How long does an Amazon Seller Account stay ‘At Risk’?

Your Amazon account is important to your business. Not only is it a platform where you can sell your products, but it’s also a source of  income. So, what happens when your account shows it is at risk? How long will it be at risk? Let’s take a look.

Amazon Account Health Rating

First, it’s important to understand that there is a new Amazon account health rating system. This is implemented on some accounts, but not all (at the time of writing).

If your account health dashboard shows a number for account health rating, you are on the new system.‍

Both systems show your account as ‘At Risk’ of a suspension when you receive too many policy violations, under the Policy Compliance section. Your seller account may also show at risk when you have an issue with a performance metric. You should be able to read the notice in Seller Central to understand which one is causing your Amazon Seller account to be ‘At Risk’

When will I receive an account deactivation?

You may receive an Amazon suspensions at anytime, but for sellers with a number rating, you usually are at risk when your rating is below 200 and you are likely to be suspended below 100. The policy violations and complaints in your account contribute towards lowering your score.

Customer complaints, product detail page issues or counterfeit products all cause violations and complaints in Seller Central and reduce your score. In most cases you can avoid receiving these violations, but sometimes when selling on Amazon it’s hard to avoid complaints, as you can receive unfair complaints or errors against your Amazon account. Certain categories are more prone to issues, especially issues like brand owner complaint, where you may need to consider professional advice to protect your seller account.

If you address the violations and therefore your score improves, then you can continue selling on Amazon without a suspension.

How can Amazon Sellers fix an ‘At Risk’ Seller account?

Firstly, you’re best preventing an at risk Amazon seller account in the first place. That’s why our service at Seller Assurance is designed to work in your account, responding to listing complaints and violations, either from Amazon or Amazon Customers, so that your account does not have any compliance issues and you can keep on selling.

The following steps explain how an ‘At Risk’ account is resolved:

A) You successfully appeal or resolve a violation and it is removed from your account health as a result

B) 180 Days pass since you receive the violation and it is automatically removed by Amazon

C) The violation remains, but over time your fulfilled orders contribute to improve your account health rating and the status improves to ‘Good or Healthy’

In addition to improving, your account could also change to say ‘Unhealthy’ which means you may be suspended soon or you have already had your selling privileges removed. This will happen if you receive more policy violations, you fail to address violations you have received, or your sales decrease significantly; or a combination of all three.

As you can see, the route to a healthy seller central account is to either address the issues you have successfully (which means to prove that the violation or complaint is false via providing invoices or a plan of action), or for your sales to outpace the rate you receive a violation. Amazon add points to your score for successfully fulfilled orders – so higher sales volume leads to a healthier account.