Shipping Templates 1.01, how to fill a Shipping Template step-by-step
This guide provides a step-by-step on how to set your shipping settings and templates.
Through the guide I will create an example of how to prepare a Shipping Template centered in Florida. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in Florida, then adapt the template to your second-best location.
Shipping templates are only available for Professional Sellers and are used only for FBM or SFP shipping. This guide is too basic for anybody doing SFP, so for all intended purposes, the requirements to follow this guide are to have a professional account and to ship FBM. Obviously, individual sellers that want to learn how to create shipping templates are more than welcomed to check it and ask any questions that they may have.
To create shipping templates sellers must go to: account settings, shipping settings
The page has two different tabs “General Shipping Settings” and “Shipping Templates”.
General Shipping Settings are used to establish:
- Shipping location
- Days and hours of operations
- Handling time
- Holidays
In this early section of the guide, we will explain each of these four subsections. If you have these settings ready, and you are interest is on the Shipping Template, you can skip it.
General Shipping Settings
This page show four tables:
- Default Shipping Address: allows sellers to set the default shipping address and their time zone.
- Order Fulfilment Settings: allows sellers to establish the cut-off time for orders, the operating days (Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat), the Weekend Delivery Settings, and the Weekend operations.
If the “edit” button is pressed, the seller will see the following screen:
Figure 1.1 General Shipping Settings, General Fulfilment Settings
Everything on the left menu is a hyperlink, while everything on the right side of the screen is the expanded version of said hyperlinks.
The earliest standard cut-off time is 2 PM.
Determining the days of the week that are for pick-up prevents sellers for selecting Saturday or Sunday as shipping days.
Monday through Friday are mandatory, Saturday and Sunday are optional. Sellers that do not wish for Saturday and Sunday to count as shipping dates must indicate that they are “No pick-up” days:
Figure 1.2 General Shipping Settings, Weekend Delivery Settings
Further down the screen, sellers will see Fulfilment Settings for Shipping Region Automation. These settings allow sellers to establish the order cut-off and last pick-up time by carrier.
Figure 1.3 General Shipping Settings, Fulfillment Settings for Shipping Region Automation
I don’t really care for Automation in shipping. I think that I know my transit times better than Amazon. This guide is not to learn Shipping Automation, if Amazon wants to teach sellers about it, then they should create their own guide.
For a more detailed explanation on these settings (by a seller, not by Amazon) check here
- Handling Time: sellers can indicate the required handling time for orders placed before the cut-off time (earliest cut-off time is 2PM Mon-Fri). Default handling time can be of “Same day (0 days)” for eligible sellers, or 1 or 2 days. Longer handling times can be added to specific ASINs in the “offer” tab or through a File Upload.
Sellers also get to indicate the Order Handling Capacity, which simply means how many orders they can handle in a day. If they receive more orders than what they can handle, then the orders are shifted to the following day.
If the “edit” button is expanded, sellers will see this screen:
Figure 1.4 General Shipping Settings, Default Handling Time
- Holidays; indicates the dates that Amazon considers holidays. Sellers can click on “edit” and indicate if they will work on the pre-established holiday. Sellers can not add holidays to this list. If sellers wish to add holidays to their schedule, they need to move to vacation settings on account info. For more info on vacation settings, check here
When expanded, this screen looks like this:
Figure 1.5 General Shipping Settings, Holidays
To recap, General Shipping Settings determine:
- Default ship from address,
- Cut-off times
- Operating days
- Handling times
- Daily handling capacity
- Official Amazon holidays
On the Shipping Templates tab, which is the default tab when going through “account settings, shipping settings”, sellers get the option to “Create New Shipping Template” or use any of the existing templates. It should look like this:
Figure 2.1 Shipping Templates, Home Screen
By clicking in “Create New Shipping Template” sellers get to either “Create a new shipping template” from scratch, or copy one of the existing templates. For this example we will use “Create a new shipping template”:
Figure 2.2 Shipping Templates, Create new Template
By choosing “ok”, the next screen pops up:
Figure 2.3 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Warehouse Location
Here sellers can either work through the automatization steps, or simply click cancel. If a seller clicks cancel (which would be my recommendation), they will forgo the Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) , and can scroll to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
For a detailed explanation of why I don’t recommend SSA, click here. Some people may like the SSA, I don’t. I believe that I know my shipping settings and capabilities better than Amazon, but that’s not to say that SSA can’t be useful for some templates.
Sellers that want to go through SSA should follow the steps listed in the following drop-down menu. Sellers that wish to skip SSA, can just scroll down to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
Shipping Setting Automation
Sellers can choose from multiple addresses (if they have them) or from whichever one is the default. After hitting “next” they will move to the following screen:
Figure 2.4 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Fulfillment Preference
If the sellers don’t participate in Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) then they can’t edit the options, they should simply click “next” and reach the following screen:
Figure 2.5 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Standard Shipping Automation Preferences
Please note that this screen has a slide-bar on the right; I scrolled down a bit to show the important parts, so by default it will look slightly differently. Here the sellers will choose two things: the type of shipping services that they will use, and the Region Preferences.
Selecting only some Shipping Services will not prevent Amazon from deciding to show other shipping options when “Buying Shipping”. But it will help to prioritize them. Once some of these services are selected, the screen will expand to look like this:
Figure 2.6 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Shipping Service Priority
The seller can select either the cheapest service to be the default to appear first; or can prioritize the order in which they want the shipments to appear (the table is a drag-drop menu that can be moved with the mouse)
If the seller scrolls a bit further down on the same screen and expands the Region Preferences, this screen will appear:
Figure 2.7 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Region Preferences
The continental US is mandatory, but Alaska, Hawaii, the protectorates and military bases are optional.
After clicking “next”, eligible sellers will see the same screen, but now for the “Premium” shipping option:
Figure 2.8 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Premium Shipping Automation Preferences
After clicking next, a “Review” screen will indicate a summary of the selected services:
Figure 2.9 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation Summary
By clicking “Confirm, the seller will move to the “Shipping Template” per se.
The new screen will look like this:
Figure 3.1 Filling a Shipping Template, Home
If the seller wants to keep the SSA, then the guide is almost over, they should scroll down to Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight . Amazon took over and the transit times are set. The only thing left is to set the cost of shipping.
If sellers want to discard the SSA (as I would recommend), they should slide the bar that reads “Shipping Settings Automatization”, and once this is done, a warning sign will appear:
Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA
I’ll click “confirm”, and that will be the end of SSA. Now I get to set the templates any way I want to.
The home screen for Shipping Settings will look like this:
Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off
So, Shipping Templates can be set in any of two ways: by weight or by price.
Figure 3.4 Filling a Shipping Template, Rate Mode
They work the same way. Basically, all that we are doing here is deciding if we value more the shipping cost per pound, or the shipping cost per value. With either option, the steps to set the template would be extremely similar, so this is not the hill where I’ll ramble aimlessly… Too late.
For the sake of the example, we will continue with the “Per Item/Weight-based”, mostly because there are already enough screenshots through the thread, and many more are coming.
Sellers have here 5 different shipping options:
- Free economy, can be cancelled if so desired. There’s no obligation to offer free shipping
- Standard Shipping, needs to cover the contiguous 48 at the same price. It can not exclude states; it doesn’t matter how much you dislike a given place, if it’s in the continental region, it must be included. It doesn’t matter that you’re in WA and want to charge different for FL, ME or OR. Standard Shipping is the only shipping that is mandatory and must be the same cost for the contiguous 48. Standard Shipping however can offer different shipping speeds through the country.
- Expedite Shipping, can be killed or can be offered with different prices and delivery times, it’s flexible.
- Two-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2PM, areas that will receive the product within 2 days, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded.
- One-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2 PM, areas that will receive the product next day, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded. Not all sellers get this option.
Then there’s international shipping, which has two options. Standard and Expedite. If you need my guide to set the templates, you’re not ready for international, so I won’t explain them here.
So, to fill the template. We will start with “Free Economy”. Again, this is optional, and if the check-mark is uncheck the shipping template will still be valid. But for the sake of the exercise, we will click on “Add a new rule”. This screen will appear:
Figure 3.5 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy
There’s not much to be done. It’s quite boring really. The contiguous 48 are required. The other regions can be added at will or excluded if so desired. We click “ok”, and what we can do is modify the number of days that it will take for the transit time:
Figure 3.6 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy Transit Time
Given that is “Free Economy”, I’d always suggest the slowest transit time, so I would choose 5-10 days. I will explain Transit Times in detail below. Please note that you can un-check the “PO Box” for delivery if you so prefer; remember the PO Boxes can only be accessed by USPS. (Nothing against PO Boxes, they are extremely useful, I have one myself).
Now, when working with “Standard Shipping”, there are a few things that need to be known:
- Standard Shipping is mandatory.
- Sellers must ship to the contiguous 48.
- Sellers must ship to all states at the same price. You can’t exclude states.
- The delivery times need to be accurate, particularly if “Free Economy” is not being used.
The default screen for Standard Shipping will look like this for a seller centered in FL:
Figure 3.7 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with SSA deactivated
Note that:
- The Standard Shipping can’t be un-checked.
- The Requirement sign indicating that it needs to cover the lower 48 at the same cost.
- My example is centered in Florida, yours will be centered in your state.
- Sellers have the possibility to edit the regions, as long as SSA has been deactivated (Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA).
- If SSA it has not been deactivated, then the screen will look like this:
Figure 3.8 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with active SSA (not recommended)
Again, I suggest deactivating the SSA.
So, using a shipping template that has SSA deactivated, sellers can edit the times for the different regions.
The region that covers the state where the seller is located can be changed to as few as 1-2 days of transit time, or as many as 4-8. All other continental regions can be assigned a delivery time of at least 2 days and at max 8 days, while Hawaii and Alaska have a wider range, from 2 to 14 days:
Figure 3.9 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping Transit Times expanded
Please note that this screen is a combination of multiple screenshots, don’t get frustrated trying to expand all the transit times simultaneously, it’s not possible.
We will cover the transit times and regions in more detail below.
The fourth column of the table will allow us to determine the shipping fees for each region. Starting with a fixed fee (which can start as low as 0) and indicating a cost increase per lb.
Lastly, the fifth column allows us to delete regions.
