I think Amazon wants us to ship with UPS or Fedex. I was shipping orders this afternoon and UPS came up 10 cents cheaper than First Class, which is much cheaper than UPS would normally be, and it made me think about how long Amazon has been discounting these UPS orders. At first I thought it was an experiment to gather data on shipping habits and trends but now I think they just want to drive business away from USPS to UPS. And I don’t think it has anything to do with customer “delight”.
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I think Amazon wants us to ship with UPS or Fedex.
I’m not sure it’s this… 
So much as this… 
I think they just want to drive business away from USPS
You only see the dirt-cheap UPS rates when there’s a comparable better USPS rate. If USPS is $4.50, then Amazon will try to entice us to use UPS with a $4.40 price. But if USPS isn’t there under $5, then UPS reverts back to $9 or whatever.
It’s always seemed to me to be an anti-USPS strategy, rather than a pro-UPS one. 
I don’t think it ever had anything to do with the customer. It was probably Amazon losing business and needing to up their UPS shipping volume to keep their lowest, volume-based rates.
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I agree with this. They are pro-UPS simply because that is the main non-USPS option, but because they actually like them.
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I have a mix of buy/sell and handmade.
Some of the handmade is set for 1 day processing just like buy/sell items because I don’t relist it for sale until I sew up another one.
Other handmade items, I give myself 4 days to sew them up.
And I just deleted a bunch where it takes me like 6 hours to sew up one item…nope, ain’t doing that any more for Amazon because the processing time for those was 7 days and that meant they never sold. At craft shows, they sell for the same price, so I know it’s the processing time and higher end prices.
I have a mix.
99% of my stuff is first class until I go over 16 ounces, then I use priority mail.
I don’t do SFP or or or…nothing. Simply can’t handle it. Like here it is 8 pm, and a customer calls from the east coast to place a custom order. Gotta safely blend that into “life”…
Handmade listings are 100% handmade, no fudging there. Marketplace listings are a combination of handmade and buy/sell (wholesale) items because I had handmade listed there before the handmade category existed. Hope that makes sense.
And I use Amazon buy shipping to protect against INRs. All other platforms it’s shipstation with insurance. When Shipstation would not cover an INR when a customer complained, I switched and now buy shipping for Amazon only at Amazon. Tired of dealing with well…them.
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Some of the handmade is set for 1 day processing
Here’s a tip… 1 day processing is pointless. It’s not like eBay where you get some benefit if you offer same, or 1-day handling. On Amazon, what counts is the total delivery (handling plus transit) time. So… 1 day handling plus 4 days transit (5 total days) is exactly the same as 2-day handling plus 3 days transit.
The only benefit to offering 1-day handing is… (wait for it)… nothing. You put yourself under more pressure for absolutely zero benefit.
Unless a 1-day handling time helps you get the total delivery time you want, you’re shooting yourself in the foot by using it. Give yourself 2 days handling, then ship on day 1, as you would have anyway. Then you have the built in flexibility of an extra day, just in case.
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This is true. Except for when we offered SFP (Seller Fulfilled Prime) then you got the benefit of the Prime Badge on the listing.
We are all at 1-2 days, even for manufacturing on demand. For some custom items we are at 3 days. Items that we may not have a lot of raw materials on hand, but they are nearby we go 5 days.
So yes, no one day for us. We know we can do it, and often do, but the only benefit are the stupid emails telling us we have a problem with our delivery promise. You all know the email, the problem is you (we) are delivering to fast.
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I’m still trying to digest this advice…let me sleep on it.
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I’ll simplify it. If what you’re doing now works for you, there’s no need to change it. 
The thing is, you should never (ever, ever) take what Amazon says at face value. If they say - you’ll get more sales if you do this, you should ask yourself how doing ‘this’ translates to more sales.
In a nut shell, when a buyer is shopping, they see a delivery estimate based on your settings. One factor in who wins the Buy Box (and thus gets the sale) is this delivery estimate. Supposedly, a faster delivery promise improves your odds of winning the Buy Box, thus leading to the supposed increase in sales Amazon promises.
This is what they mean when they say you’ll get more sales if you switch to shipping automation.
But this is only true if you have a competitor with a shorter delivery time. Something Amazon neglects to mention, of course. On handmade listings, you’re the only seller, so shortening your delivery time won’t make any difference. Nor will it matter on listings where you already have the shortest delivery time of all competitors.
In cases where someone else does offer faster delivery than you, shortening your time will only give you a minimal benefit at best, as delivery time is only one factor in winning the Buy Box.
I could show much faster delivery that matches how quickly I actually deliver, but then I’d never be able to buy a first-class label through Buy Shipping. I prefer to use Buy Shipping, so my buyers have to see falsely long delivery promises because that’s the only option Amazon gives me.
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I don’t fully agree with this because of this
For instance, I sell commodity-type products. I sell my brand, I’m the only seller of said brand, but not of the commodity itself (wish I was!)
Having the same day delivery does make me the fastest seller of the commodities south of the Mason Dixon and east of the Mississippi by a long shot. Faster than FBA, faster than all the other sellers of similar products.
My customer base is more oriented to price/delivery promise than brand. I’ve done some a/b comparisons among listings. So listing a is a 12 pack, listing b is the 24 pack.
If I leave same day handling on a and add 1 day handling on b, my sales of b flatline, while the sales of 2a increase. My buyers do go through the trouble of checking the delivery dates and selecting the fastest option (for the same price).
