Amazon just sent sellers the following email, which aims to reduce handling times. Before you had 1-2 business days to ship if you selected “1 day” in Seller Central, but now you have 1 business day.
Products that have 2 or more days will continue to have their existing handling time however.
Dear Seller,
We are launching new capabilities to help you set faster delivery times for your Seller fulfilled products. Customers are more likely to purchase products that have a faster estimated delivery time at checkout. Products with a faster delivery date are also more likely to win the Buy Box on Amazon.
This email focuses on important changes to the handling time for your products. We will send you separate updates on how to improve your transit times. For a refresher on how delivery times are estimated and modified for Seller Fulfilled products, please click here.
1) Starting today, set your handling time to be 1 day: If you previously set a 1 day handling time, orders for these products will be required to ship within 1 business day now.
| Expected Ship Date | Effective Date | ||
| Handling Time entered in Seller Central | Current | New | |
| No value provided by Seller | 1-2 days | 1-2 days | Today |
| 1 day | 1-2 days | 1 day | Today |
All times are in business days
Warm Regards,
Amazon Seller Services
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What happens to my existing products?
Previously, the minimum handling time for all products was 2 days. Starting today, if you set (or have already set) a 1 day handling time for any item, orders for these products will now have an expected ship date of 1 business day after the order day. Any products where you entered 2 or more days will continue to have their existing handling time.
2. What happens to new products I start selling?
New products added to Amazon will continue to have a handling time of 2 business days unless you enter a different value. You can always make the handling time 1 day for a better delivery time promise
3. What can I do if I don’t want to ship in 1 business day?
No problem, you can always set your own handling time for your products.
4. How can I have a 1 day handling time by default for my products? i.e. I don’t want to enter 1 day for every item I sell.
Our records indicate that you require more than 1 day to ship some or all of your products. When you start shipping all products in 1 day, we will enable your account for 1 day handling time by default and inform you of the change in advance.
5. How else can I improve my handling time?
Review all products that have a handling time of more than 2 days currently. Sellers often ship products much faster than the promised handling time. Lowering the handling time back to 1 day can help grow the sales for those products.
6. Anything else I should keep in mind while changing my handling times?
Amazon requires that you keep your Late Shipment Rate (LSR) under 4%. To avoid impacting your Late Ship Metric, please monitor your operations and settings to help maintain your good delivery performance rating.
Brian Roizen is the Cofounder and Chief Architect of Feedonomics, a full-service feed optimization platform that optimizes product data for hundreds of channels. He has been featured on numerous podcasts and eCommerce webinars, and regularly contributes to Search Engine Land and other industry-leading blogs. Brian graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering.
