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New updates to our on-time delivery policy and shipping settings
Fast and accurate delivery is essential for customers and often determines where they choose to shop. Over time, we've learned that the best way to ensure reliable on-time delivery for customers is to set accurate handling and transit times and to choose reliable shipping services. To help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our on-time delivery rate (OTDR) policy.
Effective September 25, 2024, you'll need to maintain a minimum 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon.com. We will start by addressing sellers with the lowest OTDR performance. For a great customer experience, we recommend that you maintain a 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders. This policy does not apply to offers using the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
Also, we'll make the following changes to shipping settings to help sellers with Professional selling plans set accurate delivery dates:
- Transit time settings: On August 25, 2024, our transit time requirements will be updated to match the delivery capabilities of shipping services. If you're shipping within the contiguous United States (excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US territories), you can set a maximum transit time of five days for standard shipping and eight days for free economy shipping. To learn more, go to Default transit time.
Note: The 5 day maximum Transit Time applies to all SKUs except media such as Books, Magazines, and DVDs.
- Handling time settings: On September 25, 2024, to help improve the accuracy of handling time, we'll enable automated handling time for sellers that have a manually configured handling time that is two or more days slower than their actual handling time (also known as a handling time gap). To see your handling time gap, review your Fulfillment Insight dashboard.
We understand changes like this are significant and require time to prepare. You can manage your delivery dates using the tools we've provided, or you can manually adjust your transit time and handling time settings. We designed these 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), for Professional selling plans, sets accurate delivery dates through automated transit time calculations of your preferred shipping services. You must choose one of the preferred ship methods in the SSA templates, which will mark the transit time on the shipping template as "Managed by Amazon."
- Automated handling time, for Professional selling plans, sets accurate handling times per SKU based on how long it usually takes you to pass each SKU to carriers. You must ensure that automated handling time is enabled in your shipping settings.
- Amazon Buy Shipping, for both Professional and Individual selling plans, sells shipping labels that use highly-reliable ship methods. You can use Amazon Buy Shipping through Manage Orders, Shipping API, Veeqo, or select multi-channel integrators with access to Amazon Buy Shipping. You must choose shipping labels marked as "OTDR Protected" when using Amazon Buy Shipping or Veeqo.
You'll receive an email with your current OTDR and recommendations on how to improve if you're below the minimum requirement. To learn more, review your OTDR on your Account Health dashboard or go to On-time delivery.
509 replies
Seller_VVU0Eee63oIYM
Ground Advantage has been slower than First Class used to be, but Amazon appears to still be basing expected delivery dates on the discontinued First Class service.
My reports shows I only have an 89% on time rate, which is absurd. Everything is shipped on time, and the vast majority arrive before the last expected date of delivery. Also, no customers have complained about receiving late orders.
Amazon needs to reevaluate this and make sure the settings and dates are more realistic.
Amazon has made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from my FBM business here over the last 14 years. There's no way I'll ever switch to FBA, so they can kiss future profits from me goodbye if keep trying to hamper FBM sellers.
Seller_2ocdeVST6pSqj
Could someone page a mod to come in here and respond? I forget their names, is one Susan?
Seller_Jhm7h5TmVLKnE
So I see this now, does that mean I'm covered regardless of UPS delivery time since it shows claims OTDR protected?
Seller_JcZedprwGDRBi
So what if we have handling time set to zero? Are we covered for ODTR with zero day handling and no automated handling time?
Seller_xlf3vF516IRli
how does this new policy affect handmade sellers with the AHT requirements now? i have ASINs that require a 2-7 day lead to create from scratch custom. AHT overrides my sku level handling, and why ive turned it off several times now. i am right on the edge of this ridiculous new policy of 2 day gap.. i vary between 1.9-2.0 depending on the month. should i just hold all orders instead of delighting the customer getting their orders early? theres no mention of whether this is all sellers or if handmade is exempt? can we get some clarity? will we not be allowed to turn off AHT now? im always 98-100% otdr so that isnt really an issue for me, but this AHT part of the new policy is concerning.
some of my most popular products are mailbox stickers with custom addresses, which would not be an FBA option obviously... and everything i sell is customizable. So would we just lose our entire livelihood in custom/handmade if usps has a meltdown?
