Ask Amazon: Account Health Rating
Good Morning Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon focused on the recently launched Account Health Rating! Today, the AHR team will answer questions posted on the thread.
How does the new Account Health Rating help sellers?
The AHR indicates your selling account’s risk of deactivation due to non-compliance with certain Amazon selling policies. It is displayed on the seller’s Account Health page for each store in which they sell worldwide. Check out the AHR FAQ page here.
To learn more about the policies included in AHR, go to Policies included in Account Health Rating. To see a list of all of Amazon’s program policies, go to Program policies.
We’ll leave this topic open today until 5 pm PST. You can post any questions you have as a reply; we ask you to keep it to one question per reply. If a question you have has already been posted, give it a like and we’ll make sure to prioritize the most popular questions first.
We have community managers and the product team closely watching this thread throughout the day, and they may merge posts with similar questions so we can answer them all in one place.
In the meantime, the AHR team is reviewing your questions and we’ll respond to them by 5 pm PST tomorrow (Oct. 19th).
**Please note that the team cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
Ask Amazon: Account Health Rating
Good Morning Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon focused on the recently launched Account Health Rating! Today, the AHR team will answer questions posted on the thread.
How does the new Account Health Rating help sellers?
The AHR indicates your selling account’s risk of deactivation due to non-compliance with certain Amazon selling policies. It is displayed on the seller’s Account Health page for each store in which they sell worldwide. Check out the AHR FAQ page here.
To learn more about the policies included in AHR, go to Policies included in Account Health Rating. To see a list of all of Amazon’s program policies, go to Program policies.
We’ll leave this topic open today until 5 pm PST. You can post any questions you have as a reply; we ask you to keep it to one question per reply. If a question you have has already been posted, give it a like and we’ll make sure to prioritize the most popular questions first.
We have community managers and the product team closely watching this thread throughout the day, and they may merge posts with similar questions so we can answer them all in one place.
In the meantime, the AHR team is reviewing your questions and we’ll respond to them by 5 pm PST tomorrow (Oct. 19th).
**Please note that the team cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
122 replies
Seller_ZMQqvBsWfSwrF
Why was this system devised specifically to benefit high-volume sellers and provide them a larger buffer against violations than smaller sellers?
Seller_E2h1ARWxM8bte
Why create a health rating system that is far more complex than necessary, confusing, strikes fear into sellers, and far from intuitive?
Seller_OLrmR1FCiVRMF
I’d like to know what the high account rating “threshold” is for the Account Health Assurance program, and how we know if we are enrolled.
Also, could a high account health rating ever drop below the said “threshold,” and then you would be un-enrolled? For instance, if you had a very seasonal product, and your sales velocity dropped dramatically in some months (not because of any violation)?
If there aren’t answers yet to any of these questions, I’d love to know a rough timeline for when there will be.
Seller_cy9errRioq6yi
21 years of selling on Amazon and I have an AHR of 206. Why? Because I am not a mega seller is why. So I end up with no buffer and 2-3 strikes will take me out. Whereas the mega seller can just shrug it off and go on as it is nothing. This is not right for the smaller sellers like myself and many others. This needs to be adjusted to reflect evenly based on sales amounts. The more sales you make the more a metrics hit affects your AHR. I should not have to sell on Amazon in a constant state of just waiting for the hammer to come down on me and other sellers shouldn’t have to either. I try my best to be customer centric and provide a positive sales environment, 20+ years on here and I must have done something right. Please lighten up some on your low volume sellers so we do not have to live in a constant state of worrying if our account will be active when we get up the next day.
Seller_wGMKl5L4ju1kI
Given that the AHR Score is not intuitive:
- 200 is “good” even though it is just 1 point away from “at risk” and 800 points from the max score
- 1000 is the max but these “extra” (not violation recovery) points are only obtained through sales volume
The FAQ simply says:
Can the AHR Team update the FAQ with HOW MANY sales are required to increase to point thresholds so that forum posters can be directed to that information when they have questions about their number?
For example:
200 = baseline for all sellers with no violations and under 200 sales per 180 days.
204 = 200 sales in 180 days with no violations
250 = 2500 sales in 180 days with no violations
300 = 5000 sales in 180 days with no violations
400 = 10,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
500 = 15,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
600 = 20,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
700 = 25,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
800 = 30,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
900 = 35,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
1000 = 40,000 sales in 180 days with no violations
Seller_Fnfv2UKRup5rK
From Yesterday:
The issue with the “Low 200” score that I have is that, like every metric for sellers on AMZ, there is a lack of “transparency” and therefore, unease, in the perceived low number. I have had one metrics ding in a decade, and that was a long time ago. I still have that one negative feedback, from a customer who clearly did not follow the use instructions supplied with the product. The issue is that smaller Sellers always feel they are one mistake / irate customer away from a major business disruption. My initial reaction was that there was some mistake… But I read the metric explanation and accept it. But I am not comforted by it.
AMZ has quantified Account Health but there is no quantification of violations.
“…we assign a certain number of points to each policy violation based on the severity of the violation.”
Without further (i.e. concrete) examples of how many points a type of violation subtracts, sellers are left with yet another black box metric where we can see the input and output, but are not given insight into the algorithm used to do the calculation.
This is why the “Low 200” score is so unsettling to me despite perfect metrics for years. I am a small manufacturer and seller. There is no way my score will ever hit 225 probably, and yet I have a very nice comfortable business that is fulfilling to run and meets my and my customers’ needs.
Seller_Ri0SgMO3rxlYn
Why to design a system clearly made to support high volume sellers, while putting small businesses at a permanent risk, but keep insisting in a marketing strategy that uses small businesses as a flag?
It’s not a bit hypocritical to use small businesses to gain notoriety but then, inside closed doors, to set a Damocles Sword over their heads, where a simple bogus claim (that, guess what? happens everyday without any verification) can nuke a decades old account, while Alitrashers, dropshippers and big dogs have the leeway to shrug away many REAL violations without a real impact on their accounts?
I’m not holding my breath waiting for an answer.
