Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
Hi Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon Q&A with the OTDR team, focusing on your questions about On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR). This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Please include any questions you have regarding OTDR in this Ask Amazon event thread. Our partner team will be reviewing the questions that come in throughout the day and we’ll do our best to respond as soon as possible.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised "Deliver by" date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
We designed tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
- Shipping Settings Automation (SSA)
- Automated handling time
- Amazon Buy Shipping, to purchase shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected"
Additionally, starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days. The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
For more information, see the Order Performance program policy and On-time delivery requirements.
Thank you for joining today's Ask Amazon!
Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
Hi Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon Q&A with the OTDR team, focusing on your questions about On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR). This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Please include any questions you have regarding OTDR in this Ask Amazon event thread. Our partner team will be reviewing the questions that come in throughout the day and we’ll do our best to respond as soon as possible.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised "Deliver by" date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
We designed tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
- Shipping Settings Automation (SSA)
- Automated handling time
- Amazon Buy Shipping, to purchase shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected"
Additionally, starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days. The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
For more information, see the Order Performance program policy and On-time delivery requirements.
Thank you for joining today's Ask Amazon!
Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
170 replies
Seller_kWzASERYhgus6
This policy feels to me like it was concocted at 3am at a Davos cocktail party.
Maximum punishment for excellent performance, unattainable goals designed to maximize distraction while the real changes are happening, and super cheerleading ambassadors telling us how much we are going to love it!
please refer to above thread and 1 thousand other feedback threads on this policy for details.
Seller_16u4wwaJhlRsO
I have found conflicting answers to this question:
What will happen to my Late Shipment Rate, Account Health, and Amazon Seller account if I turn on AHT and due to circumstances out of my control I have to ship one or several packages late because I no longer have my buffer?
To further explain why I'm concerned:
As a handmade seller and a one-person business with no employees I am apprehensive about turning on AHT. My products are made-to-order and as some are custom they must be made-to-order. I can get a majoirty of my orders out the door in 1-2 business days year round but there have been times due to weather, a product was damaged/messed up and I had to start over, etc. that I needed an emergency buffer... so as a result I have learned that it is best to put my handling time as "3 business days."
Because I get so many orders out early AHT would likely cause my handling time to be changed to 1 or 2 business days for most products.
If I have any problems I will no longer have my buffer which could potentially cause many packages to be shipped a day late. This has potential to cause my LSR to miss the target.
So I'm between a rock and a hard place. Either I keep AHT off and when any packages arrive late despite being shipped on time (which is completely out of my control) my OTDR will get a bad score or I turn AHT on and risk having my LSR score be bad one day.
What would Amazon recommend to smaller volume sellers such as handmade that need a buffer for handling time but still want to protect their OTDR score?
Seller_hvvNUJjgodXWj
Amazon needs to stop holding SELLER accountable for carrier issues. We have lost SFP twice already because UPS has mechanic issues, flight delays and even weather. I open cases asking Amazon to take these off of our OTDR but Amazon does not care, not even about the weather related issues. We just get a canned response from Amazon stating something like "It is the responsibility of the SELLER to partner with a reputable shipper". We partner with UPS!!! Probably one of the largest carriers in the world.
We have done everything Amazon suggestions, with hanlding times, cutoff times, late UPS pickups but those do not matter. We give the packages to UPS on time and after that it is out of our control.... but Amazon still punishes us SELLERS for this.
We lost SFP during our busy season due to this and it cost us a ton of money.
Seller_8JDyaFo1Nu7JK
Good Afternoon,
As a seller that exclusively uses the Freight Template for all of our listings are their any exceptions similar to VTR exceptions when using freight carriers? Also since it is an arranged delivery if the customer chooses a date beyond the must deliver by date how does Amazon know this, otherwise the seller would be penalized for a shipment delivered late but by customer choice.
Seller_7STxzA93KoQVs
@Jameson_Amazon @KJ_Amazon
Another question, for SSA - why isn't Standard Mail Envelopes an option to select when setting up SSA? This is how I ship 95% of my orders for FBM and yet I cannot select it for SSA. I assume it's because it's not for tracked orders.
Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy
With the OTDR announcement came Handle Time Gap.
Can you confirm what action ends Handle Time and begins Transit Time.
- Before 9/17/2024, it was in conjunction with the purchase of a label.
- After 9/17/2024, it has been the first scan through our local USPS distribution center.
Before you answer, know that a handle time gap of 0.1 days means 2 hours 24 minutes before 11:59:59pm Pacific Time the day of the last ship by date. That means the scan at 10:15pm Pacific Time by our local USPS distribution is the scan the is being used now. Yet we take our packages to USPS between 8:30am to 9:30am Pacific Time daily and have them scanned at the counter. This translates into about a 13 hour gap of actual possession by the post office. During the holidays, our local USPS distribution often scans after 12:00am Pacific Time. How will this effect our OTDR and Late Shipment Rate?
