Amazon reaches out to at-risk sellers
Amazon is introducing a new, free benefit for third-party sellers on its platform that gives them a chance to address problems with their account.
The e-tail giant is now offering a service called “Account Health Assurance,” which formalizes its commitment to not deactivate a seller’s account as long as they cooperate to resolve any issues.
Under Account Health Assurance, a member of the Amazon team will proactively reach out and work one-on-one with sellers whose account may be at risk of deactivation to help them get back on track. Sellers will know they are enrolled in Account Health Assurance when they see the badge at the top of their account page in Seller Central, Amazon’s internal seller portal.
Account Health Assurance is launching first with third-party sellers in Amazon’s U.S. and Canadian stores. The company expects to expand the benefit quickly to additional sellers, including those in other countries, in the coming months.
“As we head into the busy holiday shopping season and beyond, we want to provide Amazon’s seller community with even more peace of mind so they can focus on doing what they do best, which is creating innovative products, building amazing brands, and delighting customers,” Dharmesh Mehta, VP, Amazon Worldwide Selling Partner Services, said in a corporate blog post.
Amazon supports third-party sellers
According to Amazon, Account Health Assurance was built based on seller feedback and is part of its efforts to provide sellers with more transparency and tools. The retailer actively assists third-party retailers (primarily small-to-medium-sized businesses) to sell on its Amazon Marketplace e-commerce platform with at least 150 tools and services, and regularly adds new offerings.
These include the recent introduction of a revamped version of its Account Health Rating, designed to help its 2 million third-party sellers adhere to Amazon’s policies and maintain positive account activities.
[Read more: Amazon upgrades success metric for selling partners]
Some of the company’s other offerings for third-party sellers include a new hosted distribution center solution called Amazon Warehousing & Distribution (AWD), which is designed to provide low-cost, long-term storage that gives sellers the option to store their inventory in Amazon distribution centers and then seamlessly replenish to Amazon fulfillment centers. The e-tail giant is supporting the service with new, purpose-built facilities for bulk storage and automated distribution.
In July 2022, Amazon unveiled Amazon Seller Wallet, a solution intended to provide the e-tail giant’s selling partners more capability to determine how much and when to convert their funds. The tool will enable third-party Amazon sellers to hold, view, and transfer Amazon store proceeds directly to their bank account on their schedule.
On the fulfillment side, in fall 2021 the company launched Amazon Local Selling, a new set of services that enables local, regional, and national retailers operating on Amazon Marketplace to offer both in-store pickup and fast delivery to local customers.
Third-party sellers are becoming an increasingly important part of Amazon’s business. According to the company, its recent 2022 Prime Day event, which broke records with close to $12 billion in total sales during the July 12-13 period, was also the biggest-ever Prime Day event for Amazon's third-party selling partners. Amazon said sales growth by its selling partners outpaced growth in its own retail business, with Prime Day shoppers spending over $3 billion on more than 100 million small business items.