Why am I being penalized for this?
I have no control of USPS timing and also, aren't these times pretty close?
"Your seller-fulfilled offers are at risk of deactivationYour On-Time Delivery Rate is 82.76%; the target is 90%."
Why am I being penalized for this?
I have no control of USPS timing and also, aren't these times pretty close?
"Your seller-fulfilled offers are at risk of deactivationYour On-Time Delivery Rate is 82.76%; the target is 90%."
14 replies
Seller_OvL8C4BJWiuS9
All orders and their shipping/deliveries are your responsibility. Unless you use buy shipping through Amazon, you are not protected.
Seller_mK9wrVeSOe0Q0
Here is the picture since it may not have attached to the forum post.
Seller_0EiTWTPC4Lbig
Yes, if you use Amazon Buy Shipping, choose a service that shows protection is granted, and ship ON TIME, meaning the individual package is actually in the carrier’s possession and the tracking scan confirms that before Amazon’s Ship By deadline, then a subsequent carrier delivery delay is generally protected.
That scan is critical. Printing the label or simply marking the order shipped is not enough. Amazon needs the carrier record showing possession on time.
So if USPS accepts it on time and then USPS delivers it late, that is exactly the type of carrier failure Buy Shipping protection is designed to protect you from.
Seller_HRcJa1gdGHeov
This is a poorly programmed bot that is causing your pain; no customer cares that a packaged arrived a hour late except the bot. Amazon knows this (or should) and modify the bot to better reflect reality; but that would require work and more $$ which Amazon is always reluctant to spend (especially if if helps 3P sellers).
As others have said, if you buy labels from Amazon and have Automated Handling Times enables, you will be protected from late deliveries.
I know this is not fair but this is what we have to work with and Amazon has shown little willingness to change.
Seller_6YmLhPNq8KwM9
The On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) calculation seems fundamentally flawed in these cases. We have strict shipping cutoff times for expedited orders set to 10:00 AM ET due to our 3PL location in the Midwest, yet Amazon continues to send us expedited orders at 4:00 PM with impossible two-day delivery windows meaning we would have to overnight it and we can't it is too expensive. It appears Amazon is ignoring our shipping cutoff times .
I strongly recommend downloading your OTDR report and analyzing the data to build a comprehensive spreadsheet. Amazon is frequently promising two-day delivery to locations like Puerto Rico without accounting for actual business days or actual carrier deadlines. I used Claude to help categorize my data and identified clear instances where Amazon’s promised delivery dates were impossible for any carrier to meet it is like they ignored weekends when it is supposed to go on business days. Once you have this proof, present it to Seller Support; I did this, and after they reviewed my findings, they escalated my case. It is outrageous that we are being penalized for delivery promises that Amazon creates and fails to honor, despite our efforts to use the slowest settings and paying for expedited shipping.
Seller_4HsL3GZbyDLea
I went through my report. There were 19 incidents. Of those all 19 were delivered on time. The incidents were times the post office attempted to delivery early. But, the post office came back the following business day and delivered on time or early.
So we are being penalized because of early delivery attempts.
This is not about businesses receiving packages on time on a business day. This is a lie designed to try and force us to use the shipping methods Amazon wants us to use.
As usual, Amazon is lying and behaving without any honor.
Seller_4tzx8Kn2FzRcS
I came to ask the same question. Our "shipped on time" is 100%, but our "arrived on time" is 88% Seems absurd!
Seller_y6Hg0flql0JxL
I totally understand this pain point, especially for oversized freight orders.
My products are oversized goods requiring LTL truck delivery with appointment scheduling. Customers often need to coordinate the delivery window directly with the carrier driver. Quite frequently, the finalized delivery date falls outside Amazon’s estimated delivery window.
One major limitation: our shipments exceed size and weight limits, so we are **not eligible to purchase Amazon Buy Shipping** at all.
The biggest headache is Amazon’s masked virtual phone number on orders. Those virtual numbers cannot be reached by trucking carriers at all. We cannot call buyers to schedule delivery appointments. We send multiple messages via Amazon internal messages to buyers, but many customers never reply. We have no choice but to attempt drop-off directly.
It is common for deliveries to get delayed for up to a full week simply because the carrier cannot reach the recipient. On top of that, our LTL trucking carrier is not available in Amazon’s carrier dropdown menu when confirming shipment.
Amazon’s current system seems not fully optimized for these oversized LTL freight shipments. Most of my late delivery flags are caused by unreachable customers, not our failure to arrange shipment. It is really challenging for sellers dealing with heavy/bulky freight.
