Amazon upgrades success metric for selling partners

Amazon is making it easier for third-party sellers on its site to track their account performance.

The e-tail giant is rolling out 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. The new Account Health Rating provides sellers with an overall state of their account health, including if the numerical value makes their account “Healthy,” “At-Risk,” or “Unhealthy.”

Based on seller feedback, the upgraded Account Health Rating includes the following new features:

• Rather than a list of policy violations that could lead to suspension of their account, sellers have asked to understand where they stand overall. The new Account Health Rating provides that holistic metric and will be the determining factor for account suspension based on accumulated policy violations.
• If any outstanding policy violations negatively impact the Account Heath Rating, a seller will be able to see the level of severity for each violation. The seller can then prioritize the most important issues first.
• A team of dedicated account health specialists can support sellers over the phone or via email.

Amazon will begin to roll out the new version of the Account Health Rating in August 2022 to sellers in its U.S. and Canada stores, and to sellers in its other worldwide stores in 2023.

Amazon 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.

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.

“We’re excited to help sellers better understand exactly where their account health stands, prioritize potential issues, and ensure that their account status remains healthy so they can focus on selling amazing products and growing their businesses,” said Dharmesh Mehta, VP, worldwide selling partner services, Amazon, in a corporate blog post. “This is one of many new offerings we are rolling out to improve sellers’ overall experience.”