Amazon buy shipping, UPS ground or overnight services being the only ones available for standard shipping?

[Thelunatick]

I run into this problem at least once a week.
Usually an address that is within state but my only option is UPS for about $12 when I can easily ship first class for $4 but it is not an option with Amazon buy shipping.

The other options are UPS 2nd day or over night, and Fedex 2nd day or overnight.

Any idea what causes this? I usually just ship using stamps.com for orders like this and take my chances with INR (hasn’t been an issue yet) . I am not going to pay $12 or more to ship a $20 order. I would take my chances on a loss then a guaranteed loss.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

If you have Automated Shipping turned on, turn it off. - You will find the toggle on your shipping templates.

If you have your store set to be open everyday, you might consider setting it to Monday thru Saturday and closed on Sunday and Holidays. If Amazon thinks you are open and can ship, then it sets the estimated delivery date based on that. Amazon then calculates the transit time to the Selected Services dates. This can cause an issue in loosing a service.

Handle Time + Shipping Transit Time = Estimated Delivery Time

If you have a Professional account, you can change the Handle Time and the Shipping Transit Time to give the customer an Estimated Delivery Time which will help keep the Selected Services like First Class Package as an option.

Handle Time is generally set to one day. If you set it to two days, the Estimated Delivery Time will increase by one day. This can be set in your Shipping Settings on the General Shipping tab. The other way is to set it at item level. If you set it at item level, then it overrides the General Shipping tab setting. This can be valuable if you want to have different handle times for different listings (custom and handmade this is helpful). In addition, Amazon does site wide updates that, in the past, have reset the Handle Time in the General Settings tab back to one (which means you have to monitor it).

Setting the Shipping Transit times in your shipping templates gives Amazon an estimated time of your orders’ transit time. This can be set to 2 to 4, 4 to 8 and even 5 to 8. Depending on your location and how the service performs, you would match your transit time to give the most accurate time while making sure you still have the service when you go into Buy Shipping. You can break your template into areas that are similar and have different transit times by those areas.

Example: Orders shipped within your state you might set at 3 to 5 while orders going across the country might be set at 5 to 8.

When you loose First Class Package, it is because Amazon doesn’t think that a package sent by First Class Package won’t reach the customer within the given Estimated Delivery Dates given to the customer at the time of the order. The only way to work around it and still be able to use Amazon Buy Shipping is to work the formula to get Amazon to calculate Estimated Delivery Dates that are within what Amazon estimates a Selected Service like First Class Package delivers in.

[Thelunatick]

@Lost_My_Marbles

If you have Automated Shipping turned on, turn it off.

Off

@Lost_My_Marbles

If you have your store set to be open everyday, you might consider setting it to Monday thru Saturday

Open mon-Friday

@Lost_My_Marbles

If you have a Professional account, you can change the Handle Time

2 days minimum for everything

@Lost_My_Marbles

Setting the Shipping Transit times in your shipping templates

3-5 days for out of state 2-4 for in state.

@Lost_My_Marbles

When you loose First Class Package,

It’s not just first class, it’s any USPS shipping options, no priority or even priority express.

[SA_FL]

@Thelunatick

It’s not just first class, it’s any USPS shipping options, no priority or even priority express.

Have you tried exiting and trying again later? We have this happen occasionally and it is just an Amazon problem with them not loading the USPS options. We wait an hour or two and the USPS are then added back. I haven’t noticed any pattern with the state the packages are mailing to however.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Thelunatick

3-5 days for out of state 2-4 for in state.

We ship using USPS 100% of the time and never loose any USPS services.

We run 2 day handle time at item level.
In state is set to 4-5 days
Out of state is set to 5-8
Alaska & Hawaii are 7-14
AA AE AP military are 14-28

These settings keeps USPS available all of the time for us.

Yes, the customer sees a longer estimated delivery time but this hasn’t been an issue for us as they are buying a custom item from us.

We beat the estimated delivery time usually by a day or two. During the holidays, we are protected from late deliveries as orders will still meet the estimated delivery window.

Customers leave positive feedback that we delivered earlier than they were expecting.

We are FBM only.

[Roxy]

Usually an address that is within state but my only option is UPS for about $12 when I can easily ship first class for $4 but it is not an option with Amazon buy shipping.
Any idea what causes this?

