We don't need to mention any statistics or studies to prove that one of the pet peeves of online shoppers is late deliveries. Amazon saw a market for this, so besides putting up an online marketplace, they've built the most advanced fulfillment centers worldwide. Hence, the birth of the Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) program. According to a survey conducted by JungleScout, 66% of respondents from different countries use FBA as a fulfillment method and utilize Amazon fulfillment services tracking to monitor their shipments.
nChannel has a simple yet straightforward description of what Amazon FBA is: "FBA works like this: you sell it, then Amazon ships it."
But where does Amazon tracking service enter the picture? Here's how Amazon FBA works:
If you have noticed, there are two types of tracking information you must regularly check. First is the tracking information for your inventory that will arrive at fulfillment centers. The second is the Amazon fulfillment service track order information that your customer will receive after placing an order.
Why do you need to track both periodically? It is not only because you don't want angry customers hunting you down if their orders don’t arrive on time or get lost during delivery. Amazon also evaluates how good you are in managing your inventory and deliveries. The online retail giant regularly monitors the following seller performance metrics:
IPI measures your inventory management skills. You can get an IPI score between 0 and 1,000.
Take note that Amazon changes the minimum IPI score requirement depending on the current situation of the supply chain around the world. When the IPI was introduced, the minimum threshold requirement was 350. However, the pandemic restrictions forced Amazon to raise it to 500 in July 2020 for preparation of the fourth quarter.
IPI is also used to measure the performance of your FBA business. As defined by Amazon, "IPI score is based on how well you drive sales by stocking popular products and efficiently managing on-hand inventory." Four factors come into play when determining the IPI score: excess inventory, stranded inventory, sell-through rate, and in-stock rate. Among the four, it is the in-stock rate that you should monitor as it indicates if your replenishable products have enough stocks or not.
Remember that your work is not yet done after creating a shipment plan. You must ensure that your shipment is received and sorted out in an Amazon fulfillment center. The replenished inventory will be reflected in your Seller Central account. What is the consequence of unsuccessful inventory replenishment? You will miss sales and profit, affecting your IPI score. Amazon will also penalize you with storage limitations and higher storage fees.
POP measures the orders that were successfully accepted, processed, and fulfilled. Your POP score must be more than 95%.
This performance indicator is based on the Order Defect Rate, Pre-Fulfillment Cancel Rate, and Late Shipment Rate. How will you know you're not meeting the required target?
As the name implies, CSDR is the percentage of buyers not satisfied with your responses in Buyer-Seller Messaging.
We know that FBA provides customer service. When customers are asked, "Did this solve your problem?" and their answer is "No," it will affect your CSDR. This metric calculates the percentage of "No" responses to this question. Once calculated, Amazon will give you a Good, Fair, or Poor rating.
Overall, if you haven't met any of the metrics above, it may result in account suspension or deactivation.
After knowing the tracking ID formats of well-known couriers supported by Amazon, let us teach you how to monitor your shipment using the Amazon tracking service.
Enable this feature to receive the status of your inbound shipments to Amazon's fulfillment centers by doing the following:
The Shipping Queue gives you the option to view the shipment you're working on and those you've sent to Amazon's fulfillment centers. In your Seller Central account, go to Inventory and select Manage FBA Shipments in the drop-down menu.
You can either check the status of your shipment under the Shipments tab and Shipping Plans tab.
In the Manage FBA Shipments menu, find your shipment and then select Track Shipment. You will be directed to the Shipment Summary page that consists of six tabs:
You may either track your shipment under Shipment Events or Track Shipments.
The Shipment Events tab provides updates about your shipment from creation to closing, and its location. How will you know that your shipment arrived at the Fulfillment Center? The status will be in this sequence: Checked In > Receiving > Closed.
In the Orders menu of your Seller Central account, go to Manage Orders and click the View FBA Orders link on the right side of the page. Here you will see three tabs: Pending, All Orders, and Cancelled. If you want to view all the orders, click the All Orders tab. You will be presented with a table of seven columns:
You can filter by order ID, buyer email, listing ID, SKU (stock-keeping unit), product name, and tracking ID to refine your search.
Enable this feature by going to the notification settings in your Seller Central account and finding the Amazon Fulfillment Order Notifications. After doing this, you will receive emails from Amazon with a subject like "Amazon.com has shipped the item you sold." This email notifies you that your customer has gotten their order successfully.
If you want to make sure, open the email, and find the tracking number and the courier information. Copy the tracking number then go to the courier's website and locate their tracking page to paste the tracking number in the search field. The courier's tracking system will then provide you with tracking information for that specific order.
Be sure to regularly send Amazon FBA centers your popular products. That way, they don’t run out of inventory. Keep in mind that Stallion is able to ship $800 in retail value per shipment, per day. Drop off multiple shipments and let us stagger out the shipments.
As you can see, there are different ways for an Amazon seller to track the shipment. All you need to do is to be proactive and diligent in monitoring your shipments and orders. Amazon Fulfillment Services tracking is a sophisticated system that you should check from time to time to maintain a healthy account and continue selling on the world’s largest online marketplace.
Are you having a hard time with Amazon fulfillment services tracking? Let us help you. Stallion Express is equipped to assist you with your Amazon FBA needs from start to finish. For inquiries, you can call +1 877-863-7447 or email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!
Nicasio is the co-founder of Stallion Express - the leading eCommerce shipping company in Canada. Through his unique experiences in tech and digital marketing, he is on a journey to disrupt the logistics industry.
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