When determining the transit times sellers need to account for 3 things: handling time, shipping time and holidays. For the sake of the example, we will ignore holidays. If a seller works with a handling time of 2 days, any order that arrives before 2 PM (if working with the standard cut-off time), will have to account for those two days when determining the Transit Time. If the order arrives after 2 PM, then the seller can count the Transit Time starting from the following day. Read here for a detailed explanation.
Then, the seller needs to add the days that it will take for the carrier to deliver the package to the handling time. That addition will determine the earliest possible delivery date.
For instance, if a seller in FL has a transit time of 2 days and wants to ship to CA with a carrier that will take 5 days, the transit time must be of at least 7 days.
If the same seller wants to ship to TN with a carrier that will take 2 days, the transit time must be of at least 4 days.
If the same seller has a transit time of 1 day, then transit time will need to show 6 days to reach CA and 3 to reach TN.
To assign the transit times to the regions, the seller must click either the “edit” button next to the region that needs to be modified, or the “Add New Shipping Rule” in the bottom.
If the seller starts by clicking the “Add New Shipping Rule”, the following screen will open:
Figure 3.10 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new Rule
Virtually everything on this screen is greyed-out, meaning that it can’t be edited. That’s because all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been covered in the default template. So, let’s just press cancel, and return to the previous screen. We will “delete” the region that encompasses all 47 states (circled in yellow to the right of the screen).
Figure 3.11 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Delete Region
A warning message appears, we click “ok”, and now our shipping template is destitute and there’s an alarm indicating that it can’t be saved as it’s not meeting the shipping requirements:
Figure 3.12 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping missing states
So, we go back to “Add new Shipping Rule” and we will get this screen:
Figure 3.13 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule
Begging us to fill the regions.
All states have an “expand” symbol next to their name, meaning that the states have been broken into multiple sections. In other words, the regions that Amazon suggests have a level of flexibility. Furthermore, there’s no obligation to pile states into the same Transit Time just because they are in the same region. This will be seen more clearly below, as we will mix and match states from different regions in different shipping rules, as well as different sections of a state into different shipping rules.
So we will create a first region that makes sense for a seller in Florida.
Florida is greyed in the image because it was already assigned to a default transit time. A state can not be added to two different shipping rules. We can delete that rule, but let’s assume that we will give a preferential treatment to the best state in the Union. For the region that we are creating, I will choose states that are close and that I can reach with a Transit Time of 3 days. For this section of the exercise, we will assume a handling time of 1 days, so shipping time needs to be of 2 days for me to reach the destination in 3 days.
There are many ways to determine transit times. The easiest one is going to the FedEx, UPS and USPS and search for transit times centered in your zip code.
Figure 3.14 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule, Selecting states
So we selected all of SC, GA, LA, TN, AL, AR NC and MS, as well as the Eastern Part of TX. When we click “Ok” (not Oklahoma) we see the following change to our “Standard Shipping”
Figure 3.15 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Different Transit Times for different regions
The region has been added, but the “Alert” symbol exists because many states have not been added to the template.
Florida has been changed to a Transit Time of 1-2 days (1 of handling, 1 of shipping)
HI, AL and PR have been changed to 7-14 days
And the new region has been assigned a Transit Time of 2-3 days.
The next region will have a Transit Time of 2-4 days. We will click “Add new Shipping Rule” and the same screen will open with some of the regions greyed out, and some available:
Figure 3.16 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states before
TX appears unchecked even though we already selected part of it, we need to expand it so that we don’t miss any areas of the country. The new region may look like this:
Figure 3.17 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states after
Please note how different states can be combined within the same Transit Time (NM is included, while MD, ND and ME are excluded). Our Standard Shipping Template will now look like this:
Figure 3.18 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, 4 regions
And if we add the missing states by creating a new rule, it will look like this:
Figure 3.19 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, all regions completed with Transit Time
I purposefully missed the protectorates. They don’t need to be added, but can if so the seller desires.
PO Boxes can be unchecked if so desired by the seller.
Now comes the part of assigning the Shipping Fee and the cost per pound. Sellers will set a base price for the shipping fee, and an additional price for each pound. It can be $0 if so desired. Let’s assume a $5 per order, and a surcharge of $1 per pound
Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight
As it has only been added to the first region, the template once again cries foul. All regions need to be covered with the same shipping fees. By setting the same costs to the other regions, the template becomes peaceful again:
Figure 3.21 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight correct
So now to the following sections. Expedite, Two-day and One-day:
Figure 3.22 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery
There’s no magic here. It’s repeating what we just did, but regions can be excluded or charged different prices. I won’t go through the step by step, it’s repeating what we just did, and the result may look like this and be perfectly fine:
Figure 3.23 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery completed
Once this is all done, sellers must scroll down to the bottom of the page and save.
From here, sellers need to link the Shipping Template to the SKUs.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201841600?locale=en-US
Before finalizing the thread, there are two more things that I want to cover on this guide.
- If sellers have negotiated rates with FedEx or UPS, they can use their negotiated rates while purchasing Buy Shipping through Amazon. To do this, they should follow the steps indicated on this link
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200785170
- Sellers can prioritize or even exclude carriers by going here. This location is reached by going to account info, buy shipping preferences, preferences for “seller name”, edit
As it is the case with many of these long threads, I abused the trust of many other sellers.
My thanks to @ThisIsTheWay, @Dogtamer and @ABC_23 for reading the guide.
Special thanks to @racingroxstore for all the help reviewing some sections, and all the comments and suggestions along the way; not only on how to write this thread, but in how to better reach/cover the actual problems that other sellers have.
Shipping Templates 1.01, how to fill a Shipping Template step-by-step
This guide provides a step-by-step on how to set your shipping settings and templates.
Through the guide I will create an example of how to prepare a Shipping Template centered in Florida. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in Florida, then adapt the template to your second-best location.
Shipping templates are only available for Professional Sellers and are used only for FBM or SFP shipping. This guide is too basic for anybody doing SFP, so for all intended purposes, the requirements to follow this guide are to have a professional account and to ship FBM. Obviously, individual sellers that want to learn how to create shipping templates are more than welcomed to check it and ask any questions that they may have.
To create shipping templates sellers must go to: account settings, shipping settings
The page has two different tabs “General Shipping Settings” and “Shipping Templates”.
General Shipping Settings are used to establish:
- Shipping location
- Days and hours of operations
- Handling time
- Holidays
In this early section of the guide, we will explain each of these four subsections. If you have these settings ready, and you are interest is on the Shipping Template, you can skip it.
General Shipping Settings
This page show four tables:
- Default Shipping Address: allows sellers to set the default shipping address and their time zone.
- Order Fulfilment Settings: allows sellers to establish the cut-off time for orders, the operating days (Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat), the Weekend Delivery Settings, and the Weekend operations.
If the “edit” button is pressed, the seller will see the following screen:
Figure 1.1 General Shipping Settings, General Fulfilment Settings
Everything on the left menu is a hyperlink, while everything on the right side of the screen is the expanded version of said hyperlinks.
The earliest standard cut-off time is 2 PM.
Determining the days of the week that are for pick-up prevents sellers for selecting Saturday or Sunday as shipping days.
Monday through Friday are mandatory, Saturday and Sunday are optional. Sellers that do not wish for Saturday and Sunday to count as shipping dates must indicate that they are “No pick-up” days:
Figure 1.2 General Shipping Settings, Weekend Delivery Settings
Further down the screen, sellers will see Fulfilment Settings for Shipping Region Automation. These settings allow sellers to establish the order cut-off and last pick-up time by carrier.
Figure 1.3 General Shipping Settings, Fulfillment Settings for Shipping Region Automation
I don’t really care for Automation in shipping. I think that I know my transit times better than Amazon. This guide is not to learn Shipping Automation, if Amazon wants to teach sellers about it, then they should create their own guide.
For a more detailed explanation on these settings (by a seller, not by Amazon) check here
- Handling Time: sellers can indicate the required handling time for orders placed before the cut-off time (earliest cut-off time is 2PM Mon-Fri). Default handling time can be of “Same day (0 days)” for eligible sellers, or 1 or 2 days. Longer handling times can be added to specific ASINs in the “offer” tab or through a File Upload.
Sellers also get to indicate the Order Handling Capacity, which simply means how many orders they can handle in a day. If they receive more orders than what they can handle, then the orders are shifted to the following day.
If the “edit” button is expanded, sellers will see this screen:
Figure 1.4 General Shipping Settings, Default Handling Time
- Holidays; indicates the dates that Amazon considers holidays. Sellers can click on “edit” and indicate if they will work on the pre-established holiday. Sellers can not add holidays to this list. If sellers wish to add holidays to their schedule, they need to move to vacation settings on account info. For more info on vacation settings, check here
When expanded, this screen looks like this:
Figure 1.5 General Shipping Settings, Holidays
To recap, General Shipping Settings determine:
- Default ship from address,
- Cut-off times
- Operating days
- Handling times
- Daily handling capacity
- Official Amazon holidays
On the Shipping Templates tab, which is the default tab when going through “account settings, shipping settings”, sellers get the option to “Create New Shipping Template” or use any of the existing templates. It should look like this:
Figure 2.1 Shipping Templates, Home Screen
By clicking in “Create New Shipping Template” sellers get to either “Create a new shipping template” from scratch, or copy one of the existing templates. For this example we will use “Create a new shipping template”:
Figure 2.2 Shipping Templates, Create new Template
By choosing “ok”, the next screen pops up:
Figure 2.3 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Warehouse Location
Here sellers can either work through the automatization steps, or simply click cancel. If a seller clicks cancel (which would be my recommendation), they will forgo the Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) , and can scroll to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
For a detailed explanation of why I don’t recommend SSA, click here. Some people may like the SSA, I don’t. I believe that I know my shipping settings and capabilities better than Amazon, but that’s not to say that SSA can’t be useful for some templates.
Sellers that want to go through SSA should follow the steps listed in the following drop-down menu. Sellers that wish to skip SSA, can just scroll down to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
Shipping Setting Automation
Sellers can choose from multiple addresses (if they have them) or from whichever one is the default. After hitting “next” they will move to the following screen:
Figure 2.4 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Fulfillment Preference
If the sellers don’t participate in Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) then they can’t edit the options, they should simply click “next” and reach the following screen:
Figure 2.5 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Standard Shipping Automation Preferences
Please note that this screen has a slide-bar on the right; I scrolled down a bit to show the important parts, so by default it will look slightly differently. Here the sellers will choose two things: the type of shipping services that they will use, and the Region Preferences.
