Facebook Upping Seller Standards, Account Health Program

The Wild West days of selling on Facebook and Instagram may be coming to an end as Meta announces a new Account Health program to hold sellers to performance standards.

As part of our continued effort to provide the best experience for buyers and sellers, we’ve updated and improved the way we evaluate Account Health. The new program will launch soon.

Every month, your shop will be evaluated to determine how well it’s complying with our Commerce Eligibility Requirements and new Seller Performance Standards. Meeting these requirements and standards helps you offer customers the best shopping experience. Customers who have a good buying experience are twice as likely to purchase from you again.

There are three Account Health evaluations you can receive:

• Good: Meets all Commerce Eligibility Requirements and Seller Performance Standards
• Needs Improvement: Meets some Commerce Eligibility Requirements and Seller Performance Standards
• Requires Action: Doesn’t meet Commerce Eligibility Requirements and/or Seller Performance Standards
  
  

A Requires Action evaluation may result in restrictions on selling. Shops with a Good evaluation may become eligible for rewards in 2023.

If your shop’s evaluation is Needs Improvement or Requires Action, we’ll provide guidance on steps you can take to improve your shop’s performance. If you feel an evaluation is inaccurate, we’ll explain how you can request a review via Account Health.

Facebook will be looking at cancellations, claims and chargebacks, product ratings and seller feedback, and late handling and delivery times for Seller Standards evaluations:

Seller Performance Standards are based on the following metrics:

• Seller-Initiated cancellations: The percentage of orders that were canceled by you or someone on your team. This doesn't include cancellations requested by customers. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of seller-initiated cancellations by the number of orders placed.
• Claim escalation rate: The percentage of orders that resulted in a customer opening a claim with Meta. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of orders resulting in a claim by the number of orders placed.
• Chargeback rate: The percentage of orders that resulted in a customer disputing a charge with their financial institution and getting a refund. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of orders resulting in a chargeback by the number of orders placed.
• Average product rating: The lifetime average rating of all products in this shop, based on verified reviews collected by Meta.
• Late handling time: The percentage of orders not marked as shipped within your specified handling time. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of orders with late handling by the number of orders placed.
• Late delivery: The percentage of orders that were not delivered to customers within the estimated number of delivery days. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of orders delivered late by the number of orders placed.
• Negative feedback rate: The percentage of verified purchase product ratings in this shop below 3 stars. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of ratings lower than 3 stars by the total number of ratings received in the last 56 days.

The evaluation will be updated daily and will be viewable in the Account Health tab in Commerce Center. Sellers who don't meet standard may face reduced visibility for their shops; restrictions on sending marketing emails, creating discounts or launching products; or in some cases a total restriction on selling at all.

Depending on your evaluation, you’ll see one of the following messages:

• Good: Your account meets all Commerce Eligibility Requirements and Seller Performance Standards.
• Needs Improvement: Your account meets some Commerce Eligibility Requirements and Seller Performance Standards. If you receive this evaluation, you can make improvements to get back to an evaluation of Good.
• Requires Action: Your account doesn’t meet Commerce Eligibility Requirements and/or Seller Performance Standards. You will have a 30 day window to request a review through the Account Health tab prior to restrictions on selling going into effect.
  
  

What features may be restricted

If your Account Evaluation has a Requires Action evaluation and an appeal is not successful, you’ll lose access to the following commerce features until your evaluation improves:

• Visibility in the Facebook and Instagram Shop tab: Customers won’t be able to see your shop or products on Facebook or Instagram.
• Mailing list: You won’t be able to set up marketing email opt-in at checkout for your customers.
• Discounts: You won’t be able to create any new special offers like discount codes or price markdowns. Any active or scheduled discounts will run the duration of your campaign.
• Product launches: You won’t be able to schedule any new product launches. Any active or scheduled launches will run the duration of your campaign.
• Visibility in shop recommendations for customers: Your shop won't be recommended to new customers on Facebook or Instagram.
• Open orders: In some cases, the number of open orders you can have may be reduced.
• Selling: In some cases, your shop may be restricted from selling items.

Facebook has come under fire from buyers and sellers alike for lack of customer support, which raises some concerns and questions about how well this new seller standard program will be executed.

Will Facebook apply these seller standards fairly across the board? Will sellers be able to appeal strikes against their accounts?

Let us know what you think of Facebook's new Account Health program in the comments below!