Sounds like playing with fire.
Better off to just properly update every single SKU. Is there a way to do that in bulk?
Also, if you’re applying logic to this, 1 order per day means 1 order for the 2nd day, so if you get 10 orders it’ll be up to 10 days handling
Sounds like playing with fire.
I’d rather you withhold your judgment on what Amazon might do, since you don’t have the experience with doing FBM shipping that some others of us do.
Better off to just properly update every single SKU.
With all due respect, this is the kind of comment you make that I find so offensive. There is nothing ‘improper’ about NOT updating every single SKU. You - who does not have the experience with FBM that many of us in this thread do - are insinuating that WE - who are more experienced at this than you - are doing something wrong.
I don’t want to discourage you from posting, sharing, and learning, but I’m not alone in wishing you’d be more careful about what you say, and how you say it.
Also, if you’re applying logic to this, 1 order per day means 1 order for the 2nd day, so if you get 10 orders it’ll be up to 10 days handling
We can never be certain that applying real-world logic to something is what Amazon will do. If Amazon were a smarter company (I don’t share your opinion that they are a sophisticated AI giant, at least not when it comes to maintaining the amazon.xxx sites), they might be bright enough to add an additional day with each 1 order you get, but years of observing their inept programming says that’s not what’s likely to happen.
I might test it later this weekend to find out.
I am wondering if this is Amazon squeezing the sellers for some reason associated with the FTC case.
I’m not sure them seizing more control and acting like and employer helps their case.
Roxy, first of all thank you for providing your expertise here for our benefit.
Do you charge shipping separately? My offers are all Free Shipping and the Free template does not have the settings you show above. 3-5 days is the shortest transit option available on that part of the template.
I can choose 2-3 or 2-4 day options in the Standard section where shipping is charged.
So while this thread was closed, I decided to experiment and created a new template. I toggled off Free Shipping and put 0.00 for the shipping charges in the Standard section. I was worried I would lose the verbiage ‘Free Shipping’ on my offer but so far it still displays. I know that might change yet.
General Shipping Settings handling time 2 days
Sku level handling time 1 day
Transit time in my state 2-3 days
Offer shows: FREE delivery October 25 - 26.
I have the other states at 2-4 days except HI & AK.
I assume the SKU handling time overrides the Gen Shipping Settings time.
If my experiment works, I will change the Gen Settings handling to 1 day and set the SKU level time to 2 days. Because I did not get the email yet but I’m sure it is coming.
When we read how this works … if you set it to one, the next (2nd) order would go to the next day and the next (3rd) order would go to the second day out … and so on. The displayed estimated time on the item’s display page would (should … if Amazon programming is in sync with policy) start showing the longer estimated delivery time based on where your orders are in processing. Six orders would push your estimated delivery date to start at 7 days out.
The program is really designed to help with a seller who can only get out say 20 (random number but for theory purposes) orders a day. During Holiday times this seller might get 22 orders in a day so two of the orders would be pushed for the next day when maybe their sales are only 16. This means the would be able to catch up and still have reasonable estimated delivery times and avoid late shipments.
We know you fully understand the program but thought our example might add some contextual value for those that may not.
Not sure we would test your theory as Amazon is extremely slow at pushing out changes within the system right now … and we are in the Glitchmas season too.
Our 2 day handling time at item level has not changed at this point.
We took 4 days off for a short trip and came back to find this wonderful /S message in my emails.
So far I still show the 2 days in my settings so that has not changed.
What WILL change is the same as several others mentioned – my ability to take a day off without going into vacation mode. Up until now, with my 2 day settings I could leave Thursday and any orders received on Thursday or Friday would not HAVE to ship until Monday or Tuesday. I did not need vacation mode shutdowns to fill those orders as required.
Now, if I go out of town for the longer weekend, I have to go into vacation mode for ONE DAY since Friday orders can ship Monday but anything that came in Thursday would be late.
It was mentioned above about the capacity numbers as well. I have been playing with those as a ‘throttle’ on my sales for quite some time. While it does kick over an extra day for the orders in excess of the number set (and additional days for multiples of that number!) I have not seen that it has caused any large decreases in sales. Of course, frankly, I don’t really care if I miss a couple in order to have some semblance of a life.
I think many people overestimate the time sensitivity of the majority of Amazon buyers. Are there pampered buyers that want items teleported to their bedroom? Of course there are, but I suspect that it is more of an Amazon construct than it is a REAL demand by the majority of the buyers.
Since Amazon insists on playing games I will play along as well. I just reduced my order capacity by 1/3 to 1/2 of what it was set for previously so there will be longer delivery times showing.
By reducing the number I should (hopefully) be able to take a day off in the middle of the week and just double up on shipping when I get back the next day.
Well, you could just change the handling time back to what it was if they force a change right? It’s just forcing people to do additional work if they want things to remain the same.
And it’s less about buyers caring about the delivery speed, and more about the fact that if you’re competing on an ASIN, the buy box gets awarded taking shipping speed into account, and the fact is most sales occur through the buy box. Even if you’re alone on an ASIN, they may rank your product lower on search results if Amazon thinks your shipping speed is too slow.
I always prefer faster but unless it’s something I really need tomorrow I don’t care that much as long as it’s within a reasonable amount of time, say a week.
I was thinking of setting it to 0, but I’m afraid of what the Amazon bot would do with that.
It doesn’t let you enter 0 as that’s a nonsensical value (fortunately). There’s also other fields in seller central where 0’s also nonsensical and it doesn’t allow it.
Seems they did one thing right at least.
Give 'em time. They’ll change it.
I doubt that they will have the 2 day option readily available since that is what they want to do away with.
I have about 4500 +/- active ASINs and am not even going to try and set 2 days ASIN by ASIN and do not trust their spreadsheets (or anything else, frankly) to do it correctly.
I’m a fossil and when I got my MBA we actually had to ‘wire a board’ to prove our really basic program worked. I’ve had to do emergency rebuilds of my computer when it crashed and wiped out everything – overnight all the pieces and put it back together but I’m just too busy to figure out their spreadsheet system currently.
If I miss some sales by reducing numbers, so be it.
which report shows this? I don’t have Category Listings Report, is that new?
No, it’s the one you have to request - it’s really great, has every listing with all information. Just message SS and ask that it be added. When I did, I had it fairly quickly, like within an hour.
I believe you have to ask the support to give it to you, once they did that it will be on that list for later use. I asked a while ago, and don’t remember how exactly I did it.
I did run a Category listing report for myself yesterday. In my spreadsheet the columns from “Product type” to “Package height” (except main image) are all displaying data, but the column for “Production Time” were empty, nothing showing at all.
Most of my SKU level Production time were set for 2 days and Amazon hasn’t changed them yet, so shouldn’t the “Production time” column in that report showing numbers?
Of course, I’m so bad with spreadsheet, probably don’t know what I’m doing. Is there something I need to do to the spreadsheet to have the data showing up in the empty columns?
No, it should be accurate I would think? Mine were all blank - but they’re also blank on my SKUs - they got wiped out somehow.
This would be a good opportunity for someone to open a service that uses the API to set all handling times to a custom value (if one doesn’t already exist).
I’ve used the API before to bulk change the max order quantity value. One benefit of using the API is you can also use it to periodically check and verify values (and automatically re-update them if you wish) to make sure that Amazon didn’t do you a favor and randomly shortened the handling time to “improve” the offer.