Selecting only some Shipping Services will not prevent Amazon from deciding to show other shipping options when “Buying Shipping”. But it will help to prioritize them. Once some of these services are selected, the screen will expand to look like this:
Figure 2.6 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Shipping Service Priority
The seller can select either the cheapest service to be the default to appear first; or can prioritize the order in which they want the shipments to appear (the table is a drag-drop menu that can be moved with the mouse)
If the seller scrolls a bit further down on the same screen and expands the Region Preferences, this screen will appear:
Figure 2.7 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Region Preferences
The continental US is mandatory, but Alaska, Hawaii, the protectorates and military bases are optional.
After clicking “next”, eligible sellers will see the same screen, but now for the “Premium” shipping option:
Figure 2.8 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Premium Shipping Automation Preferences
After clicking next, a “Review” screen will indicate a summary of the selected services:
Figure 2.9 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation Summary
By clicking “Confirm, the seller will move to the “Shipping Template” per se.
The new screen will look like this:
Figure 3.1 Filling a Shipping Template, Home
If the seller wants to keep the SSA, then the guide is almost over, they should scroll down to Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight . Amazon took over and the transit times are set. The only thing left is to set the cost of shipping.
If sellers want to discard the SSA (as I would recommend), they should slide the bar that reads “Shipping Settings Automatization”, and once this is done, a warning sign will appear:
Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA
I’ll click “confirm”, and that will be the end of SSA. Now I get to set the templates any way I want to.
The home screen for Shipping Settings will look like this:
Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off
So, Shipping Templates can be set in any of two ways: by weight or by price.
Figure 3.4 Filling a Shipping Template, Rate Mode
They work the same way. Basically, all that we are doing here is deciding if we value more the shipping cost per pound, or the shipping cost per value. With either option, the steps to set the template would be extremely similar, so this is not the hill where I’ll ramble aimlessly… Too late.
For the sake of the example, we will continue with the “Per Item/Weight-based”, mostly because there are already enough screenshots through the thread, and many more are coming.
Sellers have here 5 different shipping options:
- Free economy, can be cancelled if so desired. There’s no obligation to offer free shipping
- Standard Shipping, needs to cover the contiguous 48 at the same price. It can not exclude states; it doesn’t matter how much you dislike a given place, if it’s in the continental region, it must be included. It doesn’t matter that you’re in WA and want to charge different for FL, ME or OR. Standard Shipping is the only shipping that is mandatory and must be the same cost for the contiguous 48. Standard Shipping however can offer different shipping speeds through the country.
- Expedite Shipping, can be killed or can be offered with different prices and delivery times, it’s flexible.
- Two-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2PM, areas that will receive the product within 2 days, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded.
- One-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2 PM, areas that will receive the product next day, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded. Not all sellers get this option.
Then there’s international shipping, which has two options. Standard and Expedite. If you need my guide to set the templates, you’re not ready for international, so I won’t explain them here.
So, to fill the template. We will start with “Free Economy”. Again, this is optional, and if the check-mark is uncheck the shipping template will still be valid. But for the sake of the exercise, we will click on “Add a new rule”. This screen will appear:
Figure 3.5 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy
There’s not much to be done. It’s quite boring really. The contiguous 48 are required. The other regions can be added at will or excluded if so desired. We click “ok”, and what we can do is modify the number of days that it will take for the transit time:
Figure 3.6 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy Transit Time
Given that is “Free Economy”, I’d always suggest the slowest transit time, so I would choose 5-10 days. I will explain Transit Times in detail below. Please note that you can un-check the “PO Box” for delivery if you so prefer; remember the PO Boxes can only be accessed by USPS. (Nothing against PO Boxes, they are extremely useful, I have one myself).
Now, when working with “Standard Shipping”, there are a few things that need to be known:
- Standard Shipping is mandatory.
- Sellers must ship to the contiguous 48.
- Sellers must ship to all states at the same price. You can’t exclude states.
- The delivery times need to be accurate, particularly if “Free Economy” is not being used.
The default screen for Standard Shipping will look like this for a seller centered in FL:
Figure 3.7 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with SSA deactivated
Note that:
- The Standard Shipping can’t be un-checked.
- The Requirement sign indicating that it needs to cover the lower 48 at the same cost.
- My example is centered in Florida, yours will be centered in your state.
- Sellers have the possibility to edit the regions, as long as SSA has been deactivated (Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA).
- If SSA it has not been deactivated, then the screen will look like this:
Figure 3.8 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with active SSA (not recommended)
Again, I suggest deactivating the SSA.
So, using a shipping template that has SSA deactivated, sellers can edit the times for the different regions.
The region that covers the state where the seller is located can be changed to as few as 1-2 days of transit time, or as many as 4-8. All other continental regions can be assigned a delivery time of at least 2 days and at max 8 days, while Hawaii and Alaska have a wider range, from 2 to 14 days:
Figure 3.9 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping Transit Times expanded
Please note that this screen is a combination of multiple screenshots, don’t get frustrated trying to expand all the transit times simultaneously, it’s not possible.
We will cover the transit times and regions in more detail below.
The fourth column of the table will allow us to determine the shipping fees for each region. Starting with a fixed fee (which can start as low as 0) and indicating a cost increase per lb.
Lastly, the fifth column allows us to delete regions.
When determining the transit times sellers need to account for 3 things: handling time, shipping time and holidays. For the sake of the example, we will ignore holidays. If a seller works with a handling time of 2 days, any order that arrives before 2 PM (if working with the standard cut-off time), will have to account for those two days when determining the Transit Time. If the order arrives after 2 PM, then the seller can count the Transit Time starting from the following day. Read here for a detailed explanation.
Then, the seller needs to add the days that it will take for the carrier to deliver the package to the handling time. That addition will determine the earliest possible delivery date.
For instance, if a seller in FL has a transit time of 2 days and wants to ship to CA with a carrier that will take 5 days, the transit time must be of at least 7 days.
If the same seller wants to ship to TN with a carrier that will take 2 days, the transit time must be of at least 4 days.
If the same seller has a transit time of 1 day, then transit time will need to show 6 days to reach CA and 3 to reach TN.
To assign the transit times to the regions, the seller must click either the “edit” button next to the region that needs to be modified, or the “Add New Shipping Rule” in the bottom.
If the seller starts by clicking the “Add New Shipping Rule”, the following screen will open:
Figure 3.10 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new Rule
Virtually everything on this screen is greyed-out, meaning that it can’t be edited. That’s because all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been covered in the default template. So, let’s just press cancel, and return to the previous screen. We will “delete” the region that encompasses all 47 states (circled in yellow to the right of the screen).
Figure 3.11 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Delete Region
A warning message appears, we click “ok”, and now our shipping template is destitute and there’s an alarm indicating that it can’t be saved as it’s not meeting the shipping requirements:
Figure 3.12 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping missing states
So, we go back to “Add new Shipping Rule” and we will get this screen:
Figure 3.13 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule
Begging us to fill the regions.
All states have an “expand” symbol next to their name, meaning that the states have been broken into multiple sections. In other words, the regions that Amazon suggests have a level of flexibility. Furthermore, there’s no obligation to pile states into the same Transit Time just because they are in the same region. This will be seen more clearly below, as we will mix and match states from different regions in different shipping rules, as well as different sections of a state into different shipping rules.
So we will create a first region that makes sense for a seller in Florida.
Florida is greyed in the image because it was already assigned to a default transit time. A state can not be added to two different shipping rules. We can delete that rule, but let’s assume that we will give a preferential treatment to the best state in the Union. For the region that we are creating, I will choose states that are close and that I can reach with a Transit Time of 3 days. For this section of the exercise, we will assume a handling time of 1 days, so shipping time needs to be of 2 days for me to reach the destination in 3 days.
There are many ways to determine transit times. The easiest one is going to the FedEx, UPS and USPS and search for transit times centered in your zip code.
Figure 3.14 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule, Selecting states
So we selected all of SC, GA, LA, TN, AL, AR NC and MS, as well as the Eastern Part of TX. When we click “Ok” (not Oklahoma) we see the following change to our “Standard Shipping”
Figure 3.15 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Different Transit Times for different regions
The region has been added, but the “Alert” symbol exists because many states have not been added to the template.
Florida has been changed to a Transit Time of 1-2 days (1 of handling, 1 of shipping)
HI, AL and PR have been changed to 7-14 days
And the new region has been assigned a Transit Time of 2-3 days.
The next region will have a Transit Time of 2-4 days. We will click “Add new Shipping Rule” and the same screen will open with some of the regions greyed out, and some available:
Figure 3.16 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states before
TX appears unchecked even though we already selected part of it, we need to expand it so that we don’t miss any areas of the country. The new region may look like this:
Figure 3.17 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states after
Please note how different states can be combined within the same Transit Time (NM is included, while MD, ND and ME are excluded). Our Standard Shipping Template will now look like this:
Figure 3.18 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, 4 regions
And if we add the missing states by creating a new rule, it will look like this:
Figure 3.19 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, all regions completed with Transit Time
I purposefully missed the protectorates. They don’t need to be added, but can if so the seller desires.
PO Boxes can be unchecked if so desired by the seller.
Now comes the part of assigning the Shipping Fee and the cost per pound. Sellers will set a base price for the shipping fee, and an additional price for each pound. It can be $0 if so desired. Let’s assume a $5 per order, and a surcharge of $1 per pound
Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight
As it has only been added to the first region, the template once again cries foul. All regions need to be covered with the same shipping fees. By setting the same costs to the other regions, the template becomes peaceful again:
Figure 3.21 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight correct
So now to the following sections. Expedite, Two-day and One-day:
Figure 3.22 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery
There’s no magic here. It’s repeating what we just did, but regions can be excluded or charged different prices. I won’t go through the step by step, it’s repeating what we just did, and the result may look like this and be perfectly fine:
Figure 3.23 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery completed
Once this is all done, sellers must scroll down to the bottom of the page and save.
From here, sellers need to link the Shipping Template to the SKUs.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201841600?locale=en-US
Before finalizing the thread, there are two more things that I want to cover on this guide.
