Recent changes to Seller Fulfilled Prime FAQ
Introduction
We recently made updates to the Seller Fulfilled Prime requirements in the U.S. to improve the delivery speed that Prime customers expect, regardless of fulfillment channel. The new requirements were launched on February 1, 2021, and include:
- Sellers enrolled in SFP must have nationwide delivery coverage for all standard-size products, excluding hazmat items, on Prime enabled shipping templates (nationwide coverage only applies to the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia). To check which products are standard size or oversize, go to Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime.
- Sellers enrolled in SFP must use shipping methods that support weekend delivery and pick up (Saturday or Sunday) to provide customers with a more consistent delivery experience throughout the week. View your Order fulfillment settings to set weekend options.
- Sellers enrolled in SFP must meet targets for one-day and two-day delivery promises. These metrics measure the percentage of customer page views when your SFP offer was the featured offer, regardless of a purchase. These Delivery Speed metrics ensure that customers experience the delivery promise regardless of who fulfills their Prime order.
Tools and features available now to achieve faster delivery speeds:
- Weekend pick-up for Prime offers: this feature enables customers to see faster delivery speeds when they view products where you are the featured merchant.
- Flexible options for order cut-off time that vary by day of week and shipping service. These settings give you control to fine tune cut off times to maximize the number of customers that see your offer before cut off time, thereby improving Delivery Speed.
- Shipping Region Automation helps to set up delivery regions for one-day delivery and two-day delivery based on the delivery speeds of your preferred shipping services and the location of your fulfilment centers at a ZIP3 level.
- The Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance contains details on the delivery speed metric target and your current performance.
- The Seller Fulfilled Prime reports allow you to investigate which SKUs are contributing to lower delivery speeds. You can apply the tools and features to increase speed.
- Amazon automatically classifies your products into standard-size or oversize based on the product’s package weight and dimensions. For more information, go to Manage SFP and SFP Item Size, Weights, and Dimensions.
- Manage SFP provides SKU-level visibility into the calculated Prime coverage percentage for the assigned shipping template, which ensures your SKUs are on the appropriate shipping template.
Updated eligibility requirements
Delivery Speed metrics
Meet Delivery Speed metrics for less than or equal to one-day and two-day delivery promises.
For more information on the targets for SFP delivery speed metrics, go to Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance dashboard.
Delivery speed targets are outlined below:
| Standard-size | Oversize | |
|---|---|---|
| One-day or less product detail page views (%) | 20% | 5% |
| Two-day or less product detail page views (%) | 55% | 30% |
Sellers enrolled in SFP must operate and ship out Prime products six days a week, including either Saturday or Sunday. Customer page views on Friday after cut-off time or Saturday before cut-off time should be shipped on Saturday.
Tip: Ensure that you use a shipping service that can pick-up and scan the package over the weekend.
Weekend deliverySellers enrolled in SFP must deliver standard-sized Prime products six days a week, including either Saturday or Sunday.
To review and update your weekend pick-up and delivery settings, go to Order fulfillment settings. We recommend that you use shipping services that support weekend pick-up and delivery to provide customers with a consistent delivery experience throughout the week.
Nationwide delivery coverage
Standard-size products on a Prime shipping template must offer nationwide delivery coverage (nationwide coverage includes only the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia).
Frequently asked questions
1. Why did you make these changes?
Customers and Prime members always ask for fast and free shipping, hence, Amazon is making significant investments in our fulfillment and transportation capabilities to make Prime faster, as it transitions from a two-day to a one-day delivery program. As we continue to improve the Amazon Prime experience for customers, we want to ensure Seller Fulfilled Prime meets customers’ expectations of Prime. SFP has not met these U.S. customer expectations, in large part because many sellers do not operate on weekends. We are introducing these changes so U.S. customers can rely on the same Prime experience regardless of how their order is fulfilled.
2. How will these new requirements be enforced?
If your performance metrics fall below the new required thresholds, your Prime eligibility may be suspended.
3. What factors influence delivery speeds?
Amazon considers your ship-from location, ship-to destination, and performance of your preferred carriers to determine the accurate promise to be displayed to customers. Based on this information, we display a guaranteed delivery date to customers on the product detail page. Other factors that influence Delivery Speed metrics include later order cut-off times, delivering on the weekends, and weekend pick-ups.
4. What happens if I meet the delivery speed requirement for standard-size products but not oversize?
You must meet the speed requirements for both product sizes. If you don't, your Prime eligibility may be suspended.
If you do not meet Delivery Speed targets in the trailing seven days for either standard-size or oversize products, then we will follow the same enforcement process in use today. This includes, where necessary, suspending your Prime eligibility until a plan of action is submitted and accepted. This is the same process followed for existing eligibility requirements.
5. How should I manage hazmat items?
Subject to Amazon’s standard Dangerous goods identification guide (hazmat), standard-size hazmat items are exempt from the nationwide delivery coverage requirement. Regional shipping templates can be used to meet one-day and two-day delivery promises where applicable. All standard-size Prime enabled hazmat items will be included in the standard-size delivery speed metrics with the expectation that they are able to meet one-day and two-day delivery promises using ground ship methods. Therefore, sellers should remove their listing from SFP if unable to meet hazmat delivery requirements with a Prime promise.
6. Do I need to ship nationwide to meet the less than or equal to one-day delivery speed target?
No, you do not need to provide nationwide one-day delivery coverage. You can provide one-day delivery coverage for at least the percentage of customers who view the detail page to meet the delivery speed targets for standard-size and oversize items. The less than or equal to one-day delivery speed target is measured based on the percentage of product detail page views when the customer delivery promise displayed is one calendar day or less. This is determined by the delivery region coverage defined on your shipping templates along with your order cut-off times, weekend operations, and delivery settings defined in Order Fulfillment Settings. For example, if the customer is located in a one-day region, and the product detail page view occurs before the order cut-off time on Monday, the customer delivery promise will be on Tuesday and considered as a one-day product detail page view. However, if the customer views the page after the order cut-off time, the customer delivery promise will be adjusted to Wednesday thereby making it a two-day product detail page view. The table explains how the delivery promise for a product detail page view is calculated for one-day delivery.
| Product detail page view day | Product detail page view time | Expected ship date | Customer delivery promise | Product detail page view (calendar days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Before order cut-off | Monday | Tuesday | 1 calendar day |
| Monday | After order cut-off | Tuesday | Wednesday | 2 calendar days |
| Friday | Before order cut-off | Friday | Saturday | 1 calendar day |
| Friday (if Saturday operation is enabled) | After order cut-off | Saturday | Sunday or Monday* | 2 or 3 calendar days |
| Friday (if Sunday operation is enabled) | After order cut-off | Sunday | Monday* | 3 calendar days |
*Sunday pickup and delivery is currently enabled only for specific ZIP codes supported by FedEx Home Delivery.
Tip: On your shipping templates, you can use Shipping Region Automation to set up delivery regions for one-day delivery and two-day delivery based on the delivery speeds of your preferred shipping services and one or more of your warehouse locations at a ZIP3 level. Amazon periodically refreshes these regions to reflect the latest speeds of your shipping services. If shipping region automation is enabled, you do not require to manually configure your delivery regions for Premium Shipping options and benefit from increased Prime coverage at a ZIP3 level.
7. How can I see what shipping templates meet the new nationwide shipping requirements for standard-size products?
Go to Shipping settings, you can see a list of your current templates on the left-hand side. To identify if a template meets the criteria for standard-size products, confirm that the Prime regions selected, cover the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia.
8. Which shipping services are available for weekend pick-ups?
On Buy Shipping, you will be able to purchase all shipping services that pick-up over the weekend across FedEx, USPS, and UPS. Ontrac Ground currently does not support pick-ups on Saturday or Sunday and may not be available on Buy Shipping. You can learn more about weekend carrier options in Seller Central.
9. Which shipping services are available for weekend deliveries?
On Buy Shipping, you will be able to purchase all shipping services that deliver over the weekend. We currently support Fedex Home Delivery, UPS Ground, USPS Priority Mail, USPS Priority Mail Express, and Ontrac Ground. By February 1, 2021 we will extend support to FedEx 2-day and FedEx overnight shipping services (including one rate), as well as UPS second day and next day air shipping services.
10. When will new sellers be allowed to re-enroll in SFP?
Our priority is to help existing sellers adapt to these changes to improve the Prime customer experience. We will share more information about SFP enrollment and eligibility in the U.S. at a later date.
11. I do not operate on weekend. Can I get an exception?
No, we will not grant exceptions to this requirement. To provide a consistent Prime customer experience regardless of fulfillment method, sellers enrolled in SFP must support either Saturday or Sunday deliveries and pick-ups. Customers can choose a different or slower delivery method but this does not affect sellers’ responsibility to offer weekend pick-up and delivery options.
12. Why are the requirements different for standard-size versus oversize products?
Standard-size products are more economically shipped via air, if needed, to meet the delivery promise. Offering this selection nationwide with a two-day delivery promise provides this selection to the maximum number of Prime customers. Oversize products are primarily shipped by ground and will remain eligible for fulfillment regionally.
13. What is the difference between standard-size and oversize?
Standard-size is defined as any item that, when fully packaged, weighs 20lb or less and does not exceed 18 x 14 x 8 inches in packaging dimensions. Any item exceeding these dimensions is considered oversize. To update the item package weight and dimensions of your item, go to Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime. We use the most accurate information to determine the size tier (standard-size or oversize) if there are multiple sources for dimensional data.
14. Amazon shows many of my products are standard-size even though they are oversize. How do I change this?
If an item is missing any dimensional values, it will be classified as standard-size. You can view items missing these values in Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime and update the correct values or submit a bulk upload. When you update the values, it will be added to the appropriate size tier and on the product detail page.
15. Do these new requirements apply to SFP outside the United States?
No. These requirements only apply to SFP in the United States.
Additional Resources
- Delivery Speed metrics
- Download Speed Report
- Order fulfillment settings
- Order fulfillment settings FAQs
- Shipping Region Automation
- Manage your delivery time
- SFP Item Size, Weights and Dimensions
- Shipping account settings
- Program terms for Seller Fulfilled Prime
- Product detail page and offers
- Weekend carrier operations
- Seller Fulfilled Prime defects report
- Delivery Speed metrics
- Speed Report
- SFP Item Size, Weights and Dimensions
- Recent changes to Seller Fulfilled Prime FAQ
