FBA seller performance targets – be warned
When it comes to selling products on Amazon via their FBA program, you need to consider a number of very important points.
The FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) program has some very strict performance targets for FBA sellers that you must adhere to otherwise, you risk your account being suspended and your inventory (including any money owed you) will be frozen with no access.
But first, let’s have a look at the typical flow from ordering your product to selling on Amazon:
Monitoring FBA sales performance
Once you start selling products, that is the time you need to monitor your seller performance and one of the key targets is the return rate. Amazon’s target is less than 1%. Here is a screenshot of the performance target from inside Amazon Seller Central:
So, the point of bringing this performance target up is to highlight the correlation of product quality and being able to sell on Amazon.
If your products are of poor quality, customers will return them to Amazon, which will count against your seller performance.
If your performance rating goes beyond Amazon’s target, your product listing will be closed automatically by Amazon.
If your performance rating hits a level way beyond Amazon’s target, then you run the risk of having your Amazon Seller account suspended, which means you could potentially lose your business.
FBA seller performance targets
Remember, all sellers should be working toward achieving and maintaining a level of customer service that meets the following seller performance targets for every product they sell:
Order defect rate: < 1%
Pre-fulfillment cancel rate: < 2.5%
Late shipment rate: < 4%
Failure to meet these targets may result in the removal of your selling privileges.
Therefore, it is paramount that you understand your supply chain and the manufacturing processes that are behind the production of your products and not forgetting the critical step in the process flow, getting your products inspected while they are still at the factory.
Remember, Amazon looks after its customers, not its sellers!