- If sellers have negotiated rates with FedEx or UPS, they can use their negotiated rates while purchasing Buy Shipping through Amazon. To do this, they should follow the steps indicated on this link
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200785170
- Sellers can prioritize or even exclude carriers by going here. This location is reached by going to account info, buy shipping preferences, preferences for “seller name”, edit
As it is the case with many of these long threads, I abused the trust of many other sellers.
My thanks to @ThisIsTheWay, @Dogtamer and @ABC_23 for reading the guide.
Special thanks to @racingroxstore for all the help reviewing some sections, and all the comments and suggestions along the way; not only on how to write this thread, but in how to better reach/cover the actual problems that other sellers have.
8 replies
Seller_xgE8VKcHiSfnv
I didn’t read it (yet) but A+ for effort.
Seller_tzfX0jBLBCmu2
I learned something I did not know about far down in detail we can do shipping times in our templates.
Seller_sUfyk7ajzPzny
Many thanks for posting yet another of your always-excellent tutorials, BP!
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I myself do not feel that you’ve abused trust in asking for critique.
Seller_OxjIxwlMmwmlP
This bad boy should be pinned or referenced for sure by the mod team.
Nice work. 
Seller_4RRTjOpWG0qkj
Please delete this thread. It compromises the privacy of all the people tagged. @Jim_Amazon, @Quincy_Amazon, @Wyatt_Amazon, @Xander_Amazon, @Topher_Amazon, @Tiff_Amazon, @Sandy_Amazon, @Glenn_Amazon, @Desi_Amazon
Shipping Templates 1.01, how to fill a Shipping Template step-by-step
This guide provides a step-by-step on how to set your shipping settings and templates.
Through the guide I will create an example of how to prepare a Shipping Template centered in Florida. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in Florida, then adapt the template to your second-best location.
Shipping templates are only available for Professional Sellers and are used only for FBM or SFP shipping. This guide is too basic for anybody doing SFP, so for all intended purposes, the requirements to follow this guide are to have a professional account and to ship FBM. Obviously, individual sellers that want to learn how to create shipping templates are more than welcomed to check it and ask any questions that they may have.
To create shipping templates sellers must go to: account settings, shipping settings
The page has two different tabs “General Shipping Settings” and “Shipping Templates”.
General Shipping Settings are used to establish:
- Shipping location
- Days and hours of operations
- Handling time
- Holidays
In this early section of the guide, we will explain each of these four subsections. If you have these settings ready, and you are interest is on the Shipping Template, you can skip it.
General Shipping Settings
This page show four tables:
- Default Shipping Address: allows sellers to set the default shipping address and their time zone.
- Order Fulfilment Settings: allows sellers to establish the cut-off time for orders, the operating days (Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat), the Weekend Delivery Settings, and the Weekend operations.
If the “edit” button is pressed, the seller will see the following screen:
Figure 1.1 General Shipping Settings, General Fulfilment Settings
Everything on the left menu is a hyperlink, while everything on the right side of the screen is the expanded version of said hyperlinks.
The earliest standard cut-off time is 2 PM.
Determining the days of the week that are for pick-up prevents sellers for selecting Saturday or Sunday as shipping days.
Monday through Friday are mandatory, Saturday and Sunday are optional. Sellers that do not wish for Saturday and Sunday to count as shipping dates must indicate that they are “No pick-up” days:
Figure 1.2 General Shipping Settings, Weekend Delivery Settings
Further down the screen, sellers will see Fulfilment Settings for Shipping Region Automation. These settings allow sellers to establish the order cut-off and last pick-up time by carrier.
Figure 1.3 General Shipping Settings, Fulfillment Settings for Shipping Region Automation
I don’t really care for Automation in shipping. I think that I know my transit times better than Amazon. This guide is not to learn Shipping Automation, if Amazon wants to teach sellers about it, then they should create their own guide.
For a more detailed explanation on these settings (by a seller, not by Amazon) check here
- Handling Time: sellers can indicate the required handling time for orders placed before the cut-off time (earliest cut-off time is 2PM Mon-Fri). Default handling time can be of “Same day (0 days)” for eligible sellers, or 1 or 2 days. Longer handling times can be added to specific ASINs in the “offer” tab or through a File Upload.
Sellers also get to indicate the Order Handling Capacity, which simply means how many orders they can handle in a day. If they receive more orders than what they can handle, then the orders are shifted to the following day.
If the “edit” button is expanded, sellers will see this screen:
Figure 1.4 General Shipping Settings, Default Handling Time
- Holidays; indicates the dates that Amazon considers holidays. Sellers can click on “edit” and indicate if they will work on the pre-established holiday. Sellers can not add holidays to this list. If sellers wish to add holidays to their schedule, they need to move to vacation settings on account info. For more info on vacation settings, check here
When expanded, this screen looks like this:
Figure 1.5 General Shipping Settings, Holidays
To recap, General Shipping Settings determine:
- Default ship from address,
- Cut-off times
- Operating days
- Handling times
- Daily handling capacity
- Official Amazon holidays
On the Shipping Templates tab, which is the default tab when going through “account settings, shipping settings”, sellers get the option to “Create New Shipping Template” or use any of the existing templates. It should look like this:
Figure 2.1 Shipping Templates, Home Screen
By clicking in “Create New Shipping Template” sellers get to either “Create a new shipping template” from scratch, or copy one of the existing templates. For this example we will use “Create a new shipping template”:
Figure 2.2 Shipping Templates, Create new Template
By choosing “ok”, the next screen pops up:
Figure 2.3 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Warehouse Location
Here sellers can either work through the automatization steps, or simply click cancel. If a seller clicks cancel (which would be my recommendation), they will forgo the Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) , and can scroll to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
For a detailed explanation of why I don’t recommend SSA, click here. Some people may like the SSA, I don’t. I believe that I know my shipping settings and capabilities better than Amazon, but that’s not to say that SSA can’t be useful for some templates.
Sellers that want to go through SSA should follow the steps listed in the following drop-down menu. Sellers that wish to skip SSA, can just scroll down to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
Shipping Setting Automation
Sellers can choose from multiple addresses (if they have them) or from whichever one is the default. After hitting “next” they will move to the following screen:
Figure 2.4 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Fulfillment Preference
If the sellers don’t participate in Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) then they can’t edit the options, they should simply click “next” and reach the following screen:
Figure 2.5 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Standard Shipping Automation Preferences
Please note that this screen has a slide-bar on the right; I scrolled down a bit to show the important parts, so by default it will look slightly differently. Here the sellers will choose two things: the type of shipping services that they will use, and the Region Preferences.
Selecting only some Shipping Services will not prevent Amazon from deciding to show other shipping options when “Buying Shipping”. But it will help to prioritize them. Once some of these services are selected, the screen will expand to look like this:
Figure 2.6 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Shipping Service Priority
The seller can select either the cheapest service to be the default to appear first; or can prioritize the order in which they want the shipments to appear (the table is a drag-drop menu that can be moved with the mouse)
If the seller scrolls a bit further down on the same screen and expands the Region Preferences, this screen will appear:
Figure 2.7 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Region Preferences
The continental US is mandatory, but Alaska, Hawaii, the protectorates and military bases are optional.
After clicking “next”, eligible sellers will see the same screen, but now for the “Premium” shipping option:
Figure 2.8 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Premium Shipping Automation Preferences
After clicking next, a “Review” screen will indicate a summary of the selected services:
Figure 2.9 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation Summary
By clicking “Confirm, the seller will move to the “Shipping Template” per se.
The new screen will look like this:
Figure 3.1 Filling a Shipping Template, Home
If the seller wants to keep the SSA, then the guide is almost over, they should scroll down to Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight . Amazon took over and the transit times are set. The only thing left is to set the cost of shipping.
If sellers want to discard the SSA (as I would recommend), they should slide the bar that reads “Shipping Settings Automatization”, and once this is done, a warning sign will appear:
Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA
I’ll click “confirm”, and that will be the end of SSA. Now I get to set the templates any way I want to.
The home screen for Shipping Settings will look like this:
Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off
So, Shipping Templates can be set in any of two ways: by weight or by price.
Figure 3.4 Filling a Shipping Template, Rate Mode
They work the same way. Basically, all that we are doing here is deciding if we value more the shipping cost per pound, or the shipping cost per value. With either option, the steps to set the template would be extremely similar, so this is not the hill where I’ll ramble aimlessly… Too late.
For the sake of the example, we will continue with the “Per Item/Weight-based”, mostly because there are already enough screenshots through the thread, and many more are coming.
Sellers have here 5 different shipping options:
- Free economy, can be cancelled if so desired. There’s no obligation to offer free shipping
- Standard Shipping, needs to cover the contiguous 48 at the same price. It can not exclude states; it doesn’t matter how much you dislike a given place, if it’s in the continental region, it must be included. It doesn’t matter that you’re in WA and want to charge different for FL, ME or OR. Standard Shipping is the only shipping that is mandatory and must be the same cost for the contiguous 48. Standard Shipping however can offer different shipping speeds through the country.
- Expedite Shipping, can be killed or can be offered with different prices and delivery times, it’s flexible.
- Two-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2PM, areas that will receive the product within 2 days, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded.
- One-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2 PM, areas that will receive the product next day, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded. Not all sellers get this option.
Then there’s international shipping, which has two options. Standard and Expedite. If you need my guide to set the templates, you’re not ready for international, so I won’t explain them here.
So, to fill the template. We will start with “Free Economy”. Again, this is optional, and if the check-mark is uncheck the shipping template will still be valid. But for the sake of the exercise, we will click on “Add a new rule”. This screen will appear:
Figure 3.5 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy
There’s not much to be done. It’s quite boring really. The contiguous 48 are required. The other regions can be added at will or excluded if so desired. We click “ok”, and what we can do is modify the number of days that it will take for the transit time:
Figure 3.6 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy Transit Time
Given that is “Free Economy”, I’d always suggest the slowest transit time, so I would choose 5-10 days. I will explain Transit Times in detail below. Please note that you can un-check the “PO Box” for delivery if you so prefer; remember the PO Boxes can only be accessed by USPS. (Nothing against PO Boxes, they are extremely useful, I have one myself).
Now, when working with “Standard Shipping”, there are a few things that need to be known:
- Standard Shipping is mandatory.
- Sellers must ship to the contiguous 48.
- Sellers must ship to all states at the same price. You can’t exclude states.
- The delivery times need to be accurate, particularly if “Free Economy” is not being used.
