Version

Date updated

What’s changed?

3.3

May 2024

Updates to Section 2 to account for the new 80% Threshold Rule in “DC Stock availability and balancing”.

3.2

January 2024

Updates to Section 4 to account for new Average Account Return Rate and removal of the Not What I Ordered Rate (“NWIO”).

3.1

February 2022

Dead Stock SLA reduced to 40 days and 40 units in stock.

3.0

August 2021

Improved SLA frameworks with Next Steps, Calculations etc.

New  “DC stock availability and balancing” SLA introduce - this will take effect end of September 2021

2.1

March 2021

Dead Stock SLA has changed from 55 to 50 days stock along with a unit threshold. See DC Deliveries and Stock Management for more info.

Requirement

Deliver two successful replenishment shipments, one to each DC, within 7 days of each other AND attend the Leadtime Classroom.

Definition

“Successful” means each replenishment shipment must be delivered in full, with compliant packaging and labeling, and must arrive on time as per the scheduled booking slot.

View, track or manage performance

Each shipment must reflect on your Shipped Shipments page as “Closed Full Quantity” in addition to being delivered on-time. Track your quantity required, sent and received on the Shipped Shipments page.

Communication

You can expect an email within 1 business day of qualifying to inform you that your leadtime privileges have been activated.

Next steps

Once you have received your notification, you should go to your Manage My Offers page and insert your Leadtime Days and My Stock on Hand to activate your leadtime offers on takealot.com.

Penalty

Leadtime privileges will be withheld until requirements are met.

SLA

Dead Stock SLA (“Account Level Stock Cover”) 

Threshold

Account Level Stock Cover exceeds 40 days (across all products on average) and more than 40 units stored at Takealot’s DCs.

Definitions

“Stock days cover” refers to how many sales your current stock holding can supply  or “cover”. This is based on the historic sales of the product. Slow-moving stock is at the highest risk of high stock cover i.e. too much supply for the demand - and is considered to be “dead stock” when the stock cover is higher than 40 days.  

Calculation

Account level stock cover = (Total stock at Takealot /  Total sales for  the past 30 days) *30 days

Penalty

Breach of SLA may result in suspension of your replenishment capability and/or account suspension.

Takealot may create Removal Orders for excessive dead stock on your account.

View, track or manage performance

Review your Seller Performance Metrics sent weekly on Wednesdays to view your account performance. Should your account be at risk for escalated fees for high stock cover lines, you may receive an email to warn you about the costs associated should no action be taken.

Communication

Suspensions on Thursdays

Reactivations on Mondays and Thursdays depending on stock cover assessment.

Suspension - Reactivation

Thursdays (Suspensions & Reactivation) - Mondays ( Reactivation)

Next steps

Create a Removal Order for products with a high stock cover (or allow products to sell if secured for a promotion). Wait for the reactivation day (Monday/Thursday) for your privileges to be reinstated.

Dispute or appeal penalty

You can dispute this via the Seller Contact form.

SLA

Faulty Deliveries (“Inbound Exceptions”) 

Threshold

3%

Definitions

Inbound Exceptions may not exceed 3% of the total products delivered to a Takealot DC within a running 2 week period.

“Inbound Exceptions” refers to products that are short delivered (not sent) or do not meet our requirements and therefore cannot be scanned into the DC for storage or allocation to customer orders.

Calculation

Total shipments containing an inbound exception/Total shipments sent

Penalty

Breach of SLA may result in suspension of your leadtime privileges and/or account suspension.

View, track or manage performance

Review your Seller Performance Metrics sent weekly on Wednesdays to view your account performance.

Ensure your shipments comply with the Goods Shipping & Receiving Requirements. View the different types of inbound exceptions here.

Communication

First Breach - 1 week suspension

Second Breach - 2 week suspension

Third Breach - 1 month/indefinite suspension

Suspension - Reactivation

Thursdays (Suspensions) - Ad hoc (Reactivations - see Next Steps)

Next steps

1 - You can’t correct anything with immediate effect and you will need to wait out the suspension period.

2 - Inbound exceptions are communicated and managed via the Bookings System. You will need to arrange and book a collection of your Inbound Exceptions on the Booking System to avoid disposal of your products.

Depending on whether this is the first, second or third breach, you may need to submit a Plan of Action (“POA”) on how you will prevent future inbound exceptions or risk permanent suspension of your replenishment privileges.  

Dispute or appeal penalty

If you believe that your Inbound Exceptions have been recorded incorrectly against your account, you can dispute your metric via the Seller Contact form.

