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8 Amazon Seller Metrics You Need, Should and Must Track

There is a formula that always works: tracking Amazon sales leads to more Amazon sales.

That’s because your sales data pictures your audience’s buying behaviors. You discover what they like or don’t like to buy and which items are selling better than others. With this knowledge, you can adjust your Amazon business strategy to boost sales.

BUT! Amazon Seller Central pours so much data your way that it can be difficult to know what’s important and what’s not (tracking everything is nearly impossible).

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the 8 most important Amazon seller metrics you must track to understand your performance on the platform truly.

1. Product Ranking

People can’t buy your product if they don’t see it. And since around 61% of online shoppers use Amazon search when trying to find a product, where your product appears in that search results matters a lot!

Product ranking is an Amazon seller metric that shows where your product appears when buyers search for it. If you don’t generate enough sales, the issue’s root might be just here.

On the contrary, if your product rankings are high, but you’re not making enough sales, then you most probably need to review your pricing strategy or overall attractiveness of your products.

Amazon product ranking is updated frequently and can be a major contributor to the success or failure of your Amazon business. This No. 1 visibility metric is the first point in your journey to get more sales.

How to Improve Product Ranking?

High product rankings result from Amazon keyword optimization, positive customer reviews, constant sales, and other tactics proving Amazon you’re a reliable seller. So, if you want your products to rank high, focus on Amazon SEO and customer satisfaction.

2. Order Defect Rate (ODR)

Amazon Return Policies guarantee buyers they can return their purchases if unsatisfied – an essential trust factor for online shoppers.

However, Amazon does not like to see many products returned and emphasizes the order defect rate (ODR). This Amazon seller metric shows how many orders from your offer have been returned or marked as defective. 

The product is considered defective if…

• A buyer makes an A-Z guarantee claim.
• There is a chargeback request from the buyer.
• Your product gets a 1-2 stars review after the purchase.

Whenever your ODR surpasses 1%, you risk being punished by Amazon. It can suspend you or even close your seller account. So, be careful!

How to Lower ODR?

You should identify the reason behind the return request at any cost, as that’s the only way to lower your ODR.

Usually, Amazon includes the customer’s provided return reason in the notification email. Read it carefully and take appropriate actions to prevent similar cases from happening in the future.

You can also check Reports -> Fulfillment -> Customer Concessions -> Returns to get a comprehensive list of all returned orders and their reasons.

It’s always better to take a break and inspect your inventory and product quality rather than risk suspension or account closure.

3. Inventory Performance Index

An inventory performance index is a weekly refresh metric that measures the health of your inventory. It’s calculated based on your sales levels during the previous three months, inventory levels and costs that allow Amazon to determine how well you manage your inventory supply.

IPI is a 0-1,000 scale index and you should aim for the highest possible score.

• An IPI of 450 and more is considered acceptable.
• More than 550 IPI is an excellent Amazon sales metric that is desirable to have.
• If the IPI score drops below 350, Amazon might take action and suspend your seller account, considering it risky.

An inventory performance index is a comprehensive metric that might flag any selling issues or inefficiencies reducing your sales. Aside from the risk of Amazon punishments, a low IPI score will directly result in decreased sales and profits.

How to Improve the Inventory Performance Index?

The most tried and tested strategies for improving IPI score include…

• reducing excess inventory
• ensuring you always have enough stock of your good-selling products
• continuously improving your sell-through rate

4. Unit Session Percentage Rate

The unit session percentage (USP) rate shows the percentage of people who have visited your product page and eventually made a purchase. This metric is one of the most important Amazon seller metrics, as it shows how engaging your products are. 

If your listings are not properly prepared to convert potential buyers, high product rankings won’t help your sales.

Usually, 12% is considered to be a good USP rate. Anything below 7% is too low and might indicate something wrong with your listings, product pricing or delivery terms, resulting in potential buyers not being converted into customers.

Around 7% can be considered an acceptable rate if you’re a private-label seller with a high customer retention rate.

As you might guess, a unit session percentage is the key conversion seller metric on Amazon. It’s one of the best indicators of your products’ attractiveness and convertibility.

How to Improve Unit Session Percentage?

Hardly invest in how attractive are your Amazon listings.

• Make eye-catchy visuals of your product.
• Write a killing copy for product description parts.
• Check if any competitor’s products offer better features or better pricing to ensure you’re offering customers the best value.

5. Product Reviews

Stats show that positive reviews increase sales by 20% on average, increasing customers’ trust in your product and brand. Meanwhile, an item with reviews has around 65% more chances to be sold than an item without reviews.

So, continuously tracking your desired 5-star rating and collecting customer reviews is one of the most important Amazon seller metrics to measure your products’ performance and identify customers’ needs and preferences.

Product reviews can be checked individually for each ASIN, but the accumulated data is also collected in Amazon’s brand catalog manager to have the big picture of your brand’s performance.

How to Improve Product Reviews?

