Amazon Seller Support

Webstore Tips for the Holiday Season

The holidays are a busy time for everyone, including your customers. Use our list of tips to make it easy for customers to find your products and site, view your best deals, and find all the information they need to make confident purchasing decisions.

Holiday Selling Tips:

1. Get the word out! Reach out to your social networks and e-mail list; generate buzz about your holiday offerings.
2. Make your products easy to find: The holidays are a great time to sell on Amazon and comparison shopping engines, Amazon Webstore makes both easy!
3. Promote! Holiday shoppers expect deals. Free shipping options or promotions (like “free shipping on all orders over $100”) are always popular. Dollars off, percentage off, and “buy x, get y” can also work well. Highlight your best deals on your home page and other popular landing pages if not site-wide. A regularly updated “deal of the day” or “sale” category are great ways to keep customers coming back to your site.
4. Make a good first impression: Focus your merchandising efforts on making your home page, key category pages, and other popular landing pages look great. Slow pages drive customers away, so avoid heavy merchandising that slows key pages down.
5. Clear messaging: During the holidays customers are overwhelmed with messaging. Effective merchandising and promotional text is descriptive and accurate while being brief, to the point, and with a clear call to action. Keep things simple and easy to understand, avoid repetition, and don’t mix messages.
6. Offer fast and free shipping: Fast shipping and free shipping are always important, but especially during the holiday season. Eliminate shipping cost from the buying decision by making it free. Customers need to know their gifts will arrive on time. Provide clear, site-wide messaging around delivery timeframes, shipping cut-off dates, and contact information.
7. Returns: Returns are part of the holiday experience. Make sure your return policy is available on your website and very clear, especially about any limitations.
8. Get your servers tuned and ready for more traffic?!? Don’t worry, we have that covered for you!

Happy Selling!

The Amazon Webstore Team

September 22 changes to Google Product Search data requirements

Comparison shopping engines are an important source of traffic and revenue for many e-commerce websites.

As a convenience to our sellers (and with no additional charges), Amazon Webstore submits Webstore product listings to Google Product Search and theFind.com, two leading comparison shopping engines that do not currently charge any listing fees or sales commissions.

Google has announced that beginning September 22, 2011, products will require additional attributes, including sales tax information, to be listed in Google Product Search results. A simple page is now available in Seller Central where sales tax settings for Google Product Search can be entered with a few clicks. Sellers using Amazon Webstore can reach this page by navigating to the Control Panel, expanding "General Webstore Settings", and then clicking "Comparison Shopping Engine Feeds". Webstore by Amazon Sellers can reach this page by navigating to WEBSTORE DESIGN, clicking on Traffic Manager, and then clicking on "Advertise on Comparison Shopping Engines" page.

Beginning September 22, 2011 items that do not have sales tax information may no longer appear in Google Product Search results. Enter your Google Product Search tax settings soon or your Webstore may no longer receive traffic from this popular comparison shopping engine.

What is a Concession?

Sellers can always issue partial or full refunds for order costs, but the Amazon system also allows sellers to compensate buyers for order issues as an alternative to or in addition to refunding order amounts. Buyer credits that exceed the order total are called concessions. There are situations where you may want to issue funds to the buyer beyond the cost of the item(s) and shipping amount. For example, if a buyer receives a defective item and you want to compensate them for return shipping along with the order refund, you could issue a concession.

Concessions can be issued as partial refunds, with partial refunds, or along with full refunds. There are limits on the total amount sellers may provide to buyers when they issue order refunds and concessions. An order refund can't exceed the total amount originally paid by the buyer; however, the amount allowed in concessions may exceed the total cost of the order itself. Amazon displays the concession maximum for each item in an order using a formula that calculates the higher of the following two numbers:

Limit 1: 50% of the sum of original buyer-paid shipping plus product price
Limit 2: Twice the original buyer-paid shipping, plus $10 plus $20

To issue a concession:

1. Log into your seller account.
2. Go to your orders section and bring up the details of the specific order you want to refund.
3. Click the "Refund order" button on the Order Details page.
4. Choose the tab that fits your refund: Full (which is the default page) or Partial Refund (which is a tab below the order number).
5. Use the pop-up menu to select the appropriate Reason for Refund. 
6. Enter the amount of the return shipping and/or other concession into the Amount to Refund box.
   You will receive a pop-up asking you to confirm the concession.
7. Add a memo to the buyer. 
   This is optional but highly recommended, allowing up to 255 characters.
8. Click the Submit Refund button.

Additional facts to note about concessions:

• It can take 15 minutes for the data to be updated in the order to reflect the refund in your seller account.
• Buyers will see a concession amount as a different entry than a partial or full refund on their payment statement.
• Concessions do not contribute to the refund percentage in your seller performance metrics. If one or more products in an order are fully refunded, then the order is counted as a refunded order and is included in your Refund Rate.