If you aren’t getting any USPS options at all, Amazon probably thinks the buyer’s address doesn’t get USPS service. A common reason for this is the buyer’s town being really small, and the residents requiring a PO Box for mail delivery, while UPS/FedEx deliver to their home address.

I never knew USPS didn’t deliver to everyone’s home until I moved to such a town. The easiest way to figure it if this is the reason is to Google the population of the buyer’s town. If it’s 5000 or less, that’s the likely explanation.

In small towns like this, you can usually send mail to the street address anyway and the post office employees will route it to the correct person’s PO Box, so shipping through Stamps instead should usually work.

Unfortunately, this is another limitation of Buy Shipping’s system - that Amazon won’t let you buy a first-class label, even though it would get there ok.

I’m surprised you see this so often, I usually get one like it once every six months or so. Do you sell products that appeal to people who might live in sparsely populated, possibly rural areas?

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Roxy

I never knew USPS didn’t deliver to everyone’s home until I moved to such a town. The easiest way to figure it if this is the reason is to Google the population of the buyer’s town. If it’s 5000 or less, that’s the likely explanation.

This use to be very true; however in the past few years, the post office has made an effort to cross reference street addresses to PO Boxes. In doing so, the street addresses get a zip four even though all of the mail goes to a mail box. Now when the mail comes addressed to a street address, it is presorted by the post office to go to the PO Box.

20 years ago, we had problems with banks, cell phone companies and even UPS and FedEx deliveries because the street address didn’t verify with USPS. Today, we have zip fours on all of our properties in a town of 1100 and everyone has to pick up their mail in a PO Box.

[Medic]

@Thelunatick

Usually an address that is within state but my only option is UPS

This happened to us constantly and only for orders in State or nearby regions, but the same item that was shipping across State would show First Class being available without any issues.

However, there are occasional orders that USPS does not deliver to, and UPS is the only option.

Amazon Auto-shipping is not programmed correctly; we haven’t had any First Class issues once we switched back to using our Shipping Template.

Here is our Transit Time if it helps.
Under General Setting, our handling time is set for same-day.

[Roxy]

Amazon Auto-shipping is not programmed correctly

Shall we start a list of all the things that aren’t???

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Medic

our handling time is set for same-day.

Try setting it to 1 day or 2 days as a trial run just to see if that corrects your issue.

[Thelunatick]

@Roxy

I’m surprised you see this so often, I usually get one like it once every six months or so. Do you sell products that appeal to people who might live in sparsely populated, possibly rural areas?

Yes, we sell Medical, Fire and EMS supplies. Fire and EMS supplies to rural areas are kind of our stock in trade.

Again I have never had an issue shipping to these areas with USPS for sales on other sites.

@Roxy

Shall we start a list of all the things that aren’t???

It would be easier to start a list of the things that are programmed correctly

Ok list is done

@Medic

Under General Setting, our handling time is set for same-day.

Agree with @Lost_My_Marbles even though we get out most orders the next or same day we always set 1-2 day minimum handling time. Something can always go wrong.

This is the other issue with my issue. I will get the order have 2 days to ship it, 5 days to get it there (7 days) but it will only let me ship UPS ground or express methods. Makes no sense.

Fortunately we haven’t run into an INR for these items.

[Lost_My_Marbles]

@Thelunatick

This is the other issue with my issue. I will get the order have 2 days to ship it, 5 days to get it there (7 days) but it will only let me ship UPS ground or express methods. Makes no sense.

Could it be that Amazon is flagging those items as not eligible to be shipped by USPS because of USPS restrictions? The item can be shipped by USPS but Amazon has it categorized as an item that can not. If these orders have similar or same items, then you might be able to figure out why Amazon would think they can’t ship USPS. If it turns out that this seems to be it, then check your listings for words that might trigger this response from Amazon.

At this point, we are just tossing out things that you might watch and check.

[Thelunatick]

@Lost_My_Marbles

At this point, we are just tossing out things that you might watch and check.

I understand, Just trying to help eliminate possible reasons.

The items tend to be holsters and most under 4oz so i don’t know what any USPS issue would be

[Roxy]

Yes, we sell Medical, Fire and EMS supplies. Fire and EMS supplies to rural areas are kind of our stock in trade.

That’s probably the reason you see so many ‘no USPS’ shipping addresses then. Next time you get one, Google the population of their town, or use the USPS website look up a zip code tool. It should tell you if the address is valid for USPS.

