The Amazon account holder digest III

May 18, 2016

Reading time: 3 minutes

We’re halfway through Q2, and there have been quite a few developments in the Amazon account holder’s world.
To find out how your business will be affected, read more.

1. Amazon Seller University

You may have come across a new addition to the Performance tab in your SellerCentral account homepage: Seller University. Featuring “essential education for selling on Amazon”, the guide is a 21-course program. Each course features several modules, all of which come with one instructional video about 3 minutes long.

The guide is packed full of information on:

The Seller centralAmazon Seller Central is a portal or a h... More page, account info, setup, settings, notifications and Amazon policies (all neatly packaged in a quick start guide);
Selling plans, payment processing, and Amazon tax collection services;
Amazon Brand RegistryAmazon Brand Registry is a tool that ena... More, creating listings, managing your inventory, product detail pages, listing restrictions, the Buy BoxThis refers to the situation where a sel... More , shipping options, Fulfillment by Amazon;
Order fulfillment, seller account healthAccount Health is an Amazon page which c... More, customer satisfaction, seller performanceA measure of how well Amazon sellers are... More, policy violations, appeals for account suspensions, listing defects, and inventory issues;
How to monitor sales, increase listing visibility, and use business reports to maximize pageviews, optimize product titles and search terms, increase positive ratings, and sell sponsored productsPay-Per-Click (PPC) ad platform for Amaz... More;
How to extend your business and have access to a North American unified account to sell on Canada and Mexico, how to sell globally, and how to use the Amazon BusinessAmazon Business is Amazon’s wholesale ... More Seller Program and the Selling Coach program;
How to prepare for the holiday season, look for new products opportunities, profit from promotions and sponsored products, refine customer service and return processing, and set your account on Vacation mode.

2. Amazon Revamps Order Details Page

The ‘Manage Orders’ pages in your Seller Central account are in for a facelift over the following months. You may have already noticed the newly updated Order Details page. While not much has changed in terms of functionality, the page is now laid out with efficiency in mind.

The new layout starts by pointing out the shipping, fulfillment and buyer contact information needed for dispatch. A new panel on the right-hand side points out whether or not the order has been shipped, and features two buttons to be used for printing packing slips and issuing refunds.

The most notable changes are:

the Order-Item ID field is no longer included;
you can enter your own order ID using the Edit button below Amazon’s order ID;
you can view product information by clicking the blue highlighted title link for that product;
there’s a detailed view of the shipments corresponding to each unit and item in the order;
there’s a packing slip printing button for each shipment;
shipments can be edited individually at any time, including while you fill up your boxes.

3. Free Shipping Required for Shoes, Handbags and Sunglasses

Starting May 24, all Amazon sellers are required to offer a free shipping option (like Free Economy Shipping) on items in the Shoes, Handbags and Sunglasses Category priced at over $49. Accessories, such as shoe-horns and shoe-laces, are included. Remember not to use the phrase ‘free shipping’ in your descriptions, though.

4. RDR Metric Launched on Amazon Canada

As of May 2, 2016, sellers on Amazon Canada have been introduced to the Return Dissatisfaction Rate metric, one that Amazon.com merchants know all to well. The metric gauges customer satisfaction for the way you process returns, and is not currently sufficient basis for a suspension. There are three situations to avoid to keep this metric down:

Failing to reply within 48 hours;
Receiving negative feedbackA performance rating on a scale of 1 to ... More on a return*;
Rejecting the return request and not issuing a refund, even though the customer is entitled to it.

*retracted negative feedbacks don’t count