If you would like a more in-depth look at concessions, please access the Help section of your seller account and search for concessions.

Using Amazon to Grow Your Ecommerce Business; 6 Tools

In Practicalecommerce's article "Using Amazon to Grow Your Ecommerce Business; 6 Tools" read about different ways you can use Amazon services (Selling on Amazon, Product Ads, Display Ads, Webstore, Fulfillment, Payments and Amazon Web Services) to grow your business.

-Michelle

 

Refunding orders: full or partial refunds

When you want to issue a refund for an order there are several options: full refund, partial refund, and refund concessions.

Which one you choose depends on why you are refunding and how much you want to refund.

To start any kind of refund, the order must have already had the shipment confirmed. If it is not confirmed and you will not ship the item, you can cancel the order and the buyer will not be charged, therefore no refund will be necessary. If the order was confirmed you can proceed with these steps:

1.    Log in to your seller account
2.    Go to your orders section and bring up the details of the specific order you want to refund
3.    Click the "Refund order" button on the Order Details page

To proceed with a Full refund, once you have followed the first three steps above, you would use the default page that comes up when you click "Refund order."

4.    Choose the reason for the refund
You will see several options in the drop-down, choose the most appropriate one.
5.    Write a note to the buyer in the "Memo to buyer" field
While this is optional, a personally written note provides a good customer experience
6.    Click the "Submit Full Refund" button

By following those steps you will have refunded the item and shipping amount.

To proceed with a Partial refund, once you have followed the first three steps above, follow these steps:

4.    Click the Partial Refund tab, which is under the order ID
5.    If the item is listed by name only, click the check box for the item being refunded on the right hand side; if the item details are displayed, proceed to the next step
6.    Select the "Reason for refund" from the drop-down
7.    Enter the "Amount to refund" for the Product or the Shipping or both
8.    Write a note to the buyer in the "Memo to buyer" field
While this is optional, a personally written note provides a good customer experience
9.    Click the "Submit Partial Refund" button

You do not need to enter any information in the two concession fields for either type of refund if you do not want to. A concession is an amount you can refund aside from or in addition to refunding basic order costs. More information about concessions can be found in the Help section in your seller account by searching on the word "concession."

Am I required to include tracking information?

Delivery confirmation or tracking information, while not required, is beneficial to buyers. Including tracking information for your shipments can help buyers verify the status of their packages and anticipate the delivery of their items. If you use tracking information, be sure to enter it when confirming the shipment of your items.

 

Signature confirmation is encouraged for high-value items because it helps verify the items reached the buyer. If an A-to-z Guarantee claim is filed for non-receipt, and signature confirmation verifies your item was delivered to the buyer or another recipient on behalf of the buyer, the A-to-z Guarantee team may deny the claim.

Getting Paid - How It Works

The item has been received, the buyer is totally happy and the only thing left is to get paid! How does this work?

Have you entered the information for a valid U.S. bank checking account into your seller account?

Amazon transfers funds from your sales directly to the bank account you specify in your seller account. If you enter your checking account information too late (less than 24 hours before your first scheduled disbursement) it can delay getting your funds for another 14 days. We suggest entering it in when you first set up your account, or before you list your first item.

How and when do I get paid?

After you first register to sell on Amazon, we let the funds from your sales accumulate for the first 14 days. At the end of this time, we settle your account – i.e., subtract our fees and shuffle the rest of the funds off to you via an Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfer to your checking account. This is your first disbursement. After this, disbursements will occur automatically every 14 days.

Disbursements usually appear in your checking account within 3-5 business days. Note that for a disbursement to take place, you must have a positive balance. Amazon fees and customer refunds, if any, can affect your balance.

How do I know I have been paid?

Your settlements can viewed in the Payments account section of your seller account at any time.

Why didn't I get paid?

There are several reasons why you might not have been paid:

• You recently began selling on Amazon.com and your first 14-day settlement period has not concluded.
• Your first settlement period has concluded but you do not have a positive account balance.
• You have not yet entered your bank account information.
• The bank account information you entered is incorrect. Contact your bank to confirm the checking account number and ACH (Automated Clearinghouse) routing number.
• You entered debit card information instead of checking account information. A checking account with an ACH routing number is required for seller disbursements.
• Your bank does not accept ACH transfers. Contact your bank to confirm that they accept ACH transfers. If they don't, provide a checking account from a bank that accepts ACH transfers.
• Your bank is outside the United States. A checking account in a US-based bank is required for seller disbursements.
• The bank account is now closed. Contact your bank to obtain the checking account number and ACH routing number for your new bank account.