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 went into effect on February 1, 2021. The new U.S. requirements are the following:
- Sellers enrolled in SFP are required to have nationwide delivery coverage for all standard-size products on Prime enabled shipping templates (nationwide coverage includes only the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia.) You can see which products are standard size or oversize on the Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime page.
- Sellers enrolled in SFP are required to use ship 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 are required to meet targets for one-day and two-day delivery promises. These metrics measure the percentage of customer page views that displayed a one or two calendar-day delivery promise when your SFP offer was the featured offer, regardless of whether a purchase was made. These Delivery Speed Targets ensure that customers have a similar experience regardless of who fulfills their Prime order.
Here are some of the tools and features available now that can help you achieve faster Delivery Speeds:
- Weekend pick-up for Prime offers: enabling this will allow more customers to see faster delivery speeds when viewing products where you are the featured merchant.
- Flexible order cut-off time options that vary by day of week and shipping service. These settings give you more 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 that helps in setting up delivery regions for 1-Day Delivery and 2-Day Delivery based on the Delivery Speeds of your preferred shipping services and one or more of your warehouse locations at a ZIP3 level.
- Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance page contains details on the Delivery Speed metric target and your current performance.
- The Delivery Speed report allows you to investigate which SKUs are contributing to lower Delivery Speeds. You will need to apply the tools listed above to increase speeds.
- Amazon automatically classifies your products into standard-size or oversize based on the product’s package weight and dimensions; this information is available in Manage SFP. View more information on the SFP Item Size, Weights, and Dimensions Help page.
- Manage SFP now provides SKU-level visibility into the calculated Prime coverage percentage for the assigned shipping template, making it easy to ensure your SKUs are on the appropriate shipping template.
In addition to the above, we will continue to innovate and launch new tools and capabilities that enable you to improve your Delivery Speed.
Updated Eligibility Requirements
Delivery Speed metrics
Meet Delivery Speed targets for one-day and two-day delivery promises. The Delivery Speed metrics measures the percentage of customer page views that displayed a one or two-day delivery promise when your SFP offer was the featured offer, regardless of whether a purchase was made.
The targets for SFP Delivery Speed metrics are below, and also visible on the Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance dashboard.
Delivery Speed targets from February 1, 2021 through May 31, 2021:
| Standard-size | Oversize | |
|---|---|---|
| One-Day or less product detail page views (%) | 20% | 5% |
| Two-Day or less product detail page views (%) | 55% | 30% |
Delivery Speed targets as of June 1, 2021:
| Standard-size | Oversize | |
|---|---|---|
| One-Day or less product detail page views (%) | 30% | 15% |
| Two-Day or less product detail page views (%) | 70% | 60% |
Sellers enrolled in SFP are required to operate and ship out Prime products six days a week, including either Saturday or Sunday operation. Customer page views occurring Friday after cut-off time or Saturday before cut-off time will be expected to ship on Saturday.
Tip: Ensure you are using a shipping service that can pick-up and scan the package over the weekend.
Weekend deliverySellers enrolled in SFP are required to deliver standard-sized Prime products six days a week, including either Saturday or Sunday delivery.
You can review and update your weekend pick-up and delivery settings using Order fulfillment settings. We recommend that you use shipping services that support weekend pick-up and delivery to provide customers with a more 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 United States and the District of Columbia). You can see which products are standard-size or oversize in Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime. For more information, see the SFP Item Size, Weights and Dimensions Help page.
Frequently asked questions
1. Why did you make these changes?
We are always listening to our customers, and Prime members consistently tell us they want fast and free shipping. That is why Amazon is making significant investments in our fulfillment and transportation capabilities to make Prime faster, transitioning from a 2-day to a 1-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 the Delivery Speed metrics?
Amazon considers your ship-from location, ship-to destination, and performance of your preferred carriers to determine the accurate promise to be shown 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 speed requirement for standard-size products but not oversize?
You must 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 7 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. Do I need to ship nationwide to meet the 1-day Delivery Speed target?
No, you do not need to provide nationwide one-day delivery coverage. You are required to provide one-day delivery coverage for at least the percentage of customers viewing the detail page to meet the Delivery Speed targets for standard-size and oversize items. The <= 1-day Delivery Speed target is measured based on the percentage of product detail page views when the customer delivery promise displayed is 1 calendar day or less. This is determined by the one-day delivery region coverage defined on your shipping templates along with your order cut-off times, weekend operations, and delivery settings defined under 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 below illustrates 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 1-day delivery and 2-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 will periodically refresh these regions to reflect the latest speeds of your shipping services. With Shipping Region Automation enabled, you will not need to manually configure your delivery regions for Premium Shipping Options and benefit from increased Prime coverage at a ZIP3 level.
6. How can I see what shipping templates meet the new nationwide shipping requirements for standard-size products?
Go to Settings, and then Shipping settings to see a list of your current templates on the left-hand side of the screen. To identify if a template meets the criteria for standard-size products, confirm that the Prime regions selected cover the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia.
7. What 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.
8. What 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.
9. When will new sellers be allowed to reenroll 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.
10. I don’t operate on the weekends. 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 may choose a different or slower delivery method but this does not affect Sellers’ responsibility to offer weekend pick-up and delivery options.
11. Why are my Delivery Speed metrics so low despite my setting up my operations to enable 1-day and 2-day Prime shipping options?
Amazon considers your ship-from location, ship-to destination, and performance of your preferred carriers to determine the accurate promise to be shown to customers. If we observe degraded carrier performance (due to weather events, capacity constraints, or other factors), then we may temporarily increase the standard transit time and extend the delivery promise for some products. Because of this additional padding, your Delivery Speed metrics may look lower than you expect. Making reliable promises for customers is of the utmost importance to the Prime customer experience. While the Delivery Speed metrics may show lower than expected performance, it will not impact your performance metrics as we will exclude these orders from performance calculations.
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’s 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. You can go to Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime to update the item package weight and dimensions of your item. 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 to the correct values or submit a bulk upload. When you update the values, it will be reclassified to the appropriate size tier and reflected in Seller Central 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.
16. Will you institute these requirements for SFP outside the United States in the future?
These requirements only apply to SFP in the United States. If requirements in other countries change, we will notify participating sellers directly.
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
