Understanding Order Defect Rate (ODR) and its effect on seller metrics

ODR (Order Defect Rate) is very essential for Walmart Sellers to understand as their seller metrics gets affected. Walmart Marketplace measures the performance of their sellers and maintains a Seller metrics of the Seller, as Walmart believes in improving customer satisfaction while making the selling process easier for all.

In the Walmart Seller Account, sellers are able to see their Seller Scorecard which gets updated bi-weekly. In order to maintain a good health of their account, sellers are required to maintain the following:

Understanding Order Defect Rate:

ODR is the number of orders with at least one defect divided by your total number of orders during the same time period. On Walmart Seller Panel the health of your Scorecard is calculated for the 90-Day ODR rate that is calculated for a time period ranging from  120 days ago to 30 days ago so that orders still within the return window are not included in your rate.

The Order Defect Rate includes the following:

• Cancellations
• Returns
• Delivery Defects
• Customer Complaints

NOTE: It is necessary to maintain the Order Defect Rate (ODR) <2% to do away with the fear of suspension.

How is Order Defect Rate calculated for different sellers?

Sellers gaining a large number of orders say 50 or more transactions over past 120 days are evaluated based on the previous three months. Whereas sellers with less number of orders say, less than 50 orders in 120 days or more on the platform are evaluated based on the previous 12-month period. Take reference from Walmart Knowledge base.

Types of Problems that come under the Order Defect Rate:

• Cancellation defects

Sellers cancel the Orders due to the following reasons:

• • Orders canceled because of an incorrect item/description/image
  • Orders canceled because of pricing error
  • Orders canceled because the item is out of stock

• Return defects

Sellers create order refunds  due to the following reasons:

• Item is damaged or defective.
• Item is not the same as it is described.
• Item has some missing part.

• Delivery defects

  This is when the Seller fails to deliver the product before the Expected Delivery Date.

• Customer complaints

  This is when customers buying your product contact Walmart complaining that the received item did not match their expectations.

If a seller gets successful in maintaining good ODR, he/she will be able to maintain the good health of his/her Seller Scorecard.

Other factors that need to be considered for Good Health of your Seller Scorecard:

On-Time Shipment

Every one of us wants the ordered product to be delivered before or on the expected date of delivery. If you fail often to deliver orders on the promised date then this will negatively impact your overall score.

Sellers are required to provide  Shipping details (tracking number and URL) to Walmart so that they can notify the buyer.

NOTE: An order is considered to be “shipped on-time” if customers receive the shipping confirmation on or before the expected shipping date (ESD).

Valid Tracking Rate

Sellers are required to provide orders with valid tracking information and delivery scan on or before the Expected Delivery Date so that customers can track the shipments.

If you fail to update the inventory, price on time, tracking number and URL on time to your Walmart Orders you need to get hold of a good integration solution that can help you in managing things in real-time. Cedcommerce provides the solution to integrate your Walmart Seller account with your Store so that the sellers may have a good selling experience on walmart.com.

How to Monitor Order Defect Rate?

You can easily monitor your performance and health of your ODR from Walmart Seller account. You should keep a track of your performance as Walmart has provided you with the “Insight & Analytics” section which helps you maintain your Order Defect Rate.

Under “Insight & Analytics” you will find:

• Summary Report
  Provides you the graphical view of your daily catalog performance, the top-selling product list, your item page views, and the average conversion rate.
  
  

• Seller Scorecard
  It provides you with the performance report of last 14 days and 90 days – Order Cancellation, Return Defects, Delivery Defects and Customer Complaints. You can easily download the report. The ODR trend graph and Performance of On-time Shipment Rate helps you in understanding where you need to improve.
  
  

• Fulfillment Insights
  It provides you the Breakdown report of your POs for last 30 days and 90 days.
  
  

How to Improve ODR?

It is a big question in every seller’s mind “How to improve the Order Defect Rate”. Sellers will get to know about their performance rate but the main concern is to improve the performance if seller has a  Poor Seller Scorecard, as continued bad performance may lead to account suspension.

Tips to Improve Your Performance:

• Setting Up for Success
  • Provide valid tracking number and tracking URL to all your orders.
  • Provide a valid customer support number and Email on your Seller Panel.
  • Get an integration solution provider who is the partner of Walmart Marketplace.

• Providing Quality Service
  • Ensure your product image and description is accurate and up-to-date.
  • Barcode you provide to your products must belong only to your products.
  • Keep your inventory updated on walmart.com so that you can avoid order cancellation.
  • Try to acknowledge, ship and delivery the order on time. This can be achieved by choosing a perfect solution provider to integrate your store and seller center.
  • Keep monitoring your performance by reviewing your Seller Scorecard on your seller center.

• Working with Customers
  • Try to resolve and answer all the inquiries of customers within 24 hours.

Make it a routine to check your seller scorecard and make yourself a good Walmart Seller, you can also contact Walmart team by creating a case from your seller center. If you will follow the above suggestions you will most definitely never have to face the account suspension phase.