I’ve always found this interesting as I mostly believe that buyers are these lazy creatures that want things as simple as possible.
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OK, I have no competitors on my listings (knock on wood) at all.
My handmade truly handmade listings in the handmade category were set with 7 day production times.
My marketplace listings were set at 1 day.
My handmade listings IN the marketplace were set at 4 days.
I would hardly ever – almost never – sell a handmade category handmade item. Almost made me wonder the WHY was I so excited when handmade opened. Is it the category? Is it the price? or is it the production time? or or…well, when I changed that to 4 days, I’d get more sales. Afraid to change it down…because I’m already feeling maxed.
I would however sell a marketplace handmade item (set at 4 days) more often. And I wouldn’t relist until I had another one made.
Marketplace items…I’m ok with that flow. It’s me, myself, and I…and I only want to buy first class shipping with tracking.
Recently, I had some hiccups because UPS showed up as the only choice, but I figured that out…customer’s fault because they used their physical address when they had no mailman who would deliver to a physical address because they lived in the boonies.
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Having the same day delivery does make me the fastest seller of the commodities south of the Mason Dixon and east of the Mississippi by a long shot. Faster than FBA, faster than all the other sellers of similar products.
My customer base is more oriented to price/delivery promise than brand.
We seem to be talking about two different things. Faster overall delivery can have an impact, for sure. But what I was explaining to @doilyboutique444 is that, if you’re going to offer 4-day delivery (as an example), there no difference between -
- 1 day handling + 3 day transit
and - 2 day handling + 2 day transit
The Amazon buyer sees ‘delivery in 4 days’ either way. You gain nothing by setting 1-day handling time, other that putting added pressure on your shoulders to be sure you get the order out on day 1.
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Do you always have that available when buyers are in your same state? Some time ago, Amazon changed all our templates to offer a shorter delivery promise to in-state buyers, which made the first-class label option in Buy Shipping disappear, until you undid Amazon’s change.
If you’re still using their default settings, but don’t have problems with first-class labels to your state, it must be due to your 4-day handling (processing) time. 1-day handling time to your same state would make FC unavailable. Not that it wouldn’t deliver in time, Buy Shipping just wouldn’t offer you the label.
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Well, hot diggity dog…didn’t know that.
Got confused when Amazon was saying “IN STATE” orders should be shipped UPS. I was thinking WTF? (I can say that here right?) So I went over to ShipStation and bought First Class Confirmed and let it enter the tracking back.
Now I have UPS disabled as a choice. I simply don’t want to drive all over town to deliver my packages and be the mailman. One stop to the post office and that’s it. I used to have them get picked up each day, but then the carrier didn’t make it back to the post office before the last truck. NORMALLY that’s fine, but thank you COVID and all the slow downs, nope, I’ll get them on the first truck (at 2:30) if I can to get them rolling…and take it off on my taxes, and continue 1 mile down the street to the grocery store.
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This may be too much information, but in case you’re curious…
You know how UPS and FedEx divide the country into zones, and can predict with good accuracy, how many days delivery will take? You’ve seen a map like this from your zip code, right?
Buy Shipping relies on this data to estimate the delivery date for UPS services. USPS has a similar map for priority mail, only it isn’t as accurate.
But there isn’t such a map for first-class mail, so Buy Shipping has to figure out some method for coming up with its delivery estimates. What it does currently is assign a set number of days for each state pairing. For some odd reason, the number for the ‘your state to your state’ pairing is 5 days.
That means, that any time I have an order going anywhere in Oregon, Buy Shipping estimates first-class mail will take 5 days to deliver. Even if it’s just going across the street. 
When Amazon decided we should all offer shorter delivery promises to in-state customers, that meant that first-class shipping would now arrive “late” (using the wrong assumption that it would take 5 days to get there) and so first-class isn’t offered anymore. That’s why you don’t see it.
The solution is to set your shipping templates so that your delivery promise to buyers in your state is at least 5 days from the date you plan to ship. That will ensure you always have first-class available in Buy Shipping.
To play nice with Buy Shipping, you have to work backwards.
Instead of thinking - how long will delivery take to an Alabama customer?
You need to ask - how long do I need to allow so Buy Shipping will let me buy a FC label to Alabama? Then set that time as your delivery promise to Alabama buyers.
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SOP.
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Bumping this up. Right on cue, I got an email that said they implemented it.
And right on cue, I could hit the button to say “downgrade” back to what I had.
So let’s see if this holds or if I argue with a computer.
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Thanks for the update - hope that your downgrade holds. I guess a daily check for the next few weeks may be on your “to do” list just to make sure Amazon doesn’t reverse your downgrade…such a waste of your time having to deal with this.
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Well, NOW I get an email saying I have a “Delivery Gap” – which the automation settings would have fixed.
I gave them feedback and said they’re not taking into consideration that I am a one person shop and that I have been able to fill all of my obligations with out affecting my metrics. Bad metrics will cause me to lose my shop and AMAZON will lose all the revenue I generate.
It ain’t much, but gotta frame the response in a way that THEY – small grain of sand here – will understand and that’s in terms of their dollars.
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We all get that email. It’s a joke. They just want to pressure you. There are no ramifications to ignoring that email.
Delete the email, get a snack.
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Will never work.
Amazon cannot understand that making a change based on the NORMAL result (delivery in x days) is meaningless when the measure of success (ie, not suspending your account), is based on the WORST result (packing taking x+4 days to arrive). We aren’t graded on “average”, but on the worst 5%. They’ll never understand that.
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