Quality of the product not as expected

Quality Control Amazon added 3,700 new sellers every day in 2021, according to research firm Finbold. This growth has been accelerated by the pandemic and consumer’s continued shift towards e-commerce: 74% of US shoppers now start their product search on Amazon. Clearly, Amazon is an important channel for retailers not just in the US but all over the world, as Amazon currently operates 16 marketplaces covering key global markets. Success on Amazon depends largely on customer reviews and feedback, which means having safe and quality products that meet shopper’s expectations. Some common quality issues include faulty products, products not working as expected, missing parts and damage to the product. When it comes to product quality and safety, Amazon sellers must comply with Amazon’s own policies and applicable regulatory standards for their destination market. So, what are the requirements sellers must meet, and how can this be achieved? Let’s explore. Amazon’s quality requirements Amazon measures Order Defect Rate (ODR): the percentage of a seller’s orders on which customers reported a problem with the product. Amazon sellers must keep their ODR Amazon places additional restrictions on Restricted products that are not prohibited require approval. Amazon asks sellers to provide documentation proving that the product is safe, authentic and meets any requirements set by Amazon or by law. Global regulatory standards Amazon’s policy is that the seller must ensure their product...

Visa Reason Code 13.3: Defective or Not as Described Merchandise/Services Card networks like Visa have created a breakdown of the acceptable reasons for a customer to dispute a credit card transaction. Each of these has a designated “reason code,” and banks assign the appropriate code to each case to indicate why the dispute occurred. With that in mind, let’s take a look at Visa Reason Code 13.3: Not as Described or Defective Merchandise or Services. This reason code is assigned to consumers wishing to file a chargeback for defective product. It is very similar to: What is Visa Reason Code 13.3? Chargeback reason code 13.3 is an updated version of legacy reason code 53, which was phased out under the Visa Claims Resolution initiative. This code applies when a cardholder reports that the actual merchandise received (or service provided) differs greatly from the written or verbal description provided at the time of purchase. Other reasons for an "item not as described chargeback" can include damaged or defective merchandise, as well as disputing the quality of the merchandise or service. Essentially, reason code 13.3 chargebacks can happen whenever the quality of what the cardholder ended up with is lower than what was expected. This can be the result of innocent merchant Customers Filing Under False Claims? “Not as described” chargebacks are often friendly fraud. Click to learn more. Merchant Errors, Rights & Limitations Chargebacks of any kind are nothing but trouble for m...

The bathtub curve is typically used as a visual model to illustrate the three key periods of product failure rate and not calibrated to depict a graph of the expected behavior for a particular product family. It is rare to have enough short-term and long-term failure information to actually model a population of products with a calibrated bathtub curve, so estimations are made using reliability modeling. There are three primary phases of semiconductor product lifetime: • Early life failure rate (or infant mortality): This phase is characterized by a relatively higher initial failure rate, which decreases rapidly. • Normal life: This phase consists of a relatively constant failure rate, which remains stable over the useful lifetime of the device. The failure rate is described in units of "FITs", or alternatively as a "Mean Time Between Failures" (MTBF) in hours. • Wearout phase: This represents the point at which intrinsic wear-out mechanisms begin to dominate and the failure rate begins increasing exponentially. The product lifetime is typically defined as the time from initial production until the onset of wear-out. Half the fails happen before T50; the other half after T50. Used mostly in statistical treatment of failure distributions. If the fail times are normally distributed, then T50 is the same as MTTF. MTBF (Mean Time Between Fails) = [t1 + (t2- t1) + (t3 – t2) ….(tm – tm-1) ]/m = tm/m MTBF is the average time between successive failures. MTBF is used for repairabl...

Amazon sellers in the west have remained loyal to Chinese factories on the basis of consistent quality at low costs. That said, no two Chinese manufacturers are the same. Generally, a factory that specializes in a single product category is easily able to meet performance standards expected in western countries. Their staff has a well-rounded understanding of the product, and a singular focus increases the likelihood of receiving top quality products. Partnering with a Chinese factory that has experience manufacturing your product can go a long way in avoiding quality-related disputes. Price, years in business, and recommendations from a trusted business contact; these are all convincing reasons that may propel you to choose a factory that makes a broad range of products. Make sure you do your due diligence and take a closer look at quality indicators before entering into an agreement. In this post, we look at what to keep in mind when reviewing a Chinese factory and how to deal with quality-related disputes. Audits are necessary A factory’s quality control process may look great on paper but your final product may disappoint you. Another factory may not appear to have the quality control processes you were anticipating but manages to meet or exceed your product expectations. How do you tell the two businesses apart when checking for quality? • Make inquiries about the manufacturer, determine its reputation in your product category. • Don’t trust that everything is fine. J...

History The Five Product Levels model was developed by , was voted one of the 50 best business books of all time in the mid-1990s by the Financial Times. Before Kotler, marketing existed within a silo, the marketing department. Kotler was instrumental in making marketing an organization-wide activity. What is a Product? For Kotler, the definition of a product goes way beyond being a physical object or a service. He defines a product as anything that can meet a need or a want. This means that even a retail store or a customer service representative is considered a product. The model considers that products are a means to an end to meet the various needs of customers. The model is based on there being three ways in which customers attach value to a product: • Customer Need: the lack of a basic requirement. • Customer Want: a specific requirement for a product or service to meet a need. • Customer Demand: a set of wants plus the desire and ability to pay to have them satisfied. Customers will choose a product based on their perceived value of it. The customer is satisfied if the product’s actual value meets or exceeds their expectations. If the product’s actual value falls below their expectations they will be dissatisfied. What are the Five Product Levels? The Five Product Levels are given in the diagram below: Let’s consider each of the levels in turn. 1. Core Benefit The core benefit is the fundamental need or wants that the customer satisfies when they buy the product. Fo...

No one likes product defects, including your supplier. How can you, as an importer, make sure you're addressing product quality issues directly? How much money do you lose on each product shipment due to customer returns? How much time do you waste fixing defective goods to make them ready for distribution? And how many suppliers have you worked with that you wish would take serious steps to reduce or prevent the quality defects that are hurting your bottom line? It’s obvious to most of us in the fields of manufacturing, importing and SCM theheadaches that quality defects can bring. But how can you, as an importer, address product quality issues with your supplier directly? How can you get the factory to truly change their processes to make a better product? And how can you accomplish this in a way that improves your relationship with your supplier, instead of hurtingit? Acting as an intermediary between importers and suppliers for years, we’ve seen all kinds of quality issues and the ways importers have tried–some more successfully than others–to mitigate them ( related: How Experienced Importers Limit Product Defects in 3 Stages [eBook]). Here are three keysto addressing product quality issues with your supplier: 1. Be specific in addressing product quality issues Most importers mistakenly think that being “specific” about product quality simply means telling their supplier which defects are not acceptable. But actually, being specific extends beyond the problem to propo...

I am wondering if there is a word for a product that does not meet the expected quality. Something like a 'below average product', but that does not feel correct so I was hoping for a better word. In this specific case it is about a refurbished product, which is sold for a lower price than the regular product. So it is the same product (it is even tested to comply with standards), which could retail for a slightly lower price. In context it could be something like this: People assumed that the refurbished product was of ___ quality. What would be a word for a product that is below the expected level of quality? I think the word substandard might be a good fit. Some • Failing to meet a standard; below standard. • Of inferior quality; not meeting the minimum quality requirements. • Less than the normal standard. • falling short of some prescribed norm • below the usual or required standard ( As an example usage, blogger Christopher Scott wrote: Operating a business based on hiring and employing the lowest-cost worker, however, usually results in The weird thing is that "below par" is a golfing phrase, and being below par is a good thing. It means you've completed the hole using fewer strokes. I think this is an example of a confused metaphor. A bit like how people have misheard the cricket phrase "off his own bat" (meaning to score runs when you were the batting player) and it's become "off his own back", meaning to do something of your own volition. @JonathonCowley-Thom Whi...

Recently I read an article that calls for Many companies that develop & purchase products wonder how to minimize the risk of a forced recall, which can be extremely expensive. And my advice is simple: Put more effort into assuring the quality and the reliability of your products and it will greatly contribute to their safety. Let’s unpack these three concepts. A) What is product safety? A safe product does not harm its users. Typical metrics are the number of incidents and the number of near-miss incidents. (These metrics can only be assessed when it is too late, unfortunately. Users have already been affected. Preventively, safety professionals tend to quantify risks and work on reducing them.) Let’s take an example. This product led to a The US CPSC website, as well as the EU Brands and retailers usually send samples to a compliance Poor safety, in such an example, usually comes from: • Poor understanding of users (i.e. how will they use it?) • Poor definition of requirements (e.g. ‘nothing that can cut a finger/hand can be detached unintentionally’, which would be translated into technical requirements for the type of materials, for the tolerances, and for the attachment mechanisms), which of course relate closely to CPSC regulations • Poor testing of the requirements (e.g. after opening & closing 1,000 times, all the dangerous components still stay well in place, and they haven’t got to the point where the blades are dull and the user has to make moves that are not des...

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