Service Level Agreements

To ensure our customers receive the highest level of service and satisfaction, we’ve introduced several service level agreements (SLAs) that must be adhered to by our Partners.

Order processing and despatch timescales

All order items must be processed and despatched within the stated despatch time of your delivery service in order to meet the expected delivery date.

Despatch SLA will be monitored on a weekly basis and the compliance standard set out requires no more than 2% of orders to fail this SLA.

If you process and despatch order items outside of the service level agreement on a regular basis, this will be followed up as a compliance matter.

Despatch SLA Minimum performance: 98%

Orders you’ve dispatched on time and in accordance with the dispatch times you’ve provided. Calculated as a % of all items despatched by you.

Example score: 98.2% This means that 1.8% of orders therefore were despatched outside of SLA. If it were below 98%, compliance measures would be triggered.

Cancellation rates

You are able to use The Marketplace Platform to cancel order item(s) which you are unable to fulfil due to stock availability, if you cannot contact the customer to arrange delivery, or if you are unable to deliver to a specific address.

To avoid any excessive cancellations of order items, stock availability should not be overstated for any of your available products. An accurate stock availability figure for all your products is essential in order to maintain performance against this service level agreement.

Cancellations by you of order items will be monitored on a weekly basis and the standard set out below requires that no more than 1% of items ordered from you should be cancelled due to no stock available. Such scenarios lead to serious customer disappointment as they have been able to order items which are then subsequently cancelled.

Cancellations by you of order items due to being unable to contact the customer to arrange delivery or unable to deliver to a specific address are not included in this service level agreement calculation.
If your cancelled items as a proportion of all items ordered are above 1% on a regular basis, this will be followed up as a compliance matter.

Cancellation Rate Maximum limit: 1%

Where you cancel an item from an order due to lack of stock Calculated as a % of all items ordered

Example score: 1.4% This means that 1.4% of all items ordered were cancelled by you. As the score is above 1%, compliance measures would be triggered.

Returns %

In order to adhere to the standards set out and to avoid any excessive item returns, it is the responsibility of the supplier to ensure items are sent to the customer in appropriate packaging to avoid potential damages.

It is also the responsibility of the supplier to ensure the courier(s) they use to deliver items do so in a safe and responsible manner to avoid damages upon delivery resulting in either refusal of delivery or subsequent return of goods to us by the customer.

Returns are monitored on a weekly basis and the standard set out below requires no more than 4% of items should be returned.

If returned items as a proportion of all items despatched are above 4% on a regular basis, this will be followed up as a compliance matter.

Returns Rate Maximum limit: 4%

Where a customer returns an item to us that you fulfilled Calculated as a % of all items despatched by you.

Example score: 4.1% This means that 4.1% of all items despatched were returned. As the score is above 4%, compliance measures would be triggered.

If you require enhanced details on returns, our Range Marketplace team will be happy to work with you to provide this so that you can utilise this information constructively and make efforts to reduce the number of returns being generated.

Stock availability

You must at all times ensure you provide us with up-to-date accurate stock availability information. You can provide us this information via API (highly recommended) or alternatively by manually updating each product within the Range Marketplace system.

We monitor your stock availability on a weekly basis and the standard set out below requires that no more than 4% of your active products should be out of stock at any one time.

If stock availability falls below 96% on a regular basis, we will discuss with you the current range of products and their availability so that where appropriate, we can develop a more reliably available product range.

Stock Availability Minimum performance: 96%

Your lines that are currently available to purchase (i.e. in stock) Calculated as a % of all items that we list in the Range Marketplace system as active lines

Example score: 99.1% This means 0.9% of lines therefore do not currently have any stock available. As the score is above 96% it is acceptable. If it were below 96%, compliance measures would be triggered.