Limeroad introduces incentive & penalty policy to keep seller standards in check

Quality customer experience is essential on every marketplace. At the same time, online sellers cannot be ignored. There is a way, however, for online shoppers to get the special treatment and top online sellers to keep their reputation and good will intact.

Limeroad has introduced a specialised incentive and penalty policy, through which it can maintain excellent seller standards and customer experience. The concept behind the policy is delivering excellent customer experiences through online sellers. An email from the Limeroad team informed sellers that the policy would be visible on the seller panel at the start of August and implemented from 16th August 2016.

How does it work?

According to the Limeroad incentive and penalty policy, online sellers are entitled to certain incentives for a job well done and penalties for weak performance.

The criteria for incentives:

• Get 1% of the order value when shipped on the same calendar day when the order was placed
• Get 0.3% of the order value when shipped on the next calendar day when the order was placed
• Receive payment settlement on the next day of order delivery instead of the standard 15 days, for this:

– Sellers must have no penalty for the last 2 months

– All of the sellers products on other marketplaces are also live on Limeroad

– Product prices are not higher on Limeroad and lower on other marketplaces

The criteria for penalties:

• Order cancellations due to manifest delays, out of stock or quality issues will attract a penalty of Rs. 250
• If product returns on account of the wrong product or defective/damaged products being exceed 1% per month, a penalty of Rs. 250 will be charged
• If product returns on account of quality issues exceed 5% in a month, a penalty of Rs. 250 will be imposed
• A penalty of Rs. 250 will be charged per short shipped unit
• Shipping delays beyond the SLA period will attract penalties (The shipping SLA is 1 calendar day, except for designer brands for which the SLA depends on the time taken for the manufacturing and designing of the product once the order is received.)

– 1 day delay will attract a penalty of 2.5% of the order value

– 2 day delay will attract a penalty of 5% of the order value

– 3 day delay will attract a penalty of 10% of the order value

– 4 day delay will attract a penalty of 50% of the order value

– 5 day delay will attract a penalty of 50% of the order value or Rs.500, whichever is higher. Also, the order will be cancelled.

Note – Limeroad specified that Sundays and national holidays will not add to delay days.

The incentive and penalty amounts will be considered at the time of calculating payments due to sellers. Accordingly, payment settlements will be made.

How will Limeroad ensure the returns made are authentic?

Limeroad informed sellers that all returns made will be verified and validated at the Limeroad warehouse. There the Limeroad quality check team will validate the returned goods through a stringent quality check process.

To ensure customers do not send cheap replacements or damaged goods again, they will be blocked. Limeroad says they have an internal process that blocks customers who return wrong products.

Likely hood of wrongful penalties?

1. In the event of delayed shipment of packaging material, will the seller be penalised?
2. Will the seller be penalised if the courier service delays pickups?

In case of the above situations, sellers must log on to the Manifest page on the Vendor Portal and inform Limeroad of the inability to dispatch orders. Once the input provided by the seller is validated, penalties will not be charged for delayed shipping.