Key Metrics to Track in Your Vendor Assessment Spreadsheet

Building an effective vendor monitoring system requires focus on metrics that directly impact operations and customer satisfaction. Create separate columns in your spreadsheet for each of the following critical data points:

Metric What to Track High-Risk Threshold
QC Failure Rate Number of failed quality inspections per total orders sampled.     5% failure rate or repeated failures on identical items.
On-Time Shipment Rate Percentage of orders shipped by the promised date. < 95% on-time rate or a pattern of increasing delays.
Customer Refund Rate Percentage of orders resulting in a refund or significant discount due to defects or non-conformance.     3% refund rate, significantly above platform average.
Communication Response Time Average hours/days to respond to critical inquiries. Consistently exceeding 48 hours for urgent issues.

How to Flag and Interpret High-Risk Patterns

Simply collecting data is not enough. Use conditional formatting and formulas in your spreadsheet to automatically highlight vendors of concern.

1. Flagging Repeated QC Failures

Use a formula to count failures over a rolling period (e.g., last 10 orders). A seller with 3 or more failures

2. Identifying Late Shipment Trends

Calculate the On-Time Shipment Rate

3. Calculating and Monitoring Refund Rates

Refund Rate = (Total Refunded Orders / Total Orders Shipped) * 100. Integrate this with customer review sentiment. A high refund rate coupled with negative reviews about product accuracy or damage is a major red flag for supplier reliability.

Building an Actionable Risk Dashboard

Consolidate your metrics into a summary sheet or dashboard that provides a risk score for each vendor. You can use a simple scoring system:

  • High Risk (Red Flag):
  • Medium Risk (Yellow Flag):
  • Low Risk (Green Flag):