Amazon allows sellers insight into customer satisfaction rate through different account health metrics. Learn how to improve your Amazon seller metrics on Amazon Seller Central.
Being a customer-centric company, Amazon places significant emphasis on customer satisfaction. It only makes sense that the ecommerce giant wants its third-party sellers to be just as customer-centric too. As a seller on Amazon, you have access to multiple metrics to measure your performance on the platform.
The Account Health Page in the Performance menu has a list of Amazon seller metrics that give an insight into your selling performance. One of these metrics is the Valid Tracking Rate, which shows how often you use valid tracking information for orders shipped.
In today’s guide, we discuss how to improve your VTR and how a low Valid Tracking Rate can negatively impact your account health.
What Are Amazon Seller Metrics?
Amazon seller metrics are synonymous with key performance indicators (KPIs) that determine your performance as a third party seller. All sellers on Amazon must abide by certain policies and adhere to the company’s guidelines, especially with respect to metrics.
Sellers must meet the threshold for each of these metrics to maintain good account health.
In case your account health declines, you may face a penalty, suspension, or even removal. Here are some of these metrics:
Order Defect Rate
Order defect rate (ODR) is a measure of customer experience that takes orders from the past 60 days into consideration. The metric measures ‘order defects’ that are defined by credit card chargebacks, negative feedback, and A-to-Z Guarantee claims.
Your order defect rate should be under 1%.
Late Shipment Rate
When a customer shops from your store on Amazon, they want to get a shipping confirmation after the purchase. If this confirmation comes later than when they expected, there could be more instances of customer complaints and negative feedback.
Amazon wants your late shipment rate to be below 4% in the past 10-day and 30-day periods.
On-Time Delivery Rate
It refers to the percentage of orders that were delivered in their expected time spans. Amazon wants your on-time delivery rate to be above 97% at all times.
Valid Tracking Rate
Valid tracking rate only applies to seller-fulfilled orders. It is the percentage of packages with a valid tracking number. This information is useful for customers to track their purchases.
What Is Valid Tracking Rate or VTR?
Valid Tracking Rate is one of Amazon’s seller metrics that refers to the number of seller-fulfilled orders that have a tracking number. Customers use this number to find out where their order is in the delivery pipeline and when they can expect to get it.
Amazon started tracking VTR from April 2021. The metric is measured over the past 30 days.
Although VTR applies to all seller-fulfilled orders, some shipments are exempt from it:
- International deliveries from China that have an order value of under $5 (inclusive of shipping costs)
- International deliveries from outside China and the US
- Digital orders that are not physically shipped, such as ebooks and audiobooks
How Is Valid Tracking Rate Calculated?
Amazon calculates your VTR by dividing the number of packages with a valid tracking number by the number of packages you have shipped in the past 30 days. The number is then multiplied by 100 to get a percentage.
Here is how the VTR calculation differs by the countries:
- For the US, Amazon considers any package with one carrier scan (the scan done by the carrier to tell that a package is on its way) to have a valid tracking number.
- For China, Amazon considers a valid tracking number if the package has one carrier scan and uses an integrated carrier. This applies to packages with a value of under $5. Meanwhile, packages with a higher value have two carrier scans and should use an integrated carrier.
How Can You Improve Valid Tracking Rate?
Now that you know what Valid Tracking Rate is, let’s discuss some ways to improve this metric and simultaneously boost your account health. You must maintain a VTR of 95% or higher. If you’re unable to do so, Amazon may restrict or suspend your ability to sell products within that category.
You may also be barred from participating in guaranteed delivery and premium/Prime shipping. Consider utilizing these solutions to improve your valid tracking rate:
- Update and Confirm Tracking Information In 24 Hours :
Oftentimes, when you’re dealing with a high volume of orders, it can be hard to complete all the steps adequately. However, it’s important not to ignore updating the tracking information including the proper Shipment date, carrier, and valid tracking number.
Once you have handed a package off to the shipment carrier, ensure you update the tracking information within 24 hours. If you update the tracking information after the package has already been delivered, OR before a package is detected in transit, Amazon will consider it a defect or possibly, an invalid tracking number.
- Verify the Information :
When you update the tracking information, verify that it is correct. Check that you have entered the right carrier name, shipping service, and tracking ID. If you enter the wrong information, Amazon will mark it as a defect.
At the moment, Amazon does not have support for carrier names from China. Thus, it won’t be valid to use Chinese characters to enter the tracking details manually.
- Use Buy Shipping Service from Amazon :
You can also obtain shipping labels for your products from Amazon’s Buy Shipping. Doing so will allow you to instantly confirm and upload the tracking details for all orders in your store. You can also check the delivery status of the order through the Order Details page in your account’s Seller Central tab.
More importantly, this protects you from A-to-z guarantee claims, which is a factor that Amazon considers to calculate the Order Defect Rate, and sometimes, Valid Tracking Rate.
- Select Integrated Carriers :
When you select Amazon integrated carriers, they track the order status in real-time and provide it to Amazon. In this way, you have a lower chance of messing up your valid tracking rate.
Final Words
In short, having a VTR of 95% or higher is a key component of maintaining healthy Amazon Seller metrics. If for some reason the tracking rate slips or you still face suspension due to a lower-than-acceptable VTR, you can submit a plan of action (POA). Your appeal for reinstatement will be approved if your plan of action is accepted by the Amazon Seller Performance team.