We have noticed that since the Amazon announcement that the Manage Seller Fulfilled Products > Handle Time Settings have not update for any of the ASINs. We do custom products with a 2 day handle time. We have one ASIN that shows it will be 1 day handle time. We process all of our times the same way. With AHT turned on, what happens when we ship normal and that means this item will be a Late Shipment by Amazon's calculations? Will we be hit with a Late Shipment? Will OTDR be void because this items ships late?
With SSA turned on, we have noticed that we are having late shipments to one area in the US. It is consistent. Amazon repeatedly give 3 day transition time and the shipments to that area are consistently 5 to 6 day delivery. How often does Amazon look at that data and correct it to reflect what is actually happening with delivers?
We now have late deliveries which we never had before when running Handle Time at 2 days and Transit Time at 5-8 days. How are these new Amazon calculations helping us with the customers we serve when they are not accurate?
We have tested having on AHT two times now. Each time, the orders have dropped to zero while having AHT on. As soon as we turn it off, orders start coming in. Would you turn on AHT if this was happening to you?
We would have no problem with the OTDR program if the bugs/issues with the supporting components were fixed.
Do you think going into the holiday season it is a good thing to put something into place that has bugs in it?
We couldn't have said it any better than that.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy,
Thank you for your patience! I wanted to send along the OTDR partner team's answers to your questions:
"1. Handling Time starts to be counted at the moment an order is received until you ship confirm (not by carrier first scan) an order on the Manage Your Orders page within Seller Central. When you buy a label with Amazon's Buy Shipping, the order is automatically ship confirmed.Handling Time is not calculated by hours, but by full days. One order received at 10am and shipped at 4pm of the same day will have 0 days of handling time. If this same order is shipped at 4pm at the next day, it will have 1 day of handling time. The fractional handling time displayed ("1.4 days of handling time") are an average of the handling time for those units. On the example above, if one unit was shipped with 0 day handling time and another with 1 day handling time, you would observe a "0.5 handling time" for those units.
2. Sellers using AHT receive LSR protection from late shipments, but are still required to meet the On-Time Delivery Rate requirement. To get OTDR protection on your Standard Shipping you must have AHT enabled, have SSA enabled and you must purchase an "OTDR protected" shipping method on Amazon Buy Shipping
3. Amazon continuously observe the transit times across all ship methods and lanes to update our estimated delivery dates. If possible, please share the information of this lane for us to further look into it.
4. The changes in Handling Time and Transit Time were made with customer and sellers in mind. If you believe your transit time is not accurately capture in your promised delivery dates, please enable AHT, which will set a handling-time based on your historical performance. If you believe your transit time is not being accurately calculated, we recommend enabling SSA for Amazon-managed transit time estimates. If your SSA estimates are not correct, please open a ticket with seller support for us to investigate.
5. This behavior is not expected when using AHT. Please submit a case to seller support and we will look into your case to understand why this might be happening.
6. We recognize the stress that this change might cause to some sellers operations, and we will continue to work on improving the tools we provide to help sellers to optimize their delivery promises."
If you have any additional questions about OTDR, please include them as a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category so we can continue helping you out further.
See you around the Forums,
Jameson
Seller_WtOwWhtSrFjva
I am already having issues. We ship on time but the PO does not deliver to Amazon's time schedule.
It just a matter of time before I go down the tubes. We have dropped 10.4% since this inaccurate none sense started.
16 years we have been selling on Amazon. Ebay here we come.
Seller_lkeusirIqAVzA
When you have to force sellers to do something for a "perceived" benefit, then the benefit itself is not enough to warrant the change. So as usual this comes down to Amazon prying more money out of their sellers by forcing them to use a service that Amazon will make more money on...that money being the markup they put on our postage over the actual negotiated rates they pay to USPS. They will be taking this money from their competitors like ShipStation...using an unfair advantage once again...therefore the many antitrust lawsuits.
Seller_0xdtD36hDLHBC
This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Will we be receiving answers to all or most questions? There is 1 hour and 13 minutes left.
Seller_YzSU6N6yXDrD1
Thanks for providing a forum for us to ask questions about OTDR. So far, this new process has not caused my business any issues, but I am concerned about the holidays. I ship daily and always turn my packages over to the shipping carrier within allowed timeframe, but USPS requires me to use the scan sheet at the counter. They will not manually scan all packages from the counter. Can Amazon consider allowing the scan sheet as proof of 1st scan?
I have seen many posts complaining about lost INR cases for items shipped on time using AHT and Buy Shipping on Amazon caused solely by USPS not scanning until the package is mid-transit. It is unfair to hold sellers accountable for USPS missing a scan.
I have not experienced any issues yet, but as mail volume increases during the 4th quarter, this will become more problematic for sellers. Unfortunately, a dishonest buyer who notices a late scan and knows how to scam the system for free products will take advantage of the opportunity. In turn, this causes sellers to raise prices to absorb the losses. That is not good for Amazon, honest buyers, and sellers.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi Sellers!
