiple times per day if you are selling through other channels.
• Check and re-check price submissions. Errors in price submissions can lead to increased order cancellations. If you are using a third-party integrator to update your listings, take appropriate measures to prevent the integrator from making a mistake.
• 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.
• If you must cancel an order, do so as soon as you know you cannot fulfil 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.

Late shipments

It is 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:

• 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. Learn how to confirm shipments.
• Review your order fulfilment 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.
• Use Amazon's shipping and label services to buy delivery and print packing labels.
• Be prepared for an increase in order volume during key sales periods, such as the run-up to the festive 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.

Respond to messages

Respond to buyer messages within 24 hours, including on 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".

Learn more about the Buyer-Seller Messaging Service.