SLA

“DC stock availability and balancing”*

Threshold

80% of all in-stock offers must be available in both DCs

Definitions

Example: If 10 product offers are available to customers as in-stock, any 8 of those offers must be consistently available in both the JHB and CPT DC. 

Calculation

Count of products available in both DC's /Total count of products in-stock

Penalty

First breach - A warning will be issued to correct your stock balance by either creating a replenishment order and/or creating a removal order

Second breach - A final warning will be issued, to correct your stock balance by either creating a replenishment order and/or creating a removal order

Third breach - Replenishment capabilities will be suspended until your Stock balancing improves.

View, track or manage performance

Ensure your Draft Shipments are split between DCs before confirming your shipment.

Export your offers in the manage my offers page on the seller portal. This would provide a view of each product’s availability at the JHB and CPT DCs.

Communication

The view of this metric is included in the weekly performance metrics mailer.

If you have breached the threshold you will receive the following mailers:

First breach - A first warning will be issued

Second breach - A final warning will be issued

Third breach - Replenishment capabilities suspension

De/Reactivation Days

Weekly

Next steps

For the first and second breach:

• Create a replenishment order to balance the products which contribute to the threshold breach
• Or, create a removal order to remove the products which contribute to the threshold breach

For the third breach:

• Create a removal order to remove the products which contribute to the threshold breach

SLA

Customer Invoice Requests

Threshold

Average of no more than 2 business days to respond to a customer invoice request, measured over a period of 2 weeks

Definitions

Customers expect to receive feedback on requests in a timely manner. Delays on invoice requests create a bad customer experience.

Calculation

Average business days taken to respond to customer invoice request over 2 week period

Penalty

Failure to meet SLA may result in suspension of your seller account

View, track or manage performance

Customer invoice requests can be viewed on the Seller Portal Dashboard and via email requests when additional information is required. Ensure to close out customer requests at least every 2 days.

Communication

Ad hoc

Suspension - Activation

Any day (Suspension) - Any Day (Reactivation)
See Next steps.

Next steps

In the event that your account is suspended for outstanding invoice requests; process the requests on your Seller Portal and then respond to the communication sent by Compliance to confirm the action and request reactivation.

SLA

Product Return Rate

Threshold

This is category-specific and is measured against the average return rate of the product category.

Calculation

[Total number of units returned/total number of units sold] is more than [product category average on takealot.com] 

Penalty

Products that are in breach of SLA will be disabled for sale on takealot.com and will need to be removed from our DCs.

View, track or manage performance

Download and view the return reasons for all returns on the Returns page to ensure you are delivering quality products. Regularly review all product returns to ensure that only good quality products are buyable. If any “faulty” batches have been delivered (n-stock), disable the offer on your Manage My Offers page as soon as possible and create a Removal Order to uplift the stock.

Communication

Assessments occur weekly and we will reach out should your account be in breach.

Next steps

If your product has been deactivated due to high returns, it is not necessarily the end of the road. You can request Takealot to reactivate your product by following the three simple steps in this article.

SLA

Average Account Return Rate

Threshold

10% (based on specific calculations)

Definitions

High return rates for reasons “Not What I Ordered”  and “Damaged or defective” indicate a seller account that is not consistent in their customer promise. This is applicable for sellers trading for one month or more and is measured on an account level for the previous 6 months’ returns. The assessment is done once per week.

Calculation

Takealot calculates averages of specific rule sets to aggregate return activity on a seller account level. The following metrics are considered per account and measured against specific thresholds to ensure accounts are assessed fairly:

2) Sold product count

3) Average customer return count

4) Average product returns
5) Average product return rate

Penalty

Accounts in breach of SLA may be suspended and/or terminated.

View, track or manage performance

Download and view the return reasons for all returns on the Returns page to ensure you are delivering quality products.

Regularly review all product returns to ensure that only good quality products are buyable.

Communication

Assessments occur weekly and we will reach out should your account be in breach.

SLA

Confirming Leadtime Shipments

Threshold

Leadtime orders to be placed in a confirmed shipment within

2 business days from new order placement

Definitions

Waiting too long to batch orders into shipment places customer orders at risk of being delivered late or being cancelled. This risk is increased due to delivery slots at the DC filling up and courier constraints in times of high volumes.

This includes all leadtime orders and mixed shipments and is measured each day.

Calculation

Leadtime Order date + 2 business days = Leadtime Order in “Confirmed/Shipped Shipment”

If not, the your account will be flagged as Risky

Penalty

Accounts in breach of SLA may have leadtime privileges disabled.

View, track or manage performance

You can track all open leadtime orders on the New Leadtime Orders page.

Ensure to create shipments at least every 48 hours to include all leadtime orders.

Communications

1 - Warning sent (daily) by Inbound t for orders not within a Confirmed Shipment 3 business days after being ordered.

2 - If no action is taken, then a warning is sent 2 days prior to the due date by Compliance team.

3 - Leadtime suspension as per the suspension process, please see below.

Next steps

Place all products into a Confirmed Shipment. No response is required unless stated otherwise.

If the shipment will be late and the Customer Orders need to be delayed, inform our Inbound Receiving Team via the Contact Form - your SLA metric for “Late Leadtime Orders” will be affected but the customer orders will be fulfilled as long as the customer does not opt to cancel due to the delay.

SLA

Booking Leadtime Shipments

Threshold

Shipments containing leadtime orders to be booked on the Takealot Booking System 2 days in advance of shipment due date, at the latest.

Definitions

This includes all leadtime orders and mixed shipments and is measured each day.

Calculation

Shipment Due Date -  2 business days = Booking by Seller/Preferred Courier

If not, your account will be flagged as “Risky”.

Penalty

Accounts in breach of SLA may have leadtime privileges disabled

View, track or manage performance

You can track all open leadtime orders on the View Sales page

Create bookings or allocate shipments to couriers immediately after creating a shipment. Handover shipments to couriers as soon as possible to allow them to fulfill on time. Failure to book or allocate shipments in advance places customer orders at risk of being late and subsequently cancelled.

It is also important to consider the time it will take to deliver goods to the DC furthest from you. Book your shipments in advance to ensure you can secure a booking slot.

Communications

1 - Warning sent (daily) by the Inbound Team for orders not within a Booked Delivery slot on the Booking system

2 - If no action is taken, then warning sent 2 days prior to due date by Inbound Team

3 - Leadtime suspension as per the suspension process, please see below

Next steps

If your shipment has not been booked, do so immediately or reach out to your Preferred Courier where you have allocated the booking, but it has not been booked.

If the shipment will be late and the Customer Orders need to be delayed, inform our Inbound Receiving Team via the Contact Form - your SLA metric for “Late Leadtime Orders” will be affected but the customer orders will be fulfilled as long as the customer does not opt to cancel due to the delay.

SLA

Leadtime Order Cancellation

Threshold

1%

Definitions

The percentage of leadtime orders cancelled by your account due to oversells (no stock) or cancelled by Takealot because you have missed the delivery due date.

This is measured over a 2 week period for order cancelled with the “Cancelled by Seller” and “Cancelled by Takealot - Late” statuses.

Calculation

Total Cancelled Leadtime Orders/Total Leadtime Orders

Penalty

Breach of SLA may result in disabling of leadtime capability, and/or account suspension.

Please note a R50 (ex VAT) penalty will be charged for the cancellation of leadtime customer orders due to items being ‘out of stock’ or ‘late’. This penalty will be charged per unit cancelled and not per order.

View, track or manage performance

You can track orders by the cancellation reason on the View Sales page. Filter for cancelled orders in the  “Sale Status Column”. Alternatively, view the status of multiple orders by selecting an “Order Date” time period and clicking on “Export Sales Details” to download a more detailed report.

Ensure your SOH is kept up to date and that all shipments are delivered on time.

Keep an eye on your inbox for your Seller Performance Metrics.  

Communications

Warning

First Breach - 1 week suspension

Second Breach - 2 week suspension

Third Breach - 1 month suspension

Suspension - Reactivation Days

Thursdays (Suspensions & Reactivation)

Next steps

Follow the steps outlined in the email communications and address any operational issues that may be affecting your ability to fulfil orders.

SLA

Late Leadtime Orders

Threshold

2%

Definitions

The percentage of leadtime orders delivered late according to the due date of the orders (and not the shipment) for a 2 week period.

Calculation

Total Late Leadtime Orders/Total Leadtime Orders delivered

Penalty

Breach of SLA may result in disabling of leadtime capability,  and/or account suspension

View, track or manage performance

You can track your on-time and late deliveries on the Shipped Shipments page. Refer to the Due Date column for “Late” deliveries. Alternatively, view the status of multiple shipments by selecting these and clicking on “Download Shipment Details” to download a more detailed report.

Ensure that you are able to pick, pack, ship, book and deliver all shipments within the leadtime days you have selected.

Communications

Warning

First Breach - 1 week suspension

Second Breach - 2 week suspension

Third Breach - 1 month suspension

De/Reactivation Days

Thursdays

Next steps

Follow the steps outlined in the email communications and address any operational issues that may be affecting your ability to deliver on-time.