This Ask Amazon event with the OTDR team has officially concluded. Please note that the partner team is continuing to work through all the great replies and will respond to the remaining questions as soon as possible.
If you have additional questions about OTDR, please feel free to include them in a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category.
Thank you for joining!
Jameson
Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
Hi Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon Q&A with the OTDR team, focusing on your questions about On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR). This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Please include any questions you have regarding OTDR in this Ask Amazon event thread. Our partner team will be reviewing the questions that come in throughout the day and we’ll do our best to respond as soon as possible.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised "Deliver by" date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
We designed tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
- Shipping Settings Automation (SSA)
- Automated handling time
- Amazon Buy Shipping, to purchase shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected"
Additionally, starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days. The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
For more information, see the Order Performance program policy and On-time delivery requirements.
Thank you for joining today's Ask Amazon!
Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
Hi Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon Q&A with the OTDR team, focusing on your questions about On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR). This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Please include any questions you have regarding OTDR in this Ask Amazon event thread. Our partner team will be reviewing the questions that come in throughout the day and we’ll do our best to respond as soon as possible.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised "Deliver by" date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
We designed tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
- Shipping Settings Automation (SSA)
- Automated handling time
- Amazon Buy Shipping, to purchase shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected"
Additionally, starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days. The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
For more information, see the Order Performance program policy and On-time delivery requirements.
Thank you for joining today's Ask Amazon!
Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
Hi Sellers,
Welcome to our Ask Amazon Q&A with the OTDR team, focusing on your questions about On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR). This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Please include any questions you have regarding OTDR in this Ask Amazon event thread. Our partner team will be reviewing the questions that come in throughout the day and we’ll do our best to respond as soon as possible.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised "Deliver by" date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
We designed tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
- Shipping Settings Automation (SSA)
- Automated handling time
- Amazon Buy Shipping, to purchase shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected"
Additionally, starting October 25, 2024, the transit time settings for shipping from China to the continental US (all states in the contiguous US, excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US protectorates) will change. You’ll have more transit time ranges to choose from on your shipping templates, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days. The maximum transit time will be reduced from 28 days to 20 days. If you currently have 14-28 days as your manually set transit time, it will automatically be updated to 14-20 days as a part of this change.
For more information, see the Order Performance program policy and On-time delivery requirements.
Thank you for joining today's Ask Amazon!
Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.
170 replies
170 replies
Seller_kWzASERYhgus6
This policy feels to me like it was concocted at 3am at a Davos cocktail party.
Maximum punishment for excellent performance, unattainable goals designed to maximize distraction while the real changes are happening, and super cheerleading ambassadors telling us how much we are going to love it!
please refer to above thread and 1 thousand other feedback threads on this policy for details.
Seller_16u4wwaJhlRsO
I have found conflicting answers to this question:
What will happen to my Late Shipment Rate, Account Health, and Amazon Seller account if I turn on AHT and due to circumstances out of my control I have to ship one or several packages late because I no longer have my buffer?
To further explain why I'm concerned:
As a handmade seller and a one-person business with no employees I am apprehensive about turning on AHT. My products are made-to-order and as some are custom they must be made-to-order. I can get a majoirty of my orders out the door in 1-2 business days year round but there have been times due to weather, a product was damaged/messed up and I had to start over, etc. that I needed an emergency buffer... so as a result I have learned that it is best to put my handling time as "3 business days."
Because I get so many orders out early AHT would likely cause my handling time to be changed to 1 or 2 business days for most products.
If I have any problems I will no longer have my buffer which could potentially cause many packages to be shipped a day late. This has potential to cause my LSR to miss the target.
So I'm between a rock and a hard place. Either I keep AHT off and when any packages arrive late despite being shipped on time (which is completely out of my control) my OTDR will get a bad score or I turn AHT on and risk having my LSR score be bad one day.
What would Amazon recommend to smaller volume sellers such as handmade that need a buffer for handling time but still want to protect their OTDR score?
Seller_hvvNUJjgodXWj
Amazon needs to stop holding SELLER accountable for carrier issues. We have lost SFP twice already because UPS has mechanic issues, flight delays and even weather. I open cases asking Amazon to take these off of our OTDR but Amazon does not care, not even about the weather related issues. We just get a canned response from Amazon stating something like "It is the responsibility of the SELLER to partner with a reputable shipper". We partner with UPS!!! Probably one of the largest carriers in the world.
We have done everything Amazon suggestions, with hanlding times, cutoff times, late UPS pickups but those do not matter. We give the packages to UPS on time and after that it is out of our control.... but Amazon still punishes us SELLERS for this.
We lost SFP during our busy season due to this and it cost us a ton of money.
Seller_8JDyaFo1Nu7JK
Good Afternoon,
As a seller that exclusively uses the Freight Template for all of our listings are their any exceptions similar to VTR exceptions when using freight carriers? Also since it is an arranged delivery if the customer chooses a date beyond the must deliver by date how does Amazon know this, otherwise the seller would be penalized for a shipment delivered late but by customer choice.
Seller_7STxzA93KoQVs
@Jameson_Amazon @KJ_Amazon
Another question, for SSA - why isn't Standard Mail Envelopes an option to select when setting up SSA? This is how I ship 95% of my orders for FBM and yet I cannot select it for SSA. I assume it's because it's not for tracked orders.
Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy
With the OTDR announcement came Handle Time Gap.
Can you confirm what action ends Handle Time and begins Transit Time.
- Before 9/17/2024, it was in conjunction with the purchase of a label.
- After 9/17/2024, it has been the first scan through our local USPS distribution center.
Before you answer, know that a handle time gap of 0.1 days means 2 hours 24 minutes before 11:59:59pm Pacific Time the day of the last ship by date. That means the scan at 10:15pm Pacific Time by our local USPS distribution is the scan the is being used now. Yet we take our packages to USPS between 8:30am to 9:30am Pacific Time daily and have them scanned at the counter. This translates into about a 13 hour gap of actual possession by the post office. During the holidays, our local USPS distribution often scans after 12:00am Pacific Time. How will this effect our OTDR and Late Shipment Rate?
We have noticed that since the Amazon announcement that the Manage Seller Fulfilled Products > Handle Time Settings have not update for any of the ASINs. We do custom products with a 2 day handle time. We have one ASIN that shows it will be 1 day handle time. We process all of our times the same way. With AHT turned on, what happens when we ship normal and that means this item will be a Late Shipment by Amazon's calculations? Will we be hit with a Late Shipment? Will OTDR be void because this items ships late?
With SSA turned on, we have noticed that we are having late shipments to one area in the US. It is consistent. Amazon repeatedly give 3 day transition time and the shipments to that area are consistently 5 to 6 day delivery. How often does Amazon look at that data and correct it to reflect what is actually happening with delivers?
We now have late deliveries which we never had before when running Handle Time at 2 days and Transit Time at 5-8 days. How are these new Amazon calculations helping us with the customers we serve when they are not accurate?
We have tested having on AHT two times now. Each time, the orders have dropped to zero while having AHT on. As soon as we turn it off, orders start coming in. Would you turn on AHT if this was happening to you?
We would have no problem with the OTDR program if the bugs/issues with the supporting components were fixed.
Do you think going into the holiday season it is a good thing to put something into place that has bugs in it?
We couldn't have said it any better than that.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy,
Thank you for your patience! I wanted to send along the OTDR partner team's answers to your questions:
"1. Handling Time starts to be counted at the moment an order is received until you ship confirm (not by carrier first scan) an order on the Manage Your Orders page within Seller Central. When you buy a label with Amazon's Buy Shipping, the order is automatically ship confirmed.Handling Time is not calculated by hours, but by full days. One order received at 10am and shipped at 4pm of the same day will have 0 days of handling time. If this same order is shipped at 4pm at the next day, it will have 1 day of handling time. The fractional handling time displayed ("1.4 days of handling time") are an average of the handling time for those units. On the example above, if one unit was shipped with 0 day handling time and another with 1 day handling time, you would observe a "0.5 handling time" for those units.
2. Sellers using AHT receive LSR protection from late shipments, but are still required to meet the On-Time Delivery Rate requirement. To get OTDR protection on your Standard Shipping you must have AHT enabled, have SSA enabled and you must purchase an "OTDR protected" shipping method on Amazon Buy Shipping
3. Amazon continuously observe the transit times across all ship methods and lanes to update our estimated delivery dates. If possible, please share the information of this lane for us to further look into it.
4. The changes in Handling Time and Transit Time were made with customer and sellers in mind. If you believe your transit time is not accurately capture in your promised delivery dates, please enable AHT, which will set a handling-time based on your historical performance. If you believe your transit time is not being accurately calculated, we recommend enabling SSA for Amazon-managed transit time estimates. If your SSA estimates are not correct, please open a ticket with seller support for us to investigate.
5. This behavior is not expected when using AHT. Please submit a case to seller support and we will look into your case to understand why this might be happening.
6. We recognize the stress that this change might cause to some sellers operations, and we will continue to work on improving the tools we provide to help sellers to optimize their delivery promises."
If you have any additional questions about OTDR, please include them as a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category so we can continue helping you out further.
See you around the Forums,
Jameson
Seller_WtOwWhtSrFjva
I am already having issues. We ship on time but the PO does not deliver to Amazon's time schedule.
It just a matter of time before I go down the tubes. We have dropped 10.4% since this inaccurate none sense started.
16 years we have been selling on Amazon. Ebay here we come.
Seller_lkeusirIqAVzA
When you have to force sellers to do something for a "perceived" benefit, then the benefit itself is not enough to warrant the change. So as usual this comes down to Amazon prying more money out of their sellers by forcing them to use a service that Amazon will make more money on...that money being the markup they put on our postage over the actual negotiated rates they pay to USPS. They will be taking this money from their competitors like ShipStation...using an unfair advantage once again...therefore the many antitrust lawsuits.
