I’ve been waiting for some follow up to their one day shipping thing from a couple months ago, and LUCKY ME.
I got this today in an email from Amazon. Anyone else getting the same 'satisfy OUR buyers message?
Dear Seller
Your account has been selected to be auto-enrolled for early access to Promise Optimization (PO), a new feature that will automatically set more accurate delivery dates for your Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) offers.
Through PO, we will automatically adjust the delivery date based on the actual time it takes you to pack the product and actual time it takes for your carrier to ship it. This adjustment will be based on our observed and predicted delivery time for every SKU and every destination that you ship to, and the shipping services you frequently use to deliver each SKU.
Your account was selected because over 95% of your packages reach customers earlier than the promised delivery date. With this change your offers will have a more accurate delivery date, which typically increases seller’s sales conversion*. If you would like to learn more about how setting a more accurate promise can help increase your sales, Click here to watch our webinar on “How to offer faster delivery promises without paying for quicker shipