Good morning everyone!
I really need some help! We got this generic email from Amazon on the 30th November:

Hello,

A change has been made to your disbursement schedule because we found at least one of the following changes in your account:

A significant increase or decrease in your sales volume
A high A-to-z Guarantee claim rate
A higher refund rate than is typical for sales on Amazon
A change in your sales volume in a new category or product type
Higher priced orders than you have sold before
A low late ship rate
Long delivery times for some or all of your orders

As a result, we determined that you have an increased risk of claims, chargebacks, and refund requests from buyers. A reserve has been applied to your account to ensure you have enough funds to fulfill any refund requests from buyers.

During this time, the money you receive from a sale will be reserved for 14 days from the date the sale was made. After 14 days, the money from that order will be transferred to you on your next disbursement date, as long as you have a positive account balance.

For example, if you sell an item on January 1, the money from the sale will be reserved until January 15. The funds will then be available on your next disbursement date. Any fees or refunds charged to your account during the disbursement period may reduce the net amount paid to you.

The reserve may be applied for up to 90 days but may be removed earlier if we see an improvement. There is no information you need to provide during this review period. We will notify you when our account review is complete.

You can see your account balance, disbursement schedule, and reserve amount on the Payments page in the Reports section of Seller Central:

https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/payments-account/settlement-summary.html

To view helpful tips for selling on Amazon, search for “Seller Performance Measurement” in Seller Central Help.

Seller Performance Team

Amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk

I replied to the email asking due to the time of year whether we could get this reserve lifted or at least shortened as we are having to buy a lot of stock for this month as none of the above reasons applied to our account and all our metrics are good!

I got a reply saying if i wanted to expedite the process i needed to send over the following information:

1. Tracking numbers for items dispatched with corresponding Amazon.co.uk order numbers
2. Current retail or online sales channels including links to selling pages
3. Detailed explanation of your business including your source of inventory
4. Amount of inventory you plan to list for sale on Amazon.co.uk and availability of items for dispatch
   So i sent all the information and they did not respond.
   The 14 days is due to end tomorrow so i was expecting some of the funds to be released tomorrow but our available balance is still showing as zero.
   So i emailed seller support yesterday asking if this was normal and if the available balance would change on the 13th automatically.
   I then got this response:

Hello,

We reviewed your account and the information you provided, and determined that the reserve will still apply to the funds in your account. The reserve will apply while we evaluate your performance metrics and may be modified or removed as your performance improves.

We will send you an email when we have completed our review. Learn more about account reviews in Seller Central Help: https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/G200320980.

We may not respond to further emails about this issue.
Sincerely,
Seller Performance Team
Amazon.co.uk

So now i do not know how long the funds are being held for, whether i am likely to get anything released tomorrow.
They are holding over £10,000 now and we are a small family run business and if i cannot get some of this released soon then it will put us out of business.
My questions are really,

1. Will i be getting any funds tomorrow as the 14 days ends then?
2. If not how do i find out when i will get some as they are no longer going to reply to emails?
3. Why is this even happening?
   Our performance metrics are all well below what amazon ask so how do improve them?
   Order defect rate: target under 1% Ours is 0.43%
   Late dispatch rate: target under 4% Ours is 0%
   Pre-fulfillment cancellation rate: target under 2.5% Ours is 0.3%
   Any help much appreciate!
   December is great for business but also means we have high supplier and courier bills to pay so this is not helping at all
   Thanks for reading the essay!