Seller_0xdtD36hDLHBC
This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Will we be receiving answers to all or most questions? There is 1 hour and 13 minutes left.
Seller_YzSU6N6yXDrD1
Thanks for providing a forum for us to ask questions about OTDR. So far, this new process has not caused my business any issues, but I am concerned about the holidays. I ship daily and always turn my packages over to the shipping carrier within allowed timeframe, but USPS requires me to use the scan sheet at the counter. They will not manually scan all packages from the counter. Can Amazon consider allowing the scan sheet as proof of 1st scan?
I have seen many posts complaining about lost INR cases for items shipped on time using AHT and Buy Shipping on Amazon caused solely by USPS not scanning until the package is mid-transit. It is unfair to hold sellers accountable for USPS missing a scan.
I have not experienced any issues yet, but as mail volume increases during the 4th quarter, this will become more problematic for sellers. Unfortunately, a dishonest buyer who notices a late scan and knows how to scam the system for free products will take advantage of the opportunity. In turn, this causes sellers to raise prices to absorb the losses. That is not good for Amazon, honest buyers, and sellers.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi Sellers!
This Ask Amazon event with the OTDR team has officially concluded. Please note that the partner team is continuing to work through all the great replies and will respond to the remaining questions as soon as possible.
If you have additional questions about OTDR, please feel free to include them in a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category.
Thank you for joining!
Jameson
Seller_kWzASERYhgus6
This policy feels to me like it was concocted at 3am at a Davos cocktail party.
Maximum punishment for excellent performance, unattainable goals designed to maximize distraction while the real changes are happening, and super cheerleading ambassadors telling us how much we are going to love it!
please refer to above thread and 1 thousand other feedback threads on this policy for details.
Seller_kWzASERYhgus6
This policy feels to me like it was concocted at 3am at a Davos cocktail party.
Maximum punishment for excellent performance, unattainable goals designed to maximize distraction while the real changes are happening, and super cheerleading ambassadors telling us how much we are going to love it!
please refer to above thread and 1 thousand other feedback threads on this policy for details.
Seller_16u4wwaJhlRsO
I have found conflicting answers to this question:
What will happen to my Late Shipment Rate, Account Health, and Amazon Seller account if I turn on AHT and due to circumstances out of my control I have to ship one or several packages late because I no longer have my buffer?
To further explain why I'm concerned:
As a handmade seller and a one-person business with no employees I am apprehensive about turning on AHT. My products are made-to-order and as some are custom they must be made-to-order. I can get a majoirty of my orders out the door in 1-2 business days year round but there have been times due to weather, a product was damaged/messed up and I had to start over, etc. that I needed an emergency buffer... so as a result I have learned that it is best to put my handling time as "3 business days."
Because I get so many orders out early AHT would likely cause my handling time to be changed to 1 or 2 business days for most products.
If I have any problems I will no longer have my buffer which could potentially cause many packages to be shipped a day late. This has potential to cause my LSR to miss the target.
So I'm between a rock and a hard place. Either I keep AHT off and when any packages arrive late despite being shipped on time (which is completely out of my control) my OTDR will get a bad score or I turn AHT on and risk having my LSR score be bad one day.
What would Amazon recommend to smaller volume sellers such as handmade that need a buffer for handling time but still want to protect their OTDR score?
Seller_16u4wwaJhlRsO
I have found conflicting answers to this question:
What will happen to my Late Shipment Rate, Account Health, and Amazon Seller account if I turn on AHT and due to circumstances out of my control I have to ship one or several packages late because I no longer have my buffer?
To further explain why I'm concerned:
As a handmade seller and a one-person business with no employees I am apprehensive about turning on AHT. My products are made-to-order and as some are custom they must be made-to-order. I can get a majoirty of my orders out the door in 1-2 business days year round but there have been times due to weather, a product was damaged/messed up and I had to start over, etc. that I needed an emergency buffer... so as a result I have learned that it is best to put my handling time as "3 business days."
Because I get so many orders out early AHT would likely cause my handling time to be changed to 1 or 2 business days for most products.
If I have any problems I will no longer have my buffer which could potentially cause many packages to be shipped a day late. This has potential to cause my LSR to miss the target.
So I'm between a rock and a hard place. Either I keep AHT off and when any packages arrive late despite being shipped on time (which is completely out of my control) my OTDR will get a bad score or I turn AHT on and risk having my LSR score be bad one day.
What would Amazon recommend to smaller volume sellers such as handmade that need a buffer for handling time but still want to protect their OTDR score?
Seller_hvvNUJjgodXWj
Amazon needs to stop holding SELLER accountable for carrier issues. We have lost SFP twice already because UPS has mechanic issues, flight delays and even weather. I open cases asking Amazon to take these off of our OTDR but Amazon does not care, not even about the weather related issues. We just get a canned response from Amazon stating something like "It is the responsibility of the SELLER to partner with a reputable shipper". We partner with UPS!!! Probably one of the largest carriers in the world.
