Things You Need to know about Amazon Seller Central - 2020 Guide

 If you are a new seller on Amazon or you just haven’t spent much time exploring Seller Central, you might be overwhelmed by all there is to know and do within the system. While there are seemingly endless possibilities and resources within Seller Central, this list of 10 things to know how to do is a great place to start. From the basics to the more complex, these tips will help you to manage your business with Amazon with greater ease and finesse.

1. How to Navigate Seller Support

When you run into a question or problem while selling your products on Amazon, you have multiple options for how to get help. The first place to check is the Seller Central Help Center. There are countless helpful articles about common issues or questions that are available at your fingertips simply by searching in the search bar. This is the fastest way to get answers to your questions, and doesn’t require contacting support to submit a case.

• Locating the Seller Central Help Center
• Use the Search Bar to Find Answers to Your Question

From here it is possible to pick the issue type which best matches your query and submit your situation.  In most scenarios you are able to pick between talking on the telephone with an Amazon partner or being contacted through email with a response for your issue.  On occasion you'll also have the choice for a chat.  But you choose to file your query, make sure you incorporate a whole and illustrative explanation of your problem together with all applicable information (ASINs, arrange IDs, etc.).  This attention to detail can go a long way in raising the probability of having your question successfully answered.  

2. How to Update Account Information

Perhaps you've opened a new small business banking accounts, or possess a new small business credit card you want to connect with your Seller Central Account.  Or maybe you have to upgrade your company address or tax info, or you only wish to modify your Seller Central password.  No matter the circumstance, it's crucial that you understand where to go to upgrade the data to your accounts.  Happily Amazon makes it fairly simple.

If you click on the Settings drop-down in the upper right hand corner of the home page screen, you’ll see a menu of options for updating various types of information for your account. For most account updates, you’ll want to click on Account Info.From this screen you can click into any piece of information you need to update and make the necessary changes.You can also click Manage under the Your Services section to make changes to your account plan, FBA registration, or other services.

To update your login settings and change your password or the email address associated with your account, click on Settings and select Login Settings to make the necessary changes.

3. How to Give Employees Access to Your Account

As your company grows you will likely wish to assign a number of day to day activities to other workers in your company.  Inside Seller Central it is possible to make invitations to send to your workers to give them access to your own accounts, and it is also possible to set the precise accounts permissions which you would like to provide every user.

To invite a user to your Seller Central account, select User Permissions from the Settings drop-down in the upper right corner of the Seller Central homepage.From here you’ll be taken to the page where you can enter the email address for the user you wish to invite, as well as edit the permissions of a user.

4. How to Generate Payment and Tax Reports

Generating payment and tax reports from Seller Central is one of those things that you’ll need to do on a regular basis, so it is a good idea to be well-versed on the process.

Payment Reports

You’ll start by selecting Payments from the Reports drop-down on the Seller Central homepage.

From here you'll be taken to a screen where you could see your payments advice as announcements, trade level reportsdate or date range reports.  You could even create reports specific to marketing payments which you've created for Sponsored Product campaigns.

When looking at trade view reporting you've got the choice to search by different dates like a particular statement date, a particular date range, or obligations made within the past specific number of times.  It is also possible to search by Order ID filter or filter the view from trade types to spot obligations out of returns, charge backs, service charges, or other sorts of payments.

Tax Reports

If you are a Professional Seller who has configured the Tax Calculation Service you will have access to a Sales Tax Report. To access this report, select Tax Document Library from the Reports drop-down on the Seller Central homepage.Under Sales Tax Reports click Generate a tax report, and select the date range you wish to see for your report. You can select a specific month or a custom date range. Click Generate to run the report.

5. How to Download Advertising Reports

If you are running an advertising campaign through Sponsored Products, you’ll periodically want to review the results of your campaign to make changes or adjust your approach.

To access the advertising reports, begin by selecting Advertising Reports from the Reports drop-down on the Seller Central homepage.Inside Advertising Reports you'll get a broad assortment of alternatives for how to see your advertising results, like viewing functionality over time or the operation of a particular SKU or positioning.  You might even pull a search phrase report to recognize which search phrases are the top performing for your marketing campaigns, letting you alter the key phrases or bids in your efforts to create them effective.  Another ASIN report is a beneficial tool which shows you another ASINs bought after a client clicks on one of your advertisements.At the bottom of each report type you can request a single report or you can schedule the report to run at regular intervals.

6. How to Monitor Feedback

Customer feedback is extremely important to the wellbeing of each vendor supplying products on Amazon.  While the sort of feedback you get as a vendor is left up to the discretion of the client supplying the responses, by carefully tracking the feedback that you receive it is possible to do the job right to handle any negative comments and react in whatever way is most suitable.

