Amazon Seller Support

Tips for Managing Orders Effectively

Keep up with orders using the tools in your seller account and follow some suggested "best practices" to excel at the essentials of order management.

• Don't rely solely on "Sold, ship now" e-mails to let you know you have new orders. Check the Manage Orders tool in your seller account daily for up-to-the minute information about your orders, including buyer names and shipping addresses.
• Ship exactly what the buyer ordered. If you no longer offer the exact products you originally listed, it is in your best interest to keep your listings up to date and accurate, including the product images.
• Ship the order on time. You’ll have more time to resolve any problems that might arise.
• Confirm the shipment. When you confirm a shipment, we notify the buyer via e-mail that their order is on its way.
• Keep buyers informed of any order issues. Buyers are less likely to leave negative feedback or file A-to-z Guarantee claims when you let them know the status of their order.
• If you need to refund an order, do so promptly. You can make refunds through the Manage Orders tool.
• If you have a Professional selling plan, download Order Reports and Inventory Reports regularly to keep track of sold items, order fulfillment, inventory levels, and available listings.

Pending orders: What do they mean for me?

Orders in pending status indicate an issue with the customer's payment method. They should not be shipped, even if a buyer contacts you directly to provide a shipping address. (No shipping address is provided in your seller account until an order is in a shippable status.)

Remember, only ship orders to the shipping addresses provided in your seller account!

Pending orders will not have confirm and cancel buttons in Manage Orders, and they will not appear in Order Reports. Once an order is in a shippable status, the confirm and cancel buttons will appear in Manage Orders and the order will appear in both the Order Report and the Unshipped Orders Report. At that point, the order should be shipped and the shipment confirmed in Manage Orders or with a feed.

For more information, search on "pending orders" in seller Help.

Have a checklist in case the weather turns worse than usual as winter winds down

Here we are in February already!

Winter still has plenty of time to surprise us, so keep a checklist handy in case you have to deal with shipping complications.

Here are some options to consider for your list:

1. Check carrier websites periodically to see if they have any shipping delay information posted.
2. Tell buyers about possible delivery delays as soon as you know about them. Buyers like to know what to expect whenever possible.
3. Temporarily remove the option to have orders shipped internationally. For more information, search on "shipping settings" in seller Help.
4. Temporarily remove your listings from Amazon.com altogether, by setting all of them to "Inactive" status. For more information, search on "listing status" in seller Help.
5. If you can't ship your orders at all for a while, telephone buyers at your first opportunity. Again, buyers want to know.

You'll have your own priorities on your list, based on your location, carriers, and product types, among other things that can affect shipping. The main thing, especially if you are not that rare person who is calm and collected no matter what, is to have that list!

3 Essentials of Order Management

Buyers are less likely to leave negative feedback or file A-to-z Guarantee claims when sellers excel at these three essentials of order management:

1. Ship exactly what the buyer ordered. If you no longer offer the exact products you originally listed, it is in your best interest to keep your listings up to date and accurate, including the product images.
2. Ship the order on time. During the holidays this matters to buyers more than ever.
3. Confirm the shipment. Buyers like to know when and how their orders shipped. When you confirm a shipment, we notify the buyer via e-mail that their order is on its way.

What is acceptable feedback?

We understand feedback is an important cornerstone for you and it directly reflects the service you provide for any order you fulfill. Most of the time, buyers review previous feedback received by sellers before they complete their orders, so it is essential for you to maintain a clean feedback rating.

Occasionally, buyers leave feedback that may not reflect the quality of service they received on a particular transaction. Regardless, most of the time, feedback has an effect on a seller's reputation. It is because we want you to be successful that Amazon will remove feedback that meets certain criteria. Amazon will remove feedback only when:

• The feedback includes obscene language.
• The feedback includes personally identifiable information.
• The entire feedback comment is a product review.
• The entire feedback comment is regarding fulfillment or customer service for an order fulfilled by Amazon. (Feedback which qualifies for removal under this rule will not be removed, but a line will appear through the rating and the statement, "This item was fulfilled by Amazon, and we take responsibility for this fulfillment experience" will be added.)

Apart from the above mentioned criteria, any other feedback will not qualify to be removed from your seller account. We at Seller Support (Technical Account Management) are often contacted by sellers requesting removal of feedback which contains comments such as “Okay,” “Received the item” or “Satisfactory” to name a few. However, since these ratings do not meet any of the removal criteria, we will not be permitted to remove them.

You may still have this kind of feedback removed from your selling account if the buyer chooses to remove it. We encourage you to contact the buyer to request they review feedback you believe was left in error. Some buyers may not know how to remove their feedback, but you can direct them to the Help page at the URL below for instructions:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=537774#remove

If a buyer does not remove their feedback, you may want to post a response with your own account of the transaction in your feedback profile. To post a response, log in to your seller account, and under Reports; click "View your Ratings and Feedback." This will display the most recent page of feedback ratings. Find the feedback in question and click the button to respond. We wish all our sellers on Amazon success in procuring good feedback ratings for all orders they fulfill.

Join Our Holiday Selling Webinar on Sept. 26

Are you ready for the holidays? Join Amazon Marketplace experts for a 45-minute holiday selling webinar. Our experts will offer tips to help you have a successful holiday season selling on Amazon.

Topics:

• Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) tips and deadlines
• Shipping best practices
• Listing quality and key search terms
• Product and brand opportunities with Amazon Selling Coach
• Key customer performance metrics
• Guidelines for selling in the Toys & Games category

The webinar will be broadcast at 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. ET) on Wednesday, September 26.

To register for the webinar, contact marketplace-webinars@amazon.com

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.