The default screen for Standard Shipping will look like this for a seller centered in FL:
Figure 3.7 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with SSA deactivated
Note that:
- The Standard Shipping can’t be un-checked.
- The Requirement sign indicating that it needs to cover the lower 48 at the same cost.
- My example is centered in Florida, yours will be centered in your state.
- Sellers have the possibility to edit the regions, as long as SSA has been deactivated (Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA).
- If SSA it has not been deactivated, then the screen will look like this:
Figure 3.8 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with active SSA (not recommended)
Again, I suggest deactivating the SSA.
So, using a shipping template that has SSA deactivated, sellers can edit the times for the different regions.
The region that covers the state where the seller is located can be changed to as few as 1-2 days of transit time, or as many as 4-8. All other continental regions can be assigned a delivery time of at least 2 days and at max 8 days, while Hawaii and Alaska have a wider range, from 2 to 14 days:
Figure 3.9 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping Transit Times expanded
Please note that this screen is a combination of multiple screenshots, don’t get frustrated trying to expand all the transit times simultaneously, it’s not possible.
We will cover the transit times and regions in more detail below.
The fourth column of the table will allow us to determine the shipping fees for each region. Starting with a fixed fee (which can start as low as 0) and indicating a cost increase per lb.
Lastly, the fifth column allows us to delete regions.
When determining the transit times sellers need to account for 3 things: handling time, shipping time and holidays. For the sake of the example, we will ignore holidays. If a seller works with a handling time of 2 days, any order that arrives before 2 PM (if working with the standard cut-off time), will have to account for those two days when determining the Transit Time. If the order arrives after 2 PM, then the seller can count the Transit Time starting from the following day. Read here for a detailed explanation.
Then, the seller needs to add the days that it will take for the carrier to deliver the package to the handling time. That addition will determine the earliest possible delivery date.
For instance, if a seller in FL has a transit time of 2 days and wants to ship to CA with a carrier that will take 5 days, the transit time must be of at least 7 days.
If the same seller wants to ship to TN with a carrier that will take 2 days, the transit time must be of at least 4 days.
If the same seller has a transit time of 1 day, then transit time will need to show 6 days to reach CA and 3 to reach TN.
To assign the transit times to the regions, the seller must click either the “edit” button next to the region that needs to be modified, or the “Add New Shipping Rule” in the bottom.
If the seller starts by clicking the “Add New Shipping Rule”, the following screen will open:
Figure 3.10 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new Rule
Virtually everything on this screen is greyed-out, meaning that it can’t be edited. That’s because all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been covered in the default template. So, let’s just press cancel, and return to the previous screen. We will “delete” the region that encompasses all 47 states (circled in yellow to the right of the screen).
Figure 3.11 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Delete Region
A warning message appears, we click “ok”, and now our shipping template is destitute and there’s an alarm indicating that it can’t be saved as it’s not meeting the shipping requirements:
Figure 3.12 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping missing states
So, we go back to “Add new Shipping Rule” and we will get this screen:
Figure 3.13 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule
Begging us to fill the regions.
All states have an “expand” symbol next to their name, meaning that the states have been broken into multiple sections. In other words, the regions that Amazon suggests have a level of flexibility. Furthermore, there’s no obligation to pile states into the same Transit Time just because they are in the same region. This will be seen more clearly below, as we will mix and match states from different regions in different shipping rules, as well as different sections of a state into different shipping rules.
So we will create a first region that makes sense for a seller in Florida.
Florida is greyed in the image because it was already assigned to a default transit time. A state can not be added to two different shipping rules. We can delete that rule, but let’s assume that we will give a preferential treatment to the best state in the Union. For the region that we are creating, I will choose states that are close and that I can reach with a Transit Time of 3 days. For this section of the exercise, we will assume a handling time of 1 days, so shipping time needs to be of 2 days for me to reach the destination in 3 days.
There are many ways to determine transit times. The easiest one is going to the FedEx, UPS and USPS and search for transit times centered in your zip code.
Figure 3.14 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule, Selecting states
So we selected all of SC, GA, LA, TN, AL, AR NC and MS, as well as the Eastern Part of TX. When we click “Ok” (not Oklahoma) we see the following change to our “Standard Shipping”
Figure 3.15 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Different Transit Times for different regions
The region has been added, but the “Alert” symbol exists because many states have not been added to the template.
Florida has been changed to a Transit Time of 1-2 days (1 of handling, 1 of shipping)
HI, AL and PR have been changed to 7-14 days
And the new region has been assigned a Transit Time of 2-3 days.
The next region will have a Transit Time of 2-4 days. We will click “Add new Shipping Rule” and the same screen will open with some of the regions greyed out, and some available:
Figure 3.16 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states before
TX appears unchecked even though we already selected part of it, we need to expand it so that we don’t miss any areas of the country. The new region may look like this:
Figure 3.17 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states after
Please note how different states can be combined within the same Transit Time (NM is included, while MD, ND and ME are excluded). Our Standard Shipping Template will now look like this:
Figure 3.18 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, 4 regions
And if we add the missing states by creating a new rule, it will look like this:
Figure 3.19 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, all regions completed with Transit Time
I purposefully missed the protectorates. They don’t need to be added, but can if so the seller desires.
PO Boxes can be unchecked if so desired by the seller.
Now comes the part of assigning the Shipping Fee and the cost per pound. Sellers will set a base price for the shipping fee, and an additional price for each pound. It can be $0 if so desired. Let’s assume a $5 per order, and a surcharge of $1 per pound
Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight
As it has only been added to the first region, the template once again cries foul. All regions need to be covered with the same shipping fees. By setting the same costs to the other regions, the template becomes peaceful again:
Figure 3.21 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight correct
So now to the following sections. Expedite, Two-day and One-day:
Figure 3.22 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery
There’s no magic here. It’s repeating what we just did, but regions can be excluded or charged different prices. I won’t go through the step by step, it’s repeating what we just did, and the result may look like this and be perfectly fine:
Figure 3.23 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery completed
Once this is all done, sellers must scroll down to the bottom of the page and save.
From here, sellers need to link the Shipping Template to the SKUs.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201841600?locale=en-US
Before finalizing the thread, there are two more things that I want to cover on this guide.
- If sellers have negotiated rates with FedEx or UPS, they can use their negotiated rates while purchasing Buy Shipping through Amazon. To do this, they should follow the steps indicated on this link
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200785170
- Sellers can prioritize or even exclude carriers by going here. This location is reached by going to account info, buy shipping preferences, preferences for “seller name”, edit
As it is the case with many of these long threads, I abused the trust of many other sellers.
My thanks to @ThisIsTheWay, @Dogtamer and @ABC_23 for reading the guide.
Special thanks to @racingroxstore for all the help reviewing some sections, and all the comments and suggestions along the way; not only on how to write this thread, but in how to better reach/cover the actual problems that other sellers have.
Shipping Templates 1.01, how to fill a Shipping Template step-by-step
This guide provides a step-by-step on how to set your shipping settings and templates.
Through the guide I will create an example of how to prepare a Shipping Template centered in Florida. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in Florida, then adapt the template to your second-best location.
Shipping templates are only available for Professional Sellers and are used only for FBM or SFP shipping. This guide is too basic for anybody doing SFP, so for all intended purposes, the requirements to follow this guide are to have a professional account and to ship FBM. Obviously, individual sellers that want to learn how to create shipping templates are more than welcomed to check it and ask any questions that they may have.
To create shipping templates sellers must go to: account settings, shipping settings
The page has two different tabs “General Shipping Settings” and “Shipping Templates”.
General Shipping Settings are used to establish:
- Shipping location
- Days and hours of operations
- Handling time
- Holidays
In this early section of the guide, we will explain each of these four subsections. If you have these settings ready, and you are interest is on the Shipping Template, you can skip it.
General Shipping Settings
This page show four tables:
- Default Shipping Address: allows sellers to set the default shipping address and their time zone.
- Order Fulfilment Settings: allows sellers to establish the cut-off time for orders, the operating days (Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat), the Weekend Delivery Settings, and the Weekend operations.
If the “edit” button is pressed, the seller will see the following screen:
Figure 1.1 General Shipping Settings, General Fulfilment Settings
Everything on the left menu is a hyperlink, while everything on the right side of the screen is the expanded version of said hyperlinks.
The earliest standard cut-off time is 2 PM.
Determining the days of the week that are for pick-up prevents sellers for selecting Saturday or Sunday as shipping days.
Monday through Friday are mandatory, Saturday and Sunday are optional. Sellers that do not wish for Saturday and Sunday to count as shipping dates must indicate that they are “No pick-up” days:
Figure 1.2 General Shipping Settings, Weekend Delivery Settings
Further down the screen, sellers will see Fulfilment Settings for Shipping Region Automation. These settings allow sellers to establish the order cut-off and last pick-up time by carrier.
Figure 1.3 General Shipping Settings, Fulfillment Settings for Shipping Region Automation
I don’t really care for Automation in shipping. I think that I know my transit times better than Amazon. This guide is not to learn Shipping Automation, if Amazon wants to teach sellers about it, then they should create their own guide.
For a more detailed explanation on these settings (by a seller, not by Amazon) check here
- Handling Time: sellers can indicate the required handling time for orders placed before the cut-off time (earliest cut-off time is 2PM Mon-Fri). Default handling time can be of “Same day (0 days)” for eligible sellers, or 1 or 2 days. Longer handling times can be added to specific ASINs in the “offer” tab or through a File Upload.
Sellers also get to indicate the Order Handling Capacity, which simply means how many orders they can handle in a day. If they receive more orders than what they can handle, then the orders are shifted to the following day.
If the “edit” button is expanded, sellers will see this screen:
Figure 1.4 General Shipping Settings, Default Handling Time
- Holidays; indicates the dates that Amazon considers holidays. Sellers can click on “edit” and indicate if they will work on the pre-established holiday. Sellers can not add holidays to this list. If sellers wish to add holidays to their schedule, they need to move to vacation settings on account info. For more info on vacation settings, check here
When expanded, this screen looks like this:
Figure 1.5 General Shipping Settings, Holidays
To recap, General Shipping Settings determine:
- Default ship from address,
- Cut-off times
- Operating days
- Handling times
- Daily handling capacity
- Official Amazon holidays
On the Shipping Templates tab, which is the default tab when going through “account settings, shipping settings”, sellers get the option to “Create New Shipping Template” or use any of the existing templates. It should look like this:
Figure 2.1 Shipping Templates, Home Screen
By clicking in “Create New Shipping Template” sellers get to either “Create a new shipping template” from scratch, or copy one of the existing templates. For this example we will use “Create a new shipping template”:
Figure 2.2 Shipping Templates, Create new Template
By choosing “ok”, the next screen pops up:
Figure 2.3 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Warehouse Location
Here sellers can either work through the automatization steps, or simply click cancel. If a seller clicks cancel (which would be my recommendation), they will forgo the Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) , and can scroll to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
For a detailed explanation of why I don’t recommend SSA, click here. Some people may like the SSA, I don’t. I believe that I know my shipping settings and capabilities better than Amazon, but that’s not to say that SSA can’t be useful for some templates.
Sellers that want to go through SSA should follow the steps listed in the following drop-down menu. Sellers that wish to skip SSA, can just scroll down to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
Shipping Setting Automation
Sellers can choose from multiple addresses (if they have them) or from whichever one is the default. After hitting “next” they will move to the following screen:
Figure 2.4 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Fulfillment Preference
If the sellers don’t participate in Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) then they can’t edit the options, they should simply click “next” and reach the following screen:
Figure 2.5 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Standard Shipping Automation Preferences
Please note that this screen has a slide-bar on the right; I scrolled down a bit to show the important parts, so by default it will look slightly differently. Here the sellers will choose two things: the type of shipping services that they will use, and the Region Preferences.
Selecting only some Shipping Services will not prevent Amazon from deciding to show other shipping options when “Buying Shipping”. But it will help to prioritize them. Once some of these services are selected, the screen will expand to look like this:
Figure 2.6 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Shipping Service Priority
The seller can select either the cheapest service to be the default to appear first; or can prioritize the order in which they want the shipments to appear (the table is a drag-drop menu that can be moved with the mouse)
If the seller scrolls a bit further down on the same screen and expands the Region Preferences, this screen will appear:
Figure 2.7 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Region Preferences
The continental US is mandatory, but Alaska, Hawaii, the protectorates and military bases are optional.
After clicking “next”, eligible sellers will see the same screen, but now for the “Premium” shipping option:
Figure 2.8 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Premium Shipping Automation Preferences
After clicking next, a “Review” screen will indicate a summary of the selected services:
Figure 2.9 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation Summary
By clicking “Confirm, the seller will move to the “Shipping Template” per se.
The new screen will look like this:
Figure 3.1 Filling a Shipping Template, Home
If the seller wants to keep the SSA, then the guide is almost over, they should scroll down to Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight . Amazon took over and the transit times are set. The only thing left is to set the cost of shipping.
If sellers want to discard the SSA (as I would recommend), they should slide the bar that reads “Shipping Settings Automatization”, and once this is done, a warning sign will appear:
Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA
I’ll click “confirm”, and that will be the end of SSA. Now I get to set the templates any way I want to.
The home screen for Shipping Settings will look like this:
Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off
So, Shipping Templates can be set in any of two ways: by weight or by price.
Figure 3.4 Filling a Shipping Template, Rate Mode
They work the same way. Basically, all that we are doing here is deciding if we value more the shipping cost per pound, or the shipping cost per value. With either option, the steps to set the template would be extremely similar, so this is not the hill where I’ll ramble aimlessly… Too late.
For the sake of the example, we will continue with the “Per Item/Weight-based”, mostly because there are already enough screenshots through the thread, and many more are coming.
Sellers have here 5 different shipping options:
- Free economy, can be cancelled if so desired. There’s no obligation to offer free shipping
- Standard Shipping, needs to cover the contiguous 48 at the same price. It can not exclude states; it doesn’t matter how much you dislike a given place, if it’s in the continental region, it must be included. It doesn’t matter that you’re in WA and want to charge different for FL, ME or OR. Standard Shipping is the only shipping that is mandatory and must be the same cost for the contiguous 48. Standard Shipping however can offer different shipping speeds through the country.
- Expedite Shipping, can be killed or can be offered with different prices and delivery times, it’s flexible.
- Two-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2PM, areas that will receive the product within 2 days, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded.
- One-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2 PM, areas that will receive the product next day, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded. Not all sellers get this option.
Then there’s international shipping, which has two options. Standard and Expedite. If you need my guide to set the templates, you’re not ready for international, so I won’t explain them here.
So, to fill the template. We will start with “Free Economy”. Again, this is optional, and if the check-mark is uncheck the shipping template will still be valid. But for the sake of the exercise, we will click on “Add a new rule”. This screen will appear:
Figure 3.5 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy
There’s not much to be done. It’s quite boring really. The contiguous 48 are required. The other regions can be added at will or excluded if so desired. We click “ok”, and what we can do is modify the number of days that it will take for the transit time:
Figure 3.6 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy Transit Time
Given that is “Free Economy”, I’d always suggest the slowest transit time, so I would choose 5-10 days. I will explain Transit Times in detail below. Please note that you can un-check the “PO Box” for delivery if you so prefer; remember the PO Boxes can only be accessed by USPS. (Nothing against PO Boxes, they are extremely useful, I have one myself).
Now, when working with “Standard Shipping”, there are a few things that need to be known:
- Standard Shipping is mandatory.
- Sellers must ship to the contiguous 48.
- Sellers must ship to all states at the same price. You can’t exclude states.
- The delivery times need to be accurate, particularly if “Free Economy” is not being used.
The default screen for Standard Shipping will look like this for a seller centered in FL:
Figure 3.7 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with SSA deactivated
Note that:
- The Standard Shipping can’t be un-checked.
- The Requirement sign indicating that it needs to cover the lower 48 at the same cost.
- My example is centered in Florida, yours will be centered in your state.
- Sellers have the possibility to edit the regions, as long as SSA has been deactivated (Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA).
- If SSA it has not been deactivated, then the screen will look like this:
Figure 3.8 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with active SSA (not recommended)
Again, I suggest deactivating the SSA.
So, using a shipping template that has SSA deactivated, sellers can edit the times for the different regions.
The region that covers the state where the seller is located can be changed to as few as 1-2 days of transit time, or as many as 4-8. All other continental regions can be assigned a delivery time of at least 2 days and at max 8 days, while Hawaii and Alaska have a wider range, from 2 to 14 days:
Figure 3.9 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping Transit Times expanded
Please note that this screen is a combination of multiple screenshots, don’t get frustrated trying to expand all the transit times simultaneously, it’s not possible.
We will cover the transit times and regions in more detail below.
The fourth column of the table will allow us to determine the shipping fees for each region. Starting with a fixed fee (which can start as low as 0) and indicating a cost increase per lb.
Lastly, the fifth column allows us to delete regions.
When determining the transit times sellers need to account for 3 things: handling time, shipping time and holidays. For the sake of the example, we will ignore holidays. If a seller works with a handling time of 2 days, any order that arrives before 2 PM (if working with the standard cut-off time), will have to account for those two days when determining the Transit Time. If the order arrives after 2 PM, then the seller can count the Transit Time starting from the following day. Read here for a detailed explanation.
Then, the seller needs to add the days that it will take for the carrier to deliver the package to the handling time. That addition will determine the earliest possible delivery date.
For instance, if a seller in FL has a transit time of 2 days and wants to ship to CA with a carrier that will take 5 days, the transit time must be of at least 7 days.
If the same seller wants to ship to TN with a carrier that will take 2 days, the transit time must be of at least 4 days.
If the same seller has a transit time of 1 day, then transit time will need to show 6 days to reach CA and 3 to reach TN.
To assign the transit times to the regions, the seller must click either the “edit” button next to the region that needs to be modified, or the “Add New Shipping Rule” in the bottom.
If the seller starts by clicking the “Add New Shipping Rule”, the following screen will open:
Figure 3.10 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new Rule
Virtually everything on this screen is greyed-out, meaning that it can’t be edited. That’s because all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been covered in the default template. So, let’s just press cancel, and return to the previous screen. We will “delete” the region that encompasses all 47 states (circled in yellow to the right of the screen).
Figure 3.11 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Delete Region
A warning message appears, we click “ok”, and now our shipping template is destitute and there’s an alarm indicating that it can’t be saved as it’s not meeting the shipping requirements:
Figure 3.12 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping missing states
So, we go back to “Add new Shipping Rule” and we will get this screen:
Figure 3.13 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule
Begging us to fill the regions.
All states have an “expand” symbol next to their name, meaning that the states have been broken into multiple sections. In other words, the regions that Amazon suggests have a level of flexibility. Furthermore, there’s no obligation to pile states into the same Transit Time just because they are in the same region. This will be seen more clearly below, as we will mix and match states from different regions in different shipping rules, as well as different sections of a state into different shipping rules.
So we will create a first region that makes sense for a seller in Florida.
Florida is greyed in the image because it was already assigned to a default transit time. A state can not be added to two different shipping rules. We can delete that rule, but let’s assume that we will give a preferential treatment to the best state in the Union. For the region that we are creating, I will choose states that are close and that I can reach with a Transit Time of 3 days. For this section of the exercise, we will assume a handling time of 1 days, so shipping time needs to be of 2 days for me to reach the destination in 3 days.
There are many ways to determine transit times. The easiest one is going to the FedEx, UPS and USPS and search for transit times centered in your zip code.
Figure 3.14 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule, Selecting states
So we selected all of SC, GA, LA, TN, AL, AR NC and MS, as well as the Eastern Part of TX. When we click “Ok” (not Oklahoma) we see the following change to our “Standard Shipping”
Figure 3.15 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Different Transit Times for different regions
The region has been added, but the “Alert” symbol exists because many states have not been added to the template.
Florida has been changed to a Transit Time of 1-2 days (1 of handling, 1 of shipping)
HI, AL and PR have been changed to 7-14 days
And the new region has been assigned a Transit Time of 2-3 days.
The next region will have a Transit Time of 2-4 days. We will click “Add new Shipping Rule” and the same screen will open with some of the regions greyed out, and some available:
Figure 3.16 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states before
TX appears unchecked even though we already selected part of it, we need to expand it so that we don’t miss any areas of the country. The new region may look like this:
Figure 3.17 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states after
Please note how different states can be combined within the same Transit Time (NM is included, while MD, ND and ME are excluded). Our Standard Shipping Template will now look like this:
Figure 3.18 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, 4 regions
And if we add the missing states by creating a new rule, it will look like this:
Figure 3.19 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, all regions completed with Transit Time
I purposefully missed the protectorates. They don’t need to be added, but can if so the seller desires.