Feedback Reports

To be able to react to opinions, you first must understand what it is.  There are a couple of various methods that you can get this info, the most fundamental of which is through the Feedback Manager in Seller Central.  You may access this tool by choosing Feedback from the operation drop-down to the Seller Central homepage. Once inside the Feedback Manager you can view your overall Feedback Rating (based on the five star system), a breakdown of your positive (four and five stars), neutral (three stars), and negative (one and two stars) feedback within the last 30, 90, and 365 days as well as over the lifetime of your account.In addition you can download feedback reports to see all neutral and negative or all negative feedback from a specific date range in a single report so that you can follow up accordingly.

7. How to Monitor Performance

Your performance for a vendor on Amazon is a important element in the success of your enterprise.  Amazon utilizes performance metrics to find out the amount of consumer satisfaction from the activities as a seller on Amazon, and if you do not live up to Amazon's high quality standards your advertising privileges might be eliminated or revoked.  To keep on top of your operation metrics and actively work to keep the maximum performance potential, you want to start by clearly knowing what metrics Amazon monitors for your own performance.

Performance Metrics

There are few important metrics that Amazon uses to determine the health of your account as it relates to customer satisfaction.

• Order Defect Rate (ODR): Here is the essential measure of how well you're performing at giving a fantastic customer experience.  Amazon presents this metric as a percent, also computes it as the amount of orders using a flaw divided by the entire amount of orders.  Your ODR is composed of your A-to-Z Guarantee claim rate, your negative comments speed, and your support chargeback rate.
• Cancellation Rate: The number of seller-fulfilled orders cancelled by the seller prior to ship confirmation divided by the number of seller-fulfilled orders in a given time frame.
• Late Shipment Rate: The amount of seller-fulfilled orders in which the boat confirmation is completed following the anticipated ship date, divided by the whole amount of seller-fulfilled orders.
• Valid Tracking Rate (VTR): North American vendors are expected to give valid tracking numbers for 95 percent of your US shipments.
• Return Dissatisfaction Rate (RDR): The percentage of valid return requests which weren't answered within two days, or were erroneously rejected or resulted in negative customer feedback.
• Customer Service Dissatisfaction Rate (CSDR): The percentage of customers not satisfied with your response in Buyer Seller Messaging.

Account Health Dashboard

The Account Health Dashboard is the place to go to monitor your performance metrics and identify any areas of improvement. This helpful tool can be accessed by selecting Account Health from the Performance drop-down on the Seller Central homepage.When you reach the Account Health Dashboard you will see a high level overview of your performance for customer service, product policy compliance, and shipping performance.

From here you can click on any listed metric, or the View Details link at the bottom of the screen, to drill into more specific and detailed information about the scores you’ve received for each of the performance metrics that Amazon tracks. Here is an example of the metrics tracking for Buyer-Seller Messaging. You’ll notice that the results are listed as well as the targets for each metric.

8. How to Manage Customer Service

As a vendor with FBA, you may feel that Amazon has client support insured.  While Amazon surely provides exceptional customer support for several issues that clients may face, clients may also reach out to vendors directly with queries, problems, or concerns.  While this occurs, it's essential to be educated on best practices for responding to these kinds of contacts.  It's also important to contemplate the way to be proactive in providing exceptional customer service so you are doing everything you can to keep top excellent performance metrics, superb vendor feedback, and first-class product reviews.

Buyer Seller Messaging

Amazon supplies a buyer seller messages for buyers and sellers to get in touch with each other.  For buyers, this is generally for the purpose of asking questions or after up with the vendor on any order difficulties or product quality issues.  For vendors, proactively messaging the purchaser at different points in the order fulfillment process can go a very long way in making a fantastic customer experience, and provides an chance to request feedback from buyers in the kind of seller opinions or a product inspection.

The Buyer-Seller Messaging Service filters every email from a buyer or seller through Amazon’s system where it is tokenized to protect the contact information of the buyer and seller, as well as acting as an archive of all conversations to ensure that policies are being adhered to, and acting as a resource in the event of a claim or dispute.

Amazon tracks response time metrics for any messages sent to a seller from a buyer, so it is important to respond to all buyer messages within 24 hours or to mark messages as “No Response Needed” in the event you do not need to respond.

Using Seller Central as a Tool to Manage Your Business

Seller Central has much to offer in the form of resources and tools for managing your business. Whether you need more efficient ways to manage the day to day tasks, or you’re looking for reports or information to help you make better business decisions, these 10 tips for using Seller Central can put you on the path to a more strategic and savvy way of managing your business with Amazon.