Hi,
I know that when you are new seller, Amazon keeps back 58% of your revenue. Is there a general time period for this? How long does it go on for roughly? I’m hoping no more than 6 months, but maybe it has to go by a number of factors to do with our seller account? i.e if there has been no negativity and we go by the book etc.
Be glad of your help:)
I know you’ve posted in the Amazon Pay forum, but are you actually talking about Amazon Pay which would be the system you use for online transactions on your own website? Or are you talking about the reserve that is applied to your account from the sales you make on one of Amazon’s marketplaces?
Sorry yes, what you say here is what I am meaning ‘Or are you talking about the reserve that is applied to your account from the sales you make on one of Amazon’s marketplaces? ’
Ok. I’ve never seen that 58% figure you mentioned. Amazon’s guidance on the reserve is copied below:
Summary
What is unavailable balance?
It is a normal part of selling on Amazon to see an Unavailable Balance on your Payments Report. The Unavailable Balance is the amount of money that is reserved to ensure that you have enough funds to fulfil any claims or chargebacks.
If you have an Unavailable Balance, it will appear in the Closing Balance section of the Statement View tab on your Payments report . Go to the Account Health page in Seller Central to learn more about the reason for your Unavailable Balance.
Common reasons for an Unavailable Balance
- Awaiting order delivery
We might reserve money from an order until we know that the buyer received the order in the promised condition. This ensures that you have enough funds to fulfil any claims or chargebacks.
Find out more about payments based on delivery date .
- A-to-z Guarantee claims
When an A-to-z Guarantee claim is filed, the claim amount will be reserved until the claim is resolved. Some claims can take up to 14 days or longer to resolve, but the reserve will be released once the claims have been processed.
- Chargebacks
Money might be reserved if your account has any chargebacks from transactions in the last 30 days. The reserve will be released once the chargebacks have been processed.
- Seller performance
Money might be reserved if performance metrics fall below our benchmarks. Lower metrics frequently indicate a higher likelihood of claims, chargebacks and returns.
- Account review
We might reserve funds if we notice an unexpected change in your sales or account activity, or if you are a new seller with estimated delivery times that are longer than your settlement period.
Multiple reasons for Unavailable Balance can be applied at the same time. For example, if an order for £40 is awaiting delivery and an order for £20 has an open A-to-z Guarantee claim, the Unavailable Balance from those two orders would be £60.
Ok, Thank you for your help. I think I saw another seller mention it on this forum previous. I guess there was no timeline mentioned, so I thought I would ask.