Yes, you need to save The Price & Quantity template as a Tab Delimited Text File
and make sure the upload FILE TYPE = Price & Quantity
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Thanks, the first time I tried that I must have done something wrong. It went through this time.
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This actually makes some sense.
They’re making the DEFAULT a shorter handling time, so their buy box algorithm will favor FBM offers a higher % of the time on DEFAULT settings.
If the seller now changes from the default settings, it’s easy to shift blame to the seller for why their offers are less competitive.
Now Amazon can pull the stats from the FBM sellers with default settings, and point and say “they won the buy box XX% of the time,” and then exclude the ones who changed it to a longer handling time.
Update: Just tested this to make sure it would work.
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Download Category Listings Report (or any other that has all of your SKUs). Copy SKU column.
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Download Price & Quantity File. Paste SKUs, and add your production time to the Handling column. @sundance is correct: You DO need one of the other fields. I used quantity and just put 5 in all of mine. YMMV depending on your SKUs.
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Export as a .TSV file (this file has to be tab-delineated)
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Add a product, upload spreadsheet. Note that some of mine are FBM, some are FBA. It didn’t flip the FBA ones, thank goodness.
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Exactly…without mentioning:
- They changed the goalposts (by eliminating default 2-day).
- Sellers were forced into it, no warning/opt out.
That’s the only real reason they did this, in this way, that makes sense. Because Buyers simply choose a different offer, if the delivery time shown is inconvenient.
And Amazon has been very guilty of tacking on multiple days to FBM delivery estimates displayed, that aren’t reflected in carrier estimates or reality, starting during 2020 but continuing to 2023–also without warning.
“Always the tone of surprise” 
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I’ve not gotten the e-mail, and just checked to see that I’m still on 2-day handling; maybe they’re skipping over me due to complaining on the forum many times about them doing exactly this.
At least now they are sending out an e-mail to give some sort of warning; it would seem that they’ve been doing this stealthly for a couple of months, since NSFE has posts pretty much daily from people forced into more expensive shipping due to changes they were unaware of; but the mods keep repeating how much sellers LOVE the extra business.
If I say what a REALLY think, I might overload the obscenity filters, so I’ll stop.
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Don’t encourage him, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
Your handling time has nothing to do with winning the Buy Box, which I can say with confidence as someone who does understand how FBM shipping works.
Another issue affected by this that no one has mentioned yet, is the loss of being able to buy the desired shipping labels through Buy Shipping with a 1-day shorter delivery time.
You need 5 total days time to ensure that you can buy a USPS Ground Advantage label. Shipping templates give you a 2-4 day transit time option, but not a 3-5 day option. If you’re suddenly switched to 1-day handling against your will, you may find yourself without the option to buy GA labels on many of your orders.
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Funny I got a poll question this morning asking if Amazon gives appropriate notice before taking action.
Going to take a leap this may have been what they were referring to.
Of course my answer was “definitely not” even without knowing this was in the works.
I have not received that email yet…
I have less faith in the carriers appropriately scanning and moving packages through the system than I have at the ability of my business to ship quickly.
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I harbor no doubt that there’s a wide consensus amongst our Seller Community that you’re the go-to expert when it comes to Shipping, as you’ve demonstrated time and time again for many a year.
I am less sanguine about the same level of consensus being found for a blanket assertion that Handling Time is not part of the FOE algorithm.
That’s an excellent Pro-tip, people, of which I would think it behooves us all to bear in mind.
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Is this for everyone? I didn’t get the email, and my default handling time still says 2 days.
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that Handling Time is not part of the FOE algorithm.
Why would it be? 2-day handling plus 4 day transit is exactly the same as 1-day handling plus 5-day transit or 3-day handling plus 3 day transit, or 5-day handling plus 1-day transit. The buyer sees the exact same delivery date in any case.
Why should one offer favor another when both have identical delivery dates, just because the handling portion of the equation is shorter?
Unless your argument is that Amazon is stupid, in which case lets say that sellers in Missouri should always win the Buy Box over sellers in Texas, just because Amazon is partial to Missouri even though both offers would arrive on the exact same day. That would make just as much (ie none) sense as treating a shorter handling time (with identical delivery time) as better.
How could handling not be part of the buy box algorithm?
Yes, 2 day handling + 4 day shipping = 1 day handling + 5 day shipping, but 1 day handling + 4 day shipping would be superior would it not?
I routinely see FBA vs FBA offers where one wins because it’s overnight and the other one takes 2 days. If shipping speed counts for FBA how could it not count for FBM? Handling time is part of shipping speed.