We have done everything Amazon suggestions, with hanlding times, cutoff times, late UPS pickups but those do not matter. We give the packages to UPS on time and after that it is out of our control.... but Amazon still punishes us SELLERS for this.
We lost SFP during our busy season due to this and it cost us a ton of money.
Seller_hvvNUJjgodXWj
Amazon needs to stop holding SELLER accountable for carrier issues. We have lost SFP twice already because UPS has mechanic issues, flight delays and even weather. I open cases asking Amazon to take these off of our OTDR but Amazon does not care, not even about the weather related issues. We just get a canned response from Amazon stating something like "It is the responsibility of the SELLER to partner with a reputable shipper". We partner with UPS!!! Probably one of the largest carriers in the world.
We have done everything Amazon suggestions, with hanlding times, cutoff times, late UPS pickups but those do not matter. We give the packages to UPS on time and after that it is out of our control.... but Amazon still punishes us SELLERS for this.
We lost SFP during our busy season due to this and it cost us a ton of money.
Seller_8JDyaFo1Nu7JK
Good Afternoon,
As a seller that exclusively uses the Freight Template for all of our listings are their any exceptions similar to VTR exceptions when using freight carriers? Also since it is an arranged delivery if the customer chooses a date beyond the must deliver by date how does Amazon know this, otherwise the seller would be penalized for a shipment delivered late but by customer choice.
Seller_8JDyaFo1Nu7JK
Good Afternoon,
As a seller that exclusively uses the Freight Template for all of our listings are their any exceptions similar to VTR exceptions when using freight carriers? Also since it is an arranged delivery if the customer chooses a date beyond the must deliver by date how does Amazon know this, otherwise the seller would be penalized for a shipment delivered late but by customer choice.
Seller_7STxzA93KoQVs
@Jameson_Amazon @KJ_Amazon
Another question, for SSA - why isn't Standard Mail Envelopes an option to select when setting up SSA? This is how I ship 95% of my orders for FBM and yet I cannot select it for SSA. I assume it's because it's not for tracked orders.
Seller_7STxzA93KoQVs
@Jameson_Amazon @KJ_Amazon
Another question, for SSA - why isn't Standard Mail Envelopes an option to select when setting up SSA? This is how I ship 95% of my orders for FBM and yet I cannot select it for SSA. I assume it's because it's not for tracked orders.
Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy
With the OTDR announcement came Handle Time Gap.
Can you confirm what action ends Handle Time and begins Transit Time.
- Before 9/17/2024, it was in conjunction with the purchase of a label.
- After 9/17/2024, it has been the first scan through our local USPS distribution center.
Before you answer, know that a handle time gap of 0.1 days means 2 hours 24 minutes before 11:59:59pm Pacific Time the day of the last ship by date. That means the scan at 10:15pm Pacific Time by our local USPS distribution is the scan the is being used now. Yet we take our packages to USPS between 8:30am to 9:30am Pacific Time daily and have them scanned at the counter. This translates into about a 13 hour gap of actual possession by the post office. During the holidays, our local USPS distribution often scans after 12:00am Pacific Time. How will this effect our OTDR and Late Shipment Rate?
We have noticed that since the Amazon announcement that the Manage Seller Fulfilled Products > Handle Time Settings have not update for any of the ASINs. We do custom products with a 2 day handle time. We have one ASIN that shows it will be 1 day handle time. We process all of our times the same way. With AHT turned on, what happens when we ship normal and that means this item will be a Late Shipment by Amazon's calculations? Will we be hit with a Late Shipment? Will OTDR be void because this items ships late?
With SSA turned on, we have noticed that we are having late shipments to one area in the US. It is consistent. Amazon repeatedly give 3 day transition time and the shipments to that area are consistently 5 to 6 day delivery. How often does Amazon look at that data and correct it to reflect what is actually happening with delivers?
We now have late deliveries which we never had before when running Handle Time at 2 days and Transit Time at 5-8 days. How are these new Amazon calculations helping us with the customers we serve when they are not accurate?
We have tested having on AHT two times now. Each time, the orders have dropped to zero while having AHT on. As soon as we turn it off, orders start coming in. Would you turn on AHT if this was happening to you?
We would have no problem with the OTDR program if the bugs/issues with the supporting components were fixed.
Do you think going into the holiday season it is a good thing to put something into place that has bugs in it?
We couldn't have said it any better than that.
Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy
With the OTDR announcement came Handle Time Gap.
Can you confirm what action ends Handle Time and begins Transit Time.
- Before 9/17/2024, it was in conjunction with the purchase of a label.
- After 9/17/2024, it has been the first scan through our local USPS distribution center.
Before you answer, know that a handle time gap of 0.1 days means 2 hours 24 minutes before 11:59:59pm Pacific Time the day of the last ship by date. That means the scan at 10:15pm Pacific Time by our local USPS distribution is the scan the is being used now. Yet we take our packages to USPS between 8:30am to 9:30am Pacific Time daily and have them scanned at the counter. This translates into about a 13 hour gap of actual possession by the post office. During the holidays, our local USPS distribution often scans after 12:00am Pacific Time. How will this effect our OTDR and Late Shipment Rate?
We have noticed that since the Amazon announcement that the Manage Seller Fulfilled Products > Handle Time Settings have not update for any of the ASINs. We do custom products with a 2 day handle time. We have one ASIN that shows it will be 1 day handle time. We process all of our times the same way. With AHT turned on, what happens when we ship normal and that means this item will be a Late Shipment by Amazon's calculations? Will we be hit with a Late Shipment? Will OTDR be void because this items ships late?
With SSA turned on, we have noticed that we are having late shipments to one area in the US. It is consistent. Amazon repeatedly give 3 day transition time and the shipments to that area are consistently 5 to 6 day delivery. How often does Amazon look at that data and correct it to reflect what is actually happening with delivers?
We now have late deliveries which we never had before when running Handle Time at 2 days and Transit Time at 5-8 days. How are these new Amazon calculations helping us with the customers we serve when they are not accurate?
We have tested having on AHT two times now. Each time, the orders have dropped to zero while having AHT on. As soon as we turn it off, orders start coming in. Would you turn on AHT if this was happening to you?
We would have no problem with the OTDR program if the bugs/issues with the supporting components were fixed.
Do you think going into the holiday season it is a good thing to put something into place that has bugs in it?
We couldn't have said it any better than that.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy,
Thank you for your patience! I wanted to send along the OTDR partner team's answers to your questions:
"1. Handling Time starts to be counted at the moment an order is received until you ship confirm (not by carrier first scan) an order on the Manage Your Orders page within Seller Central. When you buy a label with Amazon's Buy Shipping, the order is automatically ship confirmed.Handling Time is not calculated by hours, but by full days. One order received at 10am and shipped at 4pm of the same day will have 0 days of handling time. If this same order is shipped at 4pm at the next day, it will have 1 day of handling time. The fractional handling time displayed ("1.4 days of handling time") are an average of the handling time for those units. On the example above, if one unit was shipped with 0 day handling time and another with 1 day handling time, you would observe a "0.5 handling time" for those units.
2. Sellers using AHT receive LSR protection from late shipments, but are still required to meet the On-Time Delivery Rate requirement. To get OTDR protection on your Standard Shipping you must have AHT enabled, have SSA enabled and you must purchase an "OTDR protected" shipping method on Amazon Buy Shipping
3. Amazon continuously observe the transit times across all ship methods and lanes to update our estimated delivery dates. If possible, please share the information of this lane for us to further look into it.
4. The changes in Handling Time and Transit Time were made with customer and sellers in mind. If you believe your transit time is not accurately capture in your promised delivery dates, please enable AHT, which will set a handling-time based on your historical performance. If you believe your transit time is not being accurately calculated, we recommend enabling SSA for Amazon-managed transit time estimates. If your SSA estimates are not correct, please open a ticket with seller support for us to investigate.
5. This behavior is not expected when using AHT. Please submit a case to seller support and we will look into your case to understand why this might be happening.
6. We recognize the stress that this change might cause to some sellers operations, and we will continue to work on improving the tools we provide to help sellers to optimize their delivery promises."
If you have any additional questions about OTDR, please include them as a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category so we can continue helping you out further.
See you around the Forums,
Jameson
Jameson_Amazon
Hi @Seller_EkbLZUYSpmJEy,
Thank you for your patience! I wanted to send along the OTDR partner team's answers to your questions:
"1. Handling Time starts to be counted at the moment an order is received until you ship confirm (not by carrier first scan) an order on the Manage Your Orders page within Seller Central. When you buy a label with Amazon's Buy Shipping, the order is automatically ship confirmed.Handling Time is not calculated by hours, but by full days. One order received at 10am and shipped at 4pm of the same day will have 0 days of handling time. If this same order is shipped at 4pm at the next day, it will have 1 day of handling time. The fractional handling time displayed ("1.4 days of handling time") are an average of the handling time for those units. On the example above, if one unit was shipped with 0 day handling time and another with 1 day handling time, you would observe a "0.5 handling time" for those units.
2. Sellers using AHT receive LSR protection from late shipments, but are still required to meet the On-Time Delivery Rate requirement. To get OTDR protection on your Standard Shipping you must have AHT enabled, have SSA enabled and you must purchase an "OTDR protected" shipping method on Amazon Buy Shipping
3. Amazon continuously observe the transit times across all ship methods and lanes to update our estimated delivery dates. If possible, please share the information of this lane for us to further look into it.
4. The changes in Handling Time and Transit Time were made with customer and sellers in mind. If you believe your transit time is not accurately capture in your promised delivery dates, please enable AHT, which will set a handling-time based on your historical performance. If you believe your transit time is not being accurately calculated, we recommend enabling SSA for Amazon-managed transit time estimates. If your SSA estimates are not correct, please open a ticket with seller support for us to investigate.
5. This behavior is not expected when using AHT. Please submit a case to seller support and we will look into your case to understand why this might be happening.
6. We recognize the stress that this change might cause to some sellers operations, and we will continue to work on improving the tools we provide to help sellers to optimize their delivery promises."
If you have any additional questions about OTDR, please include them as a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category so we can continue helping you out further.
See you around the Forums,
Jameson
Seller_WtOwWhtSrFjva
I am already having issues. We ship on time but the PO does not deliver to Amazon's time schedule.
It just a matter of time before I go down the tubes. We have dropped 10.4% since this inaccurate none sense started.
16 years we have been selling on Amazon. Ebay here we come.
Seller_WtOwWhtSrFjva
I am already having issues. We ship on time but the PO does not deliver to Amazon's time schedule.
It just a matter of time before I go down the tubes. We have dropped 10.4% since this inaccurate none sense started.
16 years we have been selling on Amazon. Ebay here we come.
Seller_lkeusirIqAVzA
When you have to force sellers to do something for a "perceived" benefit, then the benefit itself is not enough to warrant the change. So as usual this comes down to Amazon prying more money out of their sellers by forcing them to use a service that Amazon will make more money on...that money being the markup they put on our postage over the actual negotiated rates they pay to USPS. They will be taking this money from their competitors like ShipStation...using an unfair advantage once again...therefore the many antitrust lawsuits.
Seller_lkeusirIqAVzA
When you have to force sellers to do something for a "perceived" benefit, then the benefit itself is not enough to warrant the change. So as usual this comes down to Amazon prying more money out of their sellers by forcing them to use a service that Amazon will make more money on...that money being the markup they put on our postage over the actual negotiated rates they pay to USPS. They will be taking this money from their competitors like ShipStation...using an unfair advantage once again...therefore the many antitrust lawsuits.
Seller_0xdtD36hDLHBC
This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Will we be receiving answers to all or most questions? There is 1 hour and 13 minutes left.
Seller_0xdtD36hDLHBC
This thread will be open today, Tuesday, October 1, from 8 am to 5 pm PT.
Will we be receiving answers to all or most questions? There is 1 hour and 13 minutes left.
Seller_YzSU6N6yXDrD1
Thanks for providing a forum for us to ask questions about OTDR. So far, this new process has not caused my business any issues, but I am concerned about the holidays. I ship daily and always turn my packages over to the shipping carrier within allowed timeframe, but USPS requires me to use the scan sheet at the counter. They will not manually scan all packages from the counter. Can Amazon consider allowing the scan sheet as proof of 1st scan?
I have seen many posts complaining about lost INR cases for items shipped on time using AHT and Buy Shipping on Amazon caused solely by USPS not scanning until the package is mid-transit. It is unfair to hold sellers accountable for USPS missing a scan.
I have not experienced any issues yet, but as mail volume increases during the 4th quarter, this will become more problematic for sellers. Unfortunately, a dishonest buyer who notices a late scan and knows how to scam the system for free products will take advantage of the opportunity. In turn, this causes sellers to raise prices to absorb the losses. That is not good for Amazon, honest buyers, and sellers.
Seller_YzSU6N6yXDrD1
Thanks for providing a forum for us to ask questions about OTDR. So far, this new process has not caused my business any issues, but I am concerned about the holidays. I ship daily and always turn my packages over to the shipping carrier within allowed timeframe, but USPS requires me to use the scan sheet at the counter. They will not manually scan all packages from the counter. Can Amazon consider allowing the scan sheet as proof of 1st scan?
I have seen many posts complaining about lost INR cases for items shipped on time using AHT and Buy Shipping on Amazon caused solely by USPS not scanning until the package is mid-transit. It is unfair to hold sellers accountable for USPS missing a scan.
I have not experienced any issues yet, but as mail volume increases during the 4th quarter, this will become more problematic for sellers. Unfortunately, a dishonest buyer who notices a late scan and knows how to scam the system for free products will take advantage of the opportunity. In turn, this causes sellers to raise prices to absorb the losses. That is not good for Amazon, honest buyers, and sellers.
Jameson_Amazon
Hi Sellers!
This Ask Amazon event with the OTDR team has officially concluded. Please note that the partner team is continuing to work through all the great replies and will respond to the remaining questions as soon as possible.
If you have additional questions about OTDR, please feel free to include them in a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category.
Thank you for joining!
Jameson
Jameson_Amazon
Hi Sellers!
This Ask Amazon event with the OTDR team has officially concluded. Please note that the partner team is continuing to work through all the great replies and will respond to the remaining questions as soon as possible.
If you have additional questions about OTDR, please feel free to include them in a new thread in the Fulfill Orders category.
Thank you for joining!
Jameson
