Amazon told sellers it would protect their account from fallout from the recent CrowdStrike IT outage, which CNN said had been described as “the largest IT outage in history” that could cost Fortune 500 companies alone over $5 billion in direct losses.
Pymnts noted that the CrowdStrike outage came just one day after the Amazon Prime Day, impacting shipping carriers. “The disruption impacted shipping giants UPS and FedEx, leading them to warn consumers about potential delays, which could impact merchants’ ability to meet their customers’ demand for fast and reliable delivery,” it reported.
Amazon’s August 2, 2024 announcement follows:
CrowdStrike IT Outage and Protecting Your Account Health
We understand that the recent CrowdStrike IT outage may have caused disruptions to your business and we are committed to mitigating any impact to your account health. We are currently working to exempt orders that appear to be related to the outage from inclusion in your Cancellation Rate (CR) and Late Shipment Rate (LSR). Over the coming weeks, if you receive A-to-z Guarantee Claims on orders impacted by the outage, we will also exempt those from your Order Defect Rate (ODR).
In spite of the proactive steps we are taking, you may still receive automated emails from Amazon prompting you to appeal any performance-related account restrictions you believe were caused by the CrowdStrike outage. If so, please include in your appeal a brief description of the scope of the impact to your business and how it was related to the outage.
For more information on how to appeal an A-to-z Guarantee claim, click here. To appeal a seller review, click here. We will review these on a case-by-case basis. As a reminder, if at any time you are not able to reliably meet customer expectations, we encourage you to change your Listings Status to Inactive on the Vacation Settings page, and resume Active status once your operations return to normal.
Thank you for your continued efforts to serve customers, and please continue to check the Forums for any additional updates.