Just for example, this seller:
https://www.amazon.com/sp?ie=UTF8&seller=A35CSG8GBUTFQU
has 2 week handling times because they’re dropshipping. I would HOPE that counts against them for buy box purposes and they’re not on even ground with a seller that has 1 day handling.
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Not directly, but it does affect displayed delivery times, which affects which offer Amazon shows in the BB (based on location of the shopper, all else being equal) and thus sales volume.
As you and I know, there are many times when FBM can arrive faster than FBA, so FBM offers do win the BB over FBA when two accounts are otherwise even in terms of all other (visible and hidden) metrics. More sales + fast shipping + defect-free orders = greater chance of maintaining/winning the BB.
So now, Amazon can point to any extensions of the default (now 1-day) time to blame Sellers for decreasing their own BB chances both by displaying less favorable delivery times and by making a non-default modification that (according to their data) reduces sales on average. 
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We received the same email. However, it did not come to our current account email address. It came to an old email address that we stopped using several years ago when Wells Fargo had a data breach.
This is the 3rd notice this year that has come to the old email address.
Interestingly, we have always had the Default Handle Time set to 1 and have always set the Handle Time at item level.
Not always. This depends on how your shipper processes things. If you use USPS (like we do), the 2 day Handling Time insures that we get a first scan within the correct ship by time frame. When you get scans that first show up just after midnight on the next day, you could miss your ship by date by simply how USPS is handling the package.
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And now you “shipped late,” so Buy Shipping protections are moot. 
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Exactly … thus a 2 day Handle Time 100% all the time. Customers rarely complain when they are getting the order before the estimated delivery date (in fact they leave nice feedbacks on how happy the fast delivery made them).
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One big thing is the fact that many people tend to leave defaults as-is.
I did FBM for a short while a very long time ago, and I didn’t even think to ever look at things like handling times or shipping templates. It was whatever the default was. I always shipped orders within 24 hours of receiving them (and always through UPS, so I never dealt with the USPS first scan delay), so a 1 day handling time would’ve been appropriate. I don’t know what the default handling time was a decade ago, but I’m guessing it was 2 days? Anyway, point is, giving new sellers or new SKUs a 1 day default handling time is probably beneficial and more accurately reflects actual handling times since most businesses ship orders within 24 hours of receipt nowadays. And people can always change it if they want to. The problem I see here is they’re changing it on existing offers and not everyone wants that change, so they’re forcing people to scramble to un-update their update.
But only if you assume transit times are static.
The delivery estimate buyers see is made up of two parts - handling time plus transit time. If you shorten either part of the equation, it will shorten the total delivery estimate the buyer sees.
But handling time by itself is not what matters. Similarly, transit time by itself, is not what matters.
Think of it this way (I know you understand, @papy, this is for the sake of those who don’t):
Two people are going to meet for dinner.
One leaves his house at 5:30 pm and drives at the speed limit to reach the restaurant by 6:00.
The other leaves at 5:45 and speeds to get there, also arriving at 6:00.
For the sake of their reservation, they are both on time. One did not arrive earlier by employing their given strategy. Getting there on time is a combination of two things - what time you leave home, and how fast you drive. There are multiple combinations of these two things that can get you to the restaurant by 6:00. For the sake of not missing your reservation, they are all equally as good.
People are treating ‘handling time’ (the time you leave home) as being the only variable in the equation. It is not. Of course, if the speed you drive is static and can’t change, then if you leave later, you will arrive later. But if speed is also a variable, you can leave later and drive faster, and arrive at the same time as someone who left earlier and drove slower.
So handling time only affects delivery date if you assume that ‘transit time’ remains static. It does not.
The thing that does affect delivery date is a combination of your handling time and your set transit times, and what you do with just one of them doesn’t matter, as long as you adjust the other one to compensate.
It’s the combination that influences the Buy Box, not the value you use for one of the other by itself.
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Also, if you go to the trouble to change your handling times to 2 days at the sku level, but your competitors don’t, then you lose some of your competitive position for buyers…
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Doesn’t Amazon just tack on handling time to estimated delivery time?
If Amazon estimates 2 - 7 days delivery time, 0 day handling would show the buyer 2 - 7 days delivery, 2 day handling would show 4 - 9. All else being equal the shorter the seller’s handling time the better that offer is.
If you put a longer handling time Amazon shouldn’t reduce their estimate of the delivery time. That would be crazy if they did because that’s implying that if you ship slower the carrier moves the package faster.
Your analogy makes sense if the seller had control over both parts of the equation, but you can’t “speed” the delivery part of it (unless you pay the carrier a ton of extra money), you can only control when it leaves your facility.