Note: It’s been a very slow week for Amazon news (other than their razor thin profit margins), so I’ll be posting a regular article today:
Yesterday, I learned about a new Amazon metric, the Perfect Order Percentage (POP), which is the ratio of perfect orders to total orders over the last 90 days. Amazon recommends a POP of 97%, although they’re not yet penalizing sellers specifically based on their POP performance.
Any of the following events makes an order “imperfect:”
- Negative Feedback
- A-to-z Guarantee Claim
- Chargeback
- Cancellation
- Late Shipment
- Refund
- Buyer-Initiated Message
The first 3, also components of ODR, make total sense!
Cancellations aren’t necessarily signs of imperfection by a seller. As a shopper, I know that I’ve cancelled orders before because I changed my mind. However, I have also cancelled orders due to delays prior to shipment. In these cases, I’ve been frustrated and would consider the order to be “imperfect.” If a seller has to cancel an order because he or she doesn’t have inventory on hand or they mis-priced their listing, then that’s definitely an error!
Late shipments are always a problem. Amazon buyers want their products yesterday 🙂
If a customer just changes their mind or the product isn’t what they hoped for and asks for a refund, I’d still consider that order “perfect.” Refunds that could’ve been prevented by the seller: incomplete description, incorrect condition, etc. are cause for an imperfect order.
Now buyer-initiated message is confusing to me. Just because a buyer contacts a seller doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong! I know that I’ve sent a few sellers messages after getting an order faster than I’d expected (in addition to leaving positive feedback, of course). And again, there are definitely cases where a message from a buyer indicates a problem with the seller’s performance.
Updates: Looks like Amazon has provided some updates. Here’s what is not counted as an imperfection:
- Cancellations requested by the buyer using the order-cancellation option on Amazon.com. Note: Customers must cancel the order from their own account for an order cancellation to not count against you.
- Pending orders cancelled by the buyer on Amazon.com.
- Buyer-initiated messages that don’t require a response, such as a “Thank You” note. Note: Make sure to mark these as “No Response Needed.”
- Buyer-initiated messages that are not related to an order.
Any thoughts on how to improve POP? What makes an order perfect to you (as a buyer and/or seller)?