Seller_2ocdeVST6pSqj
All of this is unnecessary micromanaging by a bunch of geeks working at Amazon. We are doing the physical shipping they are not, its all going to be out of control. As someone else above stated: If an order is shipped on time, what the carrier does from there shouldn't be held against sellers at all. And are they changing our set handling times or not? And this ssa template announcement says it will say Managed by Amazon, in transit and arrival times, thats a bunch of bull. They have no right to be doing this when we are doing the shipping.
Seller_9cbmYMtnO6cuJ
I downloaded my report and seven of the nine deliveries being held against me delivered on the promised date. They are counting it against you if delivery is not made before 7:00am GMT. I also have one that was obviously lost by the carrier and then they delivered it after it was found. You can tell because the carrier's first scan was on 7/22, the same day and around the same time as it was delivered....twelve days after the promised date. I guess we're going to be held responsible for carrier mistakes too.
Seller_otDFihTxKiDRD
Useless post, obnoxious policy that kicks booksellers in the teeth again. Don't tell us that FBM is more liable than FBA. Amazon Prime and FBA almost never make on time shipments, let alone deliveries. You think that just because they are a captive customer trapped in the warehouse schemes that they and Amazon shouldn't be held liable for their late shipments but we should bow to your metrics or be penalized.
To be quite clear and honest, as a buyer, I would be much less upset at buying from an FBM that was a bit late than Amazon with false delivery metrics.
In this case Amazon plays the parts of both the Kettle and Pot.
Most Amazon emails these days do nothing but make me cuss. At least for the last few years. Funny how I never get emails like this bs from ABE, Alibris, Biblio. I never hear about eBayers talking about the nanny state either.
I don't need yet another poorly programmed bot telling how or when to ship. The last time I listened to Amazon dates on when to ship by, both books I shipped out were counted as late shipments. I'll do my own math thank you very much. I know my order handling and shipping capabilities. I know the cheapest, most efficient way to pack and protect a book and then to ship said book.
Once again, let us notice that all the 3rd party sellers told Amazon to back off and go away the last time they butted into the shipping and here we are again. So much for the whole LISTENING to your CUSTOMERS things once again. We sellers are customers. We pay fees to sell here. We've been paying fees for decades in many cases. Where is OUR customer service????? There isn't a single person on this thread that is DELIGHTED. (This is the only time I will use that detestable word.)
Disgusted yet again,
MJ, the grumpy bookseller of 2007.
Seller_dZMpCpY87mFdg
While I've made a few posts already, I think that one more point is important to make:
There's been a trend lately of Amazon launching new policies, and then having caveats on how to get "protection" from them.
For things like INR, SAFE-T Claims, and now this new OTDR policy, the trick has required using Amazon Buy Shipping - an option that doesn't make sense for many businesses, including ours, based on the type of items we ship and the logistics around them.
Amazon is basically admitting that their newer policies are garbage simply based on offering this (very selective) protection from them.
If a policy makes sense and is sustainable, then it shouldn't need backdoor tricks requiring you to utilize otherwise optional services to survive it.
Seller_UustF1XrcgPXx
Isn't Amazon deliberately setting sellers up for failure?
Let's have an example. Amazon estimates that an order will arrive around Thursday given the shipping template. Then Amazon decides that they will show the buyer Friday delivery, using a "promise extension". In other words, Amazon doesn't really trust that their estimate is accurate. They then tell the seller, "it needs to arrive on Thursday, and here are good options for shipping labels". Seller has no visibility into whether there was a promise extension and so has to assume Amazon is correct and buys a label. Effectively, Amazon knows the package has a high probability of not arriving on Thursday, hides it from the seller, then comes back later to blame the seller if in fact it was late. Am I getting this right?
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