There have been a few changes to the Amazon appeals process for Valid Tracking Rate (VTR) enforcement. The updated Amazon appeals process is, say Amazon, to improve your visibility on VTR enforcement and offer faster resolution to your appeals.
The Amazon VTR impacts merchants selling on the marketplace under MFN (Merchant Fulfilled Network). To qualify for valid tracking you need to meet the following during Ship Confirm:
- The name of the delivery service provider and the specific delivery service used for all merchant fulfilled orders; and
- The tracking ID for merchant fulfilled orders that are delivered with a tracked delivery method or the unique parcel ID (located above the 2D barcode on the label) in case you use the Royal Mail 24®/48® delivery methods.
- Tracking numbers are only considered valid if they have at least one carrier scan recorded by Amazon
Amazon appeals process change
The new Amazon appeals process should make your life easier:
Old process
In the past, in order to appeal against a VTR enforcement, you had to send an email to [email protected] with a detailed plan of action. When a particular category was blocked, it was not visible on the Account Health dashboard.
New process
Since the 25th of July 2022, any blocked category on the Account Health dashboard has “Appeal” next to it along with a warning symbol. When you click on “Appeal”, it takes you to the appeal page where Amazon ask you a series of questions in multiple choice question format. Once you answer those questions, your appeals response is recorded.
To track the status of your appeal, you can click “View appeal” next to the blocked categories which you have already appealed for.
3 Responses
The whole VTR is bs 🙁 they let you use RM24 / RM48 – fully aware that there may not be delivery scan – and punish you when it’s not scanned – even when “tracking” number is automatically uploaded from Click&Drop?!?! So if the number is automatically uploaded by the carrier – and in case of no delivery scan there is a message that update will be provided when RM attempt delivery – how “tracking” is invalid?!?! And even more – if buyer is not claiming INR – why Amazon is punishing me?!?!
Has anyone actually been punished for VTR naughtiness?
Using Royal Mail 24 and 48 for the bulk of Amazon sales, the VTR is usually around 80% to 85%, which gives you an indication of just how often RM don’t scan items, and how unrealistic Amazon are with their 95% plus target.
I had a call earlier this year from the VTR team, threatening to take action if things didn’t improve, yet they were unable to provide any advice as to how to improve things other than “don’t sell the problem items” Pretty poor advice all things considered, as the “problem items” are just popular items that RM randomly didn’t scan.
Speaking to a decent Amazon rep later on (they exist) I was told that as long as the reference numbers being uploaded from RM were genuine, don’t worry. Amazon does know all about the non-scanning issue.
They can’t both be right, but I’m hoping it was the decent rep, rather than the script reading muppet.