Eliminate expired orders

An expired order is one that has been cancelled by Amazon because you have not fulfilled or confirmed shipment for an extended period of time after the order date. It’s important to avoid order expiry. When you let an order expire, it results in an extremely poor buyer experience.

If expired orders are negatively affecting your pre-fulfillment cancel rate, here are some steps you can take to avoid them:

• Don't rely on order confirmation emails. These can be accidentally deleted or blocked by your spam filter. Instead, check your orders in Manage Orders.
• Fine-tune your fulfillment processes to ensure you don't lose track of orders.
• Always cancel an order as soon as you know that you will be unable to fulfill it. Buyers may be more forgiving if you cancel immediately rather than after the expected ship date. Follow up the cancellation with an apology to the buyer.
• Set your listing status to "inactive" if you are going on vacation or are temporarily unable to manage your account for any reason.
• Be prepared for an increase in the order volume during key sales periods, such as the run-up to the holiday season. For more information, visit managing orders.