Amazon NOW says that they will remove the “late shipments” that were the basis of my being threatened with " Your account is at risk of deactivation".
But, for the record, here is what I saw for a half dozen orders, when I had SKU-Level handling time of 2 days set since forever.
Order Date: 06/17/24
Expected Ship Date: 2024-06-18 06:59:59 UTC
But 06:59:59 Zulu is 3:00am EDT, and I am a member of the Eastern Daylight Time Tribe, so wait just a second here…
Someone orders at 5:30pm EDT 6/17/24 (Monday) and I have to somehow get that order shipping by 3:00am that night (Tuesday morning)???
How’s that work, exactly, Mr. Amazon Bot?
Automated Shipping was turned on [EDIT: WITHOUT our knowledge or consent, as we had turned it off long ago] with a 1-day handling time, but somehow, their idea of “1 Day” gave me until just after dawn over in Greenwich England for anything ordered up until midnight the previous night??? Say what?
Somethings broken… be on the lookout for this crap, and audit any accusations of late shipment by comparing actual order date AND time with what they put in the “late shipment report”, which conveniently neglects to include the time of the orders.
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We don’t trust Amazon to give them this type of control. Too many issues like you just experienced.
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No, we had it turned OFF - Amazon decided to silently turn it back ON again, and also to ignore the SKU-level handling time.
I was not stupid, nor sleeping. Amazon simply went rouge over the weekend.
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Automated Shipping ignores item level setting (Amazon knows best theory).
We periodically will send a package on the 2nd day (General Handle Time set to 1 and item level is set to 2 days). It has kept Mr Bot from knocking at our door (after the first surprise change).
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There was just a post from another seller a couple days ago where Amazon played silly games with them.
So far they have left mine alone but I ship almost everything the same day since business is SLOOOOOWWW.
"Our Handling Time set at 4 days.
But Amazon product details page show the delivery date is 2 days"
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/1b79c29a-574f-41a6-9bdf-bc0c47be23f1?postId=77792e61-57e7-49d8-a184-6cf2bc5eb113
They liked my response (but didn’t mark it as the solution) 
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While resetting my 2-day handling time… I happen to see this…
Looks like we can now extend the amount of time a buyer has to cancel an order. No option to completely do away with it, though as the lowest amount of time a buyer has to cancel an order is 30 minutes still.
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That was announced a time back … thinking 4 to 6 months ago or so …
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So, the automated shipping time OVERRIDES the SKU-level handling time setting? Understand here that I had automated shipping turned OFF, and they turned it on silently, without our knowledge or authorization.
And the choices for general shipping is either “same day” or “one day”? That’s it? What happened here? This is seriously screwed up. How can one deal with this, given that an order placed monday with “one-day” set, is really a same-day requirement, as the time shown as the requirement time in the late shipment report is 3:00am on that next day EDT. So, even “one day” seems to be “same day”.
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It appears that has been the case for some …
We understand … this sneak attack has been happening to everyone for a while now. Just rest it to Automated Shipping OFF. Then set your items at item level to the handle time that you need (we have ours set at 2 days at item level).
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Is this deliberate, or error? What does one do about the threat to deactivate one’s account? I would assume that as long as it continues to exist, one must persist, up to and included letters to amazon legal, but perhaps the threat is an empty one, well-known to all but me.
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No error – all quite deliberate.
They see this as benefiting Amazon (delighting more customers). Combine that with the fact that they really truly do not care about sellers* (not even a tiny bit) – then it makes sense.
*Amazon doesn’t actually care about buyers either, but they do value them.
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Update - the verbal commitment to remove the “late shipments”, and the threat to deactivate my account was not worth the paper it was not written upon.
The messages persist. I have escalated by contacting the Twitter Team, in hope that they have a slightly more literate group, who might actually read what I write.
But there seems no easy way to address this as the basic “you changed my settings, and broke things” is not even acknowledged as an issue. It is as if I was responsible for meeting these metrics all along.
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Handmade folks learned this in the old private discussion forum.
When a handmade SKU had say 4 production days, and the handmade seller offered Seller-Fulfilled-Prime, those four production days disappeared.
Seller Fulfilled Prime setting trumped production days and wiped them away.
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I’ll mention here that it has been stated on the NSFE (by mods) that shipments that are late due to the automated changes (IOW, would be considered on time if Amazon hadn’t screwed you) would not count against your metrics.
HOWEVER, those shipments will NOT be protected in cases of INR, as they were not shipped “on time”, so don’t meet the requirements for coverage.
So apparently we’re supposed to feel relieved that we’re only getting partially screwed over.
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I have no such assurance from anyone.
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IF what they said is true. I never believe that stuff without a reasonable amount of corroboration. .
And those assurances about metrics mask the fact that the seller may lose buy box eligibility for something of that nature – things that are not counted as part of ODR or not supposed to matter at all.
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Anyone who is a fast shipper really needs to be careful doing an extension.
The 30 minutes is the standard delay" that Amazon gives the buyer to cancel before it shows up as a REAL order.
If you ship fast and extend that time to something longer – let’s say 4 hours – I might have already packed and taken the order to the PO when a cancellation comes in.
Because I print labels and only enter the numbers until I get back from the PO I could/would get dinged by Amazon since the buyer had that much time to cancel.
It’s 30 minutes and then you owe me the money buyers!
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I don’t know for sure (and don’t intend to find out), but I suspect that if you give the buyer longer time to cancel, the order won’t show up until that time has passed, just like with the default 30 minute period (which is plenty long enough IMO).
I can’t imagine any reason that any seller would want to increase this time. But I guess by giving us the option, Amazon thinks that they are empowering us to run our own business (as long as we don’t try to change handling times, or set appropriate prices, etc.)
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Probably true but I trust Amazon as far as I trust a skunk with a raised tail.
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