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Understanding Order Defect Rate (ODR)

Learn what Order Defect Rate measures, which orders can affect your ODR, and why maintaining a low defect rate is important for your seller account.

What Is Order Defect Rate?

Order Defect Rate (ODR) is a customer service performance metric used by Amazon to measure the percentage of orders that resulted in a poor customer experience.

Amazon calculates ODR based on orders with a defect compared with the total number of orders during the applicable measurement period. Amazon's Account Health guidance describes Customer Service Performance as being based on ODR.

What Can Cause an Order Defect?

An order may be considered defective when certain negative customer or order events occur, such as negative feedback or qualifying claims or chargebacks.

Because Amazon can update how individual metrics are calculated, sellers should use their Account Health dashboard as the authoritative source for their current ODR and the orders contributing to it.

Why Is ODR Important?

A high ODR indicates that customers are experiencing problems with your orders. Poor performance can put your selling privileges at risk.

For merchant-fulfilled sellers, common causes of customer dissatisfaction can include:

  • Incorrectly described items

  • Sending the wrong item

  • Poor packaging

  • Items arriving in worse condition than described

  • Order fulfillment problems

  • Poor communication with buyers

How to Check Your ODR

Go to:

Seller Central → Performance → Account Health → Customer Service Performance

Review the metric and investigate any orders contributing to your ODR.

How to Keep Your ODR Low

Accurately describe item condition, package orders carefully, keep inventory accurate, resolve customer concerns promptly, and regularly monitor customer feedback.

For used books and media, accurate condition grading is especially important because the buyer's expectations should match the condition of the item received.

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