I have never had an issue shipping to these areas with USPS for sales on other sites.

Amazon decided to “help” us by adding a poorly programmed address verification feature to the Buy Shipping code about 4 or 5 years ago. Since then, the system misidentifies addresses that don’t get USPS service on a somewhat regular basis.

Whenever you don’t see any USPS options, this is why.

This is the other issue with my issue. I will get the order have 2 days to ship it, 5 days to get it there (7 days) but it will only let me ship UPS ground or express methods. Makes no sense.

There are two separate issues that can cause the shipping option you want to be unavailable. One is the address-verification fail, where Amazon suppresses all USPS options because it thinks they don’t deliver there.

The other is the transit time issue, where Buy Shipping incorrectly thinks a desired service won’t deliver fast enough. That can be corrected through your shipping template settings.

even though we get out most orders the next or same day we always set 1-2 day minimum handling time.

I do the same, 1-2 days. There’s no advantage to using same day shipping, I don’t think, unless you’re using that to shorten your total delivery promise. Buyers only see estimated delivery dates when they’re shopping - they don’t see anything about your processing time unless you have it set to 3 days or more, then Amazon will add ‘usually ships in xx days’ to your offer.

But if you use 0 (same day), 1, or 2, there’s no indication of that, it just puts extra pressure on you. From a buyer’s view, 1 day handling + 4 days transit is the same as same day handling + 5 day transit or 2-day handling + 3 day transit. The buyer sees ‘get it in 5 days’ in each case.

[Medic]

@Roxy

I do the same, 1-2 days. There’s no advantage to using same day shipping, I don’t think, unless you’re using that to shorten your total delivery promise.

That is the only reason mine is set to same-day handling…🡩 I also have Saturday as an operating day this way all my offers show 1-2 days ahead of my competitors and I am able to dominate the BB.

@Roxy

The other is the transit time issue, where Buy Shipping incorrectly thinks a desired service won’t deliver fast enough.

Remember when Amazon first implemented its Shipping Template we were seeing posts all the time from sellers only showing Priority options but It appears to be corrected because I don’t see as many posts.

For the past 3 weeks, there was an influx of Media Mail issues, but I think it’s finally been fixed.

[aerides]

@Thelunatick

I run into this problem at least once a week.

Is this usually a problem on Sundays? Especially this week with today being a holiday, I find doing shipping on a sunday can be wonky. Waiting till Monday has worked for me.

[Thelunatick]

@aerides

Is this usually a problem on Sundays?

No usually on Wednesday or Friday. I never ship on Sunday unless Monday looks extremely busy.

[maintak]

@Thelunatick

It would be easier to start a list of the things that are programmed correctly

Ok list is done

Hey, come on. The “Manage SAFE-T Claims” page is pretty good…

I assume you double checked to ensure these items are on the correct shipping template?
Amazon’s Automated Shipping was my first thought too, but you ruled that out already.

[Thelunatick]

@maintak

I assume you double checked to ensure these items are on the correct shipping template?

Yep.

When it happens though it usually happens with more than one order. So I am thinking @SA_FL may be right about waiting and trying again later.

I usually hate to do things like that because this is how mistakes happen (deviation from the normal way of doing things). But it may be better off.

[Roxy]

@Medic

Remember when Amazon first implemented its Shipping Template we were seeing posts all the time from sellers only showing Priority options but It appears to be corrected because I don’t see as many posts.

Yep, I remember. Another example of the Amazon right hand (shipping automation team) having no idea what the left hand (Buy Shipping team) is doing. For the automation to work as promised, they need both team to use the same set of ‘transit times’ which, of course, they don’t do.

I think Amazon made some adjustments to the automation side, and we trained many sellers not to use the automation, and taught them how to set their templates up manually to ensure the Buy Shipping options they wanted would always be available. I think it’s a combination that led to less posts about the problem.

I can’t offer much on the media mail issue, because I still can’t seem to find a bookseller to share data so we can figure out what transit times Buy Shipping is using for media. Without knowing that, we can’t guide sellers on how to fix their templates. Amazon may have changed something on their end, but I think the bulk of these problems come because sellers have no idea how Buy Shipping does its calculations, and no awareness of how it would benefit them if they did. They just assume it should be right, so when it changes, they’re lost and can’t adjust.

Even if/when Amazon changes something, if you understand how Buy Shipping does what it does, you can make adjustments on your end to fix the problem.