Sellers often set longer Handling Times than they actually need to prepare, pack and hand-over packages to carriers. This causes buyers browsing products to see longer than necessary delivery dates. In contrast, by setting more accurate Handling Times, buyers typically see more attractive delivery dates which on average leads to more sales.
We have detected that 85% of the time sellers fulfill orders within 1 day of receiving an order. For this reason, we are removing the 2-day Default Handling Time option, and all sellers who had 2-day as their default will be automatically switched to 1-day. However, to protect the account metrics for sellers that had set 2-day Default Handling Time, Amazon will update your SKU-Specific Handling Time on your behalf in the following ways:
For SKUs where you have historically taken more than 1-day to handle orders, and do not have a SKU level handling time set, Amazon will automatically set a 2-day SKU-Specific Handling Time, which will override your Default Handling Time.
For SKUs where you have historically taken 1-day or less to handle orders, and do not have a SKU level handling time set, Amazon will not assign a SKU-Specific Handling Time. Therefore, your updated Default Handling Time of 1-day will apply.
For SKUs that previously had a SKU-Specific Handling Time, there will be no changes applied.
Set SKU-specific Handling Time: Some sellers are confident that most of their SKUs can ship within 1 day, but have some products that may take longer. For these SKUs, you can set a longer handling time which will override your Default Handling Time specifically for that SKU. For more information, check Change handling time.
Note - If you also sell on the Canadian marketplace these handling time updates will also apply to the Canadian marketplace settings
As a handmade seller I have a production time set for 5 days but Amazon has a nasty habit of removing my production time and setting it to zero days. I’ve had it happen soooo many times and it’s so stressful for me.
Having a 2 day handling time gives me a buffer to drop everything and fast track making an item if it shows up with zero production days and I am going to have even less time if an order comes in on a Friday afternoon and have to get it made and shipped same day since I don’t work on Saturdays.
Just came here to post this. JFC why WHY can’t they let us make this decision on our own?? I ship same day, but like the flexibility of breathing room once in awhile.
Off to run an inventory report to make sure I have a SKU-specific handling time set for everything
Just got the same email… so they say 85% of the orders ship within 1 day. But there remains 15% that do not. So are they going to raise their late shipment metrics to allow up to 15% of late shipments before sellers are dinged? (ha ha - that’s a big fat NO)
I assume there is a way to update the handling times on all listings in bulk, but I haven’t used bulk files to manage our inventory in over 5 years. Can anyone here advise on if/how we can do this?
Double check this. I did too, but just ran a report and they’re all wiped out. WTH! Not a single one of my listings has a Production Time, and I always set them to 2.
Ouch!
My inventory management software updates my inventory, price, and handling time every hour or so, so I’m somewhat protected from Amazon messing with things when I’m not looking, but I really… really hate the direction Amazon is pushing this issue.
Book sellers who don’t manage listings through uploads (like me!) will have to change THOUSANDS of sku-level handling times in order to keep 2 day handling!!!
Do the upload, seriously it will take about 5 minutes - so easy! I got fantastic help here when I first started to use them, happy to help walk you through it!
Thank you so much for your offer to help! I see you previous post on how to approach this and will check it out… if I need help I will definitely reach out!
This is outrageously inappropriate and soooo nonconsensually invasive into OUR businesses.
The tool that would tell us was one thing, but I guess Amazon is trying to do things that make it look to the FTC like it does not favor FBA offers, by now punishing FBM Sellers in a whole new way.
When I try to upload I keep getting this error message:
“The file does not contain a worksheet with a template type that is supported for Excel upload. Please save your file in a tab-delimited text file format (*.txt) and upload again.”
This is outrageously inappropriate and soooo nonconsensually invasive into OUR businesses.