PO Boxes can be unchecked if so desired by the seller.
Now comes the part of assigning the Shipping Fee and the cost per pound. Sellers will set a base price for the shipping fee, and an additional price for each pound. It can be $0 if so desired. Let’s assume a $5 per order, and a surcharge of $1 per pound
Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight
As it has only been added to the first region, the template once again cries foul. All regions need to be covered with the same shipping fees. By setting the same costs to the other regions, the template becomes peaceful again:
Figure 3.21 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight correct
So now to the following sections. Expedite, Two-day and One-day:
Figure 3.22 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery
There’s no magic here. It’s repeating what we just did, but regions can be excluded or charged different prices. I won’t go through the step by step, it’s repeating what we just did, and the result may look like this and be perfectly fine:
Figure 3.23 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery completed
Once this is all done, sellers must scroll down to the bottom of the page and save.
From here, sellers need to link the Shipping Template to the SKUs.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201841600?locale=en-US
Before finalizing the thread, there are two more things that I want to cover on this guide.
- If sellers have negotiated rates with FedEx or UPS, they can use their negotiated rates while purchasing Buy Shipping through Amazon. To do this, they should follow the steps indicated on this link
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200785170
- Sellers can prioritize or even exclude carriers by going here. This location is reached by going to account info, buy shipping preferences, preferences for “seller name”, edit
As it is the case with many of these long threads, I abused the trust of many other sellers.
My thanks to @ThisIsTheWay, @Dogtamer and @ABC_23 for reading the guide.
Special thanks to @racingroxstore for all the help reviewing some sections, and all the comments and suggestions along the way; not only on how to write this thread, but in how to better reach/cover the actual problems that other sellers have.
Shipping Templates 1.01, how to fill a Shipping Template step-by-step
This guide provides a step-by-step on how to set your shipping settings and templates.
Through the guide I will create an example of how to prepare a Shipping Template centered in Florida. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in Florida, then adapt the template to your second-best location.
Shipping templates are only available for Professional Sellers and are used only for FBM or SFP shipping. This guide is too basic for anybody doing SFP, so for all intended purposes, the requirements to follow this guide are to have a professional account and to ship FBM. Obviously, individual sellers that want to learn how to create shipping templates are more than welcomed to check it and ask any questions that they may have.
To create shipping templates sellers must go to: account settings, shipping settings
The page has two different tabs “General Shipping Settings” and “Shipping Templates”.
General Shipping Settings are used to establish:
- Shipping location
- Days and hours of operations
- Handling time
- Holidays
In this early section of the guide, we will explain each of these four subsections. If you have these settings ready, and you are interest is on the Shipping Template, you can skip it.
General Shipping Settings
This page show four tables:
- Default Shipping Address: allows sellers to set the default shipping address and their time zone.
- Order Fulfilment Settings: allows sellers to establish the cut-off time for orders, the operating days (Mon-Fri, Mon-Sat), the Weekend Delivery Settings, and the Weekend operations.
If the “edit” button is pressed, the seller will see the following screen:
Figure 1.1 General Shipping Settings, General Fulfilment Settings
Everything on the left menu is a hyperlink, while everything on the right side of the screen is the expanded version of said hyperlinks.
The earliest standard cut-off time is 2 PM.
Determining the days of the week that are for pick-up prevents sellers for selecting Saturday or Sunday as shipping days.
Monday through Friday are mandatory, Saturday and Sunday are optional. Sellers that do not wish for Saturday and Sunday to count as shipping dates must indicate that they are “No pick-up” days:
Figure 1.2 General Shipping Settings, Weekend Delivery Settings
Further down the screen, sellers will see Fulfilment Settings for Shipping Region Automation. These settings allow sellers to establish the order cut-off and last pick-up time by carrier.
Figure 1.3 General Shipping Settings, Fulfillment Settings for Shipping Region Automation
I don’t really care for Automation in shipping. I think that I know my transit times better than Amazon. This guide is not to learn Shipping Automation, if Amazon wants to teach sellers about it, then they should create their own guide.
For a more detailed explanation on these settings (by a seller, not by Amazon) check here
- Handling Time: sellers can indicate the required handling time for orders placed before the cut-off time (earliest cut-off time is 2PM Mon-Fri). Default handling time can be of “Same day (0 days)” for eligible sellers, or 1 or 2 days. Longer handling times can be added to specific ASINs in the “offer” tab or through a File Upload.
Sellers also get to indicate the Order Handling Capacity, which simply means how many orders they can handle in a day. If they receive more orders than what they can handle, then the orders are shifted to the following day.
If the “edit” button is expanded, sellers will see this screen:
Figure 1.4 General Shipping Settings, Default Handling Time
- Holidays; indicates the dates that Amazon considers holidays. Sellers can click on “edit” and indicate if they will work on the pre-established holiday. Sellers can not add holidays to this list. If sellers wish to add holidays to their schedule, they need to move to vacation settings on account info. For more info on vacation settings, check here
When expanded, this screen looks like this:
Figure 1.5 General Shipping Settings, Holidays
To recap, General Shipping Settings determine:
- Default ship from address,
- Cut-off times
- Operating days
- Handling times
- Daily handling capacity
- Official Amazon holidays
On the Shipping Templates tab, which is the default tab when going through “account settings, shipping settings”, sellers get the option to “Create New Shipping Template” or use any of the existing templates. It should look like this:
Figure 2.1 Shipping Templates, Home Screen
By clicking in “Create New Shipping Template” sellers get to either “Create a new shipping template” from scratch, or copy one of the existing templates. For this example we will use “Create a new shipping template”:
Figure 2.2 Shipping Templates, Create new Template
By choosing “ok”, the next screen pops up:
Figure 2.3 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Warehouse Location
Here sellers can either work through the automatization steps, or simply click cancel. If a seller clicks cancel (which would be my recommendation), they will forgo the Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) , and can scroll to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
For a detailed explanation of why I don’t recommend SSA, click here. Some people may like the SSA, I don’t. I believe that I know my shipping settings and capabilities better than Amazon, but that’s not to say that SSA can’t be useful for some templates.
Sellers that want to go through SSA should follow the steps listed in the following drop-down menu. Sellers that wish to skip SSA, can just scroll down to Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off .
Shipping Setting Automation
Sellers can choose from multiple addresses (if they have them) or from whichever one is the default. After hitting “next” they will move to the following screen:
Figure 2.4 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Fulfillment Preference
If the sellers don’t participate in Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) then they can’t edit the options, they should simply click “next” and reach the following screen:
Figure 2.5 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Standard Shipping Automation Preferences
Please note that this screen has a slide-bar on the right; I scrolled down a bit to show the important parts, so by default it will look slightly differently. Here the sellers will choose two things: the type of shipping services that they will use, and the Region Preferences.
Selecting only some Shipping Services will not prevent Amazon from deciding to show other shipping options when “Buying Shipping”. But it will help to prioritize them. Once some of these services are selected, the screen will expand to look like this:
Figure 2.6 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Shipping Service Priority
The seller can select either the cheapest service to be the default to appear first; or can prioritize the order in which they want the shipments to appear (the table is a drag-drop menu that can be moved with the mouse)
If the seller scrolls a bit further down on the same screen and expands the Region Preferences, this screen will appear:
Figure 2.7 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Region Preferences
The continental US is mandatory, but Alaska, Hawaii, the protectorates and military bases are optional.
After clicking “next”, eligible sellers will see the same screen, but now for the “Premium” shipping option:
Figure 2.8 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation, Premium Shipping Automation Preferences
After clicking next, a “Review” screen will indicate a summary of the selected services:
Figure 2.9 Shipping Templates, Shipping Stetting Automation Summary
By clicking “Confirm, the seller will move to the “Shipping Template” per se.
The new screen will look like this:
Figure 3.1 Filling a Shipping Template, Home
If the seller wants to keep the SSA, then the guide is almost over, they should scroll down to Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight . Amazon took over and the transit times are set. The only thing left is to set the cost of shipping.
If sellers want to discard the SSA (as I would recommend), they should slide the bar that reads “Shipping Settings Automatization”, and once this is done, a warning sign will appear:
Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA
I’ll click “confirm”, and that will be the end of SSA. Now I get to set the templates any way I want to.
The home screen for Shipping Settings will look like this:
Figure 3.3 Filling a Shipping Template, Home screen with SSA turned off
So, Shipping Templates can be set in any of two ways: by weight or by price.
Figure 3.4 Filling a Shipping Template, Rate Mode
They work the same way. Basically, all that we are doing here is deciding if we value more the shipping cost per pound, or the shipping cost per value. With either option, the steps to set the template would be extremely similar, so this is not the hill where I’ll ramble aimlessly… Too late.
For the sake of the example, we will continue with the “Per Item/Weight-based”, mostly because there are already enough screenshots through the thread, and many more are coming.
Sellers have here 5 different shipping options:
- Free economy, can be cancelled if so desired. There’s no obligation to offer free shipping
- Standard Shipping, needs to cover the contiguous 48 at the same price. It can not exclude states; it doesn’t matter how much you dislike a given place, if it’s in the continental region, it must be included. It doesn’t matter that you’re in WA and want to charge different for FL, ME or OR. Standard Shipping is the only shipping that is mandatory and must be the same cost for the contiguous 48. Standard Shipping however can offer different shipping speeds through the country.
- Expedite Shipping, can be killed or can be offered with different prices and delivery times, it’s flexible.
- Two-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2PM, areas that will receive the product within 2 days, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded.
- One-Day-Delivery with cut-off of 2 PM, areas that will receive the product next day, at different prices if need be. States can be excluded. Not all sellers get this option.
Then there’s international shipping, which has two options. Standard and Expedite. If you need my guide to set the templates, you’re not ready for international, so I won’t explain them here.
So, to fill the template. We will start with “Free Economy”. Again, this is optional, and if the check-mark is uncheck the shipping template will still be valid. But for the sake of the exercise, we will click on “Add a new rule”. This screen will appear:
Figure 3.5 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy
There’s not much to be done. It’s quite boring really. The contiguous 48 are required. The other regions can be added at will or excluded if so desired. We click “ok”, and what we can do is modify the number of days that it will take for the transit time:
Figure 3.6 Filling a Shipping Template, Free Economy Transit Time
Given that is “Free Economy”, I’d always suggest the slowest transit time, so I would choose 5-10 days. I will explain Transit Times in detail below. Please note that you can un-check the “PO Box” for delivery if you so prefer; remember the PO Boxes can only be accessed by USPS. (Nothing against PO Boxes, they are extremely useful, I have one myself).
Now, when working with “Standard Shipping”, there are a few things that need to be known:
- Standard Shipping is mandatory.
- Sellers must ship to the contiguous 48.
- Sellers must ship to all states at the same price. You can’t exclude states.
- The delivery times need to be accurate, particularly if “Free Economy” is not being used.
The default screen for Standard Shipping will look like this for a seller centered in FL:
Figure 3.7 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with SSA deactivated
Note that:
- The Standard Shipping can’t be un-checked.
- The Requirement sign indicating that it needs to cover the lower 48 at the same cost.
- My example is centered in Florida, yours will be centered in your state.
- Sellers have the possibility to edit the regions, as long as SSA has been deactivated (Figure 3.2 Filling a Shipping Template, Turn off SSA).
- If SSA it has not been deactivated, then the screen will look like this:
Figure 3.8 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping with active SSA (not recommended)
Again, I suggest deactivating the SSA.
So, using a shipping template that has SSA deactivated, sellers can edit the times for the different regions.
The region that covers the state where the seller is located can be changed to as few as 1-2 days of transit time, or as many as 4-8. All other continental regions can be assigned a delivery time of at least 2 days and at max 8 days, while Hawaii and Alaska have a wider range, from 2 to 14 days:
Figure 3.9 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping Transit Times expanded
Please note that this screen is a combination of multiple screenshots, don’t get frustrated trying to expand all the transit times simultaneously, it’s not possible.
We will cover the transit times and regions in more detail below.
The fourth column of the table will allow us to determine the shipping fees for each region. Starting with a fixed fee (which can start as low as 0) and indicating a cost increase per lb.
Lastly, the fifth column allows us to delete regions.
When determining the transit times sellers need to account for 3 things: handling time, shipping time and holidays. For the sake of the example, we will ignore holidays. If a seller works with a handling time of 2 days, any order that arrives before 2 PM (if working with the standard cut-off time), will have to account for those two days when determining the Transit Time. If the order arrives after 2 PM, then the seller can count the Transit Time starting from the following day. Read here for a detailed explanation.
Then, the seller needs to add the days that it will take for the carrier to deliver the package to the handling time. That addition will determine the earliest possible delivery date.
For instance, if a seller in FL has a transit time of 2 days and wants to ship to CA with a carrier that will take 5 days, the transit time must be of at least 7 days.
If the same seller wants to ship to TN with a carrier that will take 2 days, the transit time must be of at least 4 days.
If the same seller has a transit time of 1 day, then transit time will need to show 6 days to reach CA and 3 to reach TN.
To assign the transit times to the regions, the seller must click either the “edit” button next to the region that needs to be modified, or the “Add New Shipping Rule” in the bottom.
If the seller starts by clicking the “Add New Shipping Rule”, the following screen will open:
Figure 3.10 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new Rule
Virtually everything on this screen is greyed-out, meaning that it can’t be edited. That’s because all 50 states and Puerto Rico have been covered in the default template. So, let’s just press cancel, and return to the previous screen. We will “delete” the region that encompasses all 47 states (circled in yellow to the right of the screen).
Figure 3.11 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Delete Region
A warning message appears, we click “ok”, and now our shipping template is destitute and there’s an alarm indicating that it can’t be saved as it’s not meeting the shipping requirements:
Figure 3.12 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping missing states
So, we go back to “Add new Shipping Rule” and we will get this screen:
Figure 3.13 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule
Begging us to fill the regions.
All states have an “expand” symbol next to their name, meaning that the states have been broken into multiple sections. In other words, the regions that Amazon suggests have a level of flexibility. Furthermore, there’s no obligation to pile states into the same Transit Time just because they are in the same region. This will be seen more clearly below, as we will mix and match states from different regions in different shipping rules, as well as different sections of a state into different shipping rules.
So we will create a first region that makes sense for a seller in Florida.
Florida is greyed in the image because it was already assigned to a default transit time. A state can not be added to two different shipping rules. We can delete that rule, but let’s assume that we will give a preferential treatment to the best state in the Union. For the region that we are creating, I will choose states that are close and that I can reach with a Transit Time of 3 days. For this section of the exercise, we will assume a handling time of 1 days, so shipping time needs to be of 2 days for me to reach the destination in 3 days.
There are many ways to determine transit times. The easiest one is going to the FedEx, UPS and USPS and search for transit times centered in your zip code.
Figure 3.14 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Add new rule, Selecting states
So we selected all of SC, GA, LA, TN, AL, AR NC and MS, as well as the Eastern Part of TX. When we click “Ok” (not Oklahoma) we see the following change to our “Standard Shipping”
Figure 3.15 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Different Transit Times for different regions
The region has been added, but the “Alert” symbol exists because many states have not been added to the template.
Florida has been changed to a Transit Time of 1-2 days (1 of handling, 1 of shipping)
HI, AL and PR have been changed to 7-14 days
And the new region has been assigned a Transit Time of 2-3 days.
The next region will have a Transit Time of 2-4 days. We will click “Add new Shipping Rule” and the same screen will open with some of the regions greyed out, and some available:
Figure 3.16 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states before
TX appears unchecked even though we already selected part of it, we need to expand it so that we don’t miss any areas of the country. The new region may look like this:
Figure 3.17 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Adding more states after
Please note how different states can be combined within the same Transit Time (NM is included, while MD, ND and ME are excluded). Our Standard Shipping Template will now look like this:
Figure 3.18 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, 4 regions
And if we add the missing states by creating a new rule, it will look like this:
Figure 3.19 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, all regions completed with Transit Time
I purposefully missed the protectorates. They don’t need to be added, but can if so the seller desires.
PO Boxes can be unchecked if so desired by the seller.
Now comes the part of assigning the Shipping Fee and the cost per pound. Sellers will set a base price for the shipping fee, and an additional price for each pound. It can be $0 if so desired. Let’s assume a $5 per order, and a surcharge of $1 per pound
Figure 3.20 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight
As it has only been added to the first region, the template once again cries foul. All regions need to be covered with the same shipping fees. By setting the same costs to the other regions, the template becomes peaceful again:
Figure 3.21 Filling a Shipping Template, Standard Shipping, Shipping Fee by weight correct
So now to the following sections. Expedite, Two-day and One-day:
Figure 3.22 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery
There’s no magic here. It’s repeating what we just did, but regions can be excluded or charged different prices. I won’t go through the step by step, it’s repeating what we just did, and the result may look like this and be perfectly fine:
Figure 3.23 Filling a Shipping Template, Expedite Shipping, Two-Day Delivery, One-Day Delivery completed
Once this is all done, sellers must scroll down to the bottom of the page and save.
From here, sellers need to link the Shipping Template to the SKUs.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G201841600?locale=en-US
Before finalizing the thread, there are two more things that I want to cover on this guide.
- If sellers have negotiated rates with FedEx or UPS, they can use their negotiated rates while purchasing Buy Shipping through Amazon. To do this, they should follow the steps indicated on this link
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200785170
- Sellers can prioritize or even exclude carriers by going here. This location is reached by going to account info, buy shipping preferences, preferences for “seller name”, edit
As it is the case with many of these long threads, I abused the trust of many other sellers.
My thanks to @ThisIsTheWay, @Dogtamer and @ABC_23 for reading the guide.
Special thanks to @racingroxstore for all the help reviewing some sections, and all the comments and suggestions along the way; not only on how to write this thread, but in how to better reach/cover the actual problems that other sellers have.
8 replies
8 replies
Seller_xgE8VKcHiSfnv
I didn’t read it (yet) but A+ for effort.
Seller_tzfX0jBLBCmu2
I learned something I did not know about far down in detail we can do shipping times in our templates.
Seller_sUfyk7ajzPzny
Many thanks for posting yet another of your always-excellent tutorials, BP!
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I myself do not feel that you’ve abused trust in asking for critique.
Seller_OxjIxwlMmwmlP
This bad boy should be pinned or referenced for sure by the mod team.
Nice work.
Seller_4RRTjOpWG0qkj
Please delete this thread. It compromises the privacy of all the people tagged. @Jim_Amazon, @Quincy_Amazon, @Wyatt_Amazon, @Xander_Amazon, @Topher_Amazon, @Tiff_Amazon, @Sandy_Amazon, @Glenn_Amazon, @Desi_Amazon
Seller_xgE8VKcHiSfnv
I didn’t read it (yet) but A+ for effort.
Seller_xgE8VKcHiSfnv
I didn’t read it (yet) but A+ for effort.
Seller_tzfX0jBLBCmu2
I learned something I did not know about far down in detail we can do shipping times in our templates.
Seller_tzfX0jBLBCmu2
I learned something I did not know about far down in detail we can do shipping times in our templates.
Seller_sUfyk7ajzPzny
Many thanks for posting yet another of your always-excellent tutorials, BP!
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I myself do not feel that you’ve abused trust in asking for critique.
Seller_sUfyk7ajzPzny
Many thanks for posting yet another of your always-excellent tutorials, BP!
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I myself do not feel that you’ve abused trust in asking for critique.
Seller_OxjIxwlMmwmlP
This bad boy should be pinned or referenced for sure by the mod team.
Nice work.
Seller_OxjIxwlMmwmlP
This bad boy should be pinned or referenced for sure by the mod team.
Nice work.
Seller_4RRTjOpWG0qkj
Please delete this thread. It compromises the privacy of all the people tagged. @Jim_Amazon, @Quincy_Amazon, @Wyatt_Amazon, @Xander_Amazon, @Topher_Amazon, @Tiff_Amazon, @Sandy_Amazon, @Glenn_Amazon, @Desi_Amazon
Seller_4RRTjOpWG0qkj
Please delete this thread. It compromises the privacy of all the people tagged. @Jim_Amazon, @Quincy_Amazon, @Wyatt_Amazon, @Xander_Amazon, @Topher_Amazon, @Tiff_Amazon, @Sandy_Amazon, @Glenn_Amazon, @Desi_Amazon