Perhaps, boosting positive product reviews is one of the most complex tasks for Amazon sellers, as getting humans’ reactions is highly unpredictable. Here are some tips that might help you to increase the number of positive reviews:

• Automate Thank You emails.
• Make sure your product quality meets the customers’ expectations.
• Reach out to reviewers who have left negative comments and address their issues.
• Offer incentives, discounts or gifts for leaving honest reviews.
• Provide excellent customer service.

Note that Amazon will not let you delete negative product reviews unless the customer wants to do it or Amazon finds the review vulgar or obscene. So, do your best not to get bad product reviews in the first place.

6. Pre-Fulfillment Cancellation Rate

The pre-fulfillment cancellation rate is the percentage of people who had canceled their order before it was shipped to them. For example, if 100 people purchased your product and 40 canceled the order, you have a 40% pre-fulfillment cancellation rate.

This Amazon seller metric is very important as it often indicates potential issues with your products or listings, such as misleading advertising, pricing inconsistency, delivery terms or product description inaccuracies. It can also indicate customer service issues or that a seller marks certain products available for sale when they’re not in stock.

The accepted threshold for this Amazon seller metric is 2.5%. If your pre-fulfillment cancellation rate exceeds this level, it’s time to take a closer look at your product listings and customer service management.

How to Improve Pre-Fulfillment Cancellation Rate? 

As simple as it may sound, the key improvement tactic is always ensuring you have enough stock of the items you display in your Amazon listings. 

Also, ensure that the product descriptions are accurate and that your ads communicate all essential information about each product, including pricing, delivery terms, sizes and colors available, etc.

In short, be honest and consistent in all communications with your customers.

7. Fulfillment Performance

Fulfillment performance can be described as one of the accumulative Amazon seller metrics that considers order defect rate, pre-fulfillment cancellation rate and the rate of late shipments.

While keeping the above-mentioned thresholds for the first two metrics, sellers should also ensure they do not have more than a 4% of late shipment rate. Otherwise, the overall performance of their business will be downgraded.

Fulfillment performance is a general indicator of how well your business is managed and monitored. It shows whether you are able to keep up with the demands of customers, handle inventory properly and ensure timely product delivery.

So, if you don’t want to go into many details and track every seller metric separately, you can regularly check your account’s fulfillment performance section and make sure it stays in the acceptable range.

How to Improve Fulfillment Performance?

Nothing new here. An accurately organized inventory and well-timed product delivery are the only two guarantees for a good fulfillment performance.

Ensure you have enough stock of your items; consider using Amazon inventory management software to keep track of the stock levels and set realistic expectations for delivery times.

8. Buy Box Percentage

Lastly, let’s take a look at the buy box percentage metric. The buy box is the white box on the right of a product page where customers can add items to their cart and purchase them.

This Amazon seller metric shows how frequently your product appears in the buy box, that is how often your product gets purchased. It’s an important metric as it can significantly impact your sales and brand reputation.

If your buy box percentage is low, your risk seeing a decline in your account visit rate as customers will be more likely to purchase products from other sellers.

How to Improve the Buy Box Percentage?

You must be a preferred Amazon seller to increase your chances of appearing in the buy box. This means you must have a good account performance, provide competitive pricing and offer excellent customer service.

Every customer’s positive experience with you counts regarding buy box percentage. Your buy box percentage will also increase whenever the number of positive reviews exceeds the number of negative ones.

Also, though not mandatory, running your business through Amazon FBA can help you win the buy box.

How to Track Amazon Sales Metrics Effectively? SellerMobile Can Help!

Here’s how your Amazon data flows through the platforms before it reaches you in an insightful form.

• Step 1: Everything happening in your Amazon account is recorded and transferred to Amazon Seller Central.
• Step 2: Amazon Seller Central groups and categorizes raw data into corresponding Amazon seller metrics.

And if you want to go a step further and turn those Amazon seller metrics into insightful suggestions, add the third step.

• Step 3: You link SellerMobile – a specialized Amazon sales analytics software, to your Seller Central account and get real-time notifications and improvement suggestions even without logging in.

Why Is SellerMobile a Must for Amazon Tracking?

SellerMobile frees you from the headache of analyzing and interpreting Amazon data. It automatically identifies the areas you need to work on and provides helpful advice on how to do it.

For example, SellerMobile’s inventory analytics tool regularly updates you on your sell-through rate, meanwhile hinting at your lost revenue and inventory stock risks. This way, you always know when to act and how to start selling more.

Want to ensure you’re always stocked to meet customer demand and increase fulfillment performance? No problem! SellerMobile will send you short notifications when you need to replenish your inventory and which items need to be restocked. 

And yes! If, after all these efforts, any customer happens to be unhappy with your product or customer service, SellerMobile will instantly alert you to see the negative review, take appropriate action and fix the problem. 

You can get peace of mind that even without manual tracking, you will always know what’s going on in your Amazon business and how to improve it.

Bottom Line

So, you know the key Amazon seller metrics you need to track and the industry-leading software to help you do it accurately.

All that’s left to you? Do a puzzle and merge these two to get a comprehensive insight into your Amazon business performance and make informed decisions!