What came back
COMPLIANCE AUDIT
Prepared for: Bright Cable Co.
Date: June 4, 2026
Here's your account health check based on what you provided.
1. Current status
Your account is active and in good standing, with no active enforcement notifications. Three of your four reported metrics are passing:
- On-Time Delivery Rate: 91% (standard: ≥90%) — passing, but with a thin 1-point margin.
- Valid Tracking Rate: 99.4% (standard: ≥99%) — passing.
- Cancellation Rate: 1.6% (standard: ≤2%) — passing.
- Return Rate: 6.8% (standard: ≤6%) — failing, currently 0.8 points over.
2. What's trending wrong and why it matters
Return Rate is the one metric out of standard right now, and it's worth taking seriously even though the account isn't showing a notification yet:
- Return Rate is a lagging, customer-experience indicator measured on a 60-day trailing window. That means the 6.8% you're seeing today reflects order activity from the past two months — it won't move quickly even if you fix the underlying cause today, and it will keep being pulled by returns already "in the pipeline."
- On-Time Delivery at 91% against a 90% floor is a thin margin, not a failure — but it's worth flagging because OTD is downstream of Late Shipment Rate (which you haven't reported). A modest dip in shipping timeliness could push OTD below standard.
- No notification appearing yet is consistent with a metric that has just crossed the line — Walmart's notification triggers can lag slightly behind the dashboard number, or this may not yet have crossed whatever internal threshold triggers formal notice. Worth monitoring, not alarming.
3. Prioritized fix list
1. Diagnose the Return Rate driver breakdown now. Pull the seller-accountable vs. non-accountable driver split from the Performance dashboard — the common causes are defective items, incorrect item shipped, damaged-in-transit, or late arrival driving refusal/return. The fix differs a lot depending on which one is concentrated.
2. Check for concentration. Is the 6.8% spread across your catalog, or clustered in one SKU, one supplier, or one ship node? A concentrated cause has a fast, targeted fix (e.g., pull a bad SKU, fix a packaging issue); a diffuse cause points to a broader QC or pick/pack process problem.
3. Tighten pick/pack accuracy and packaging if "incorrect item" or "damaged" are showing up as drivers — these are the two most controllable levers on Return Rate.
4. Review listing accuracy/sizing if "not as described" style returns are contributing — mismatched expectations are fully within your control to fix.
5. Shore up the OTD margin proactively. Since you're only 1 point above the floor, check your Late Shipment Rate and carrier/EDD alignment now, before a bad week pushes OTD under 90%.
4. What to monitor
- Return Rate weekly, understanding it will move slowly — frame recovery in weeks, not days, given the 60-day window.
- OTD daily, given the thin margin — this is the metric most at risk of a sudden slip.
- Late Shipment Rate and Negative Feedback Rate — you didn't report these, but they're directly relevant: Late Shipment is upstream of OTD, and Negative Feedback often moves alongside Return Rate for the same root causes. Pull both from the dashboard.
- Notification center, since a failing metric can generate a formal notice even without a status change yet.
One data gap to flag: I don't have your Late Shipment Rate, Seller Response Rate, Negative Feedback Rate, or Item Not Received Rate. Since Return Rate and Negative Feedback often share root causes, and Late Shipment feeds directly into your OTD margin, pulling those four would give a much fuller picture before this becomes a real problem.
Informational report for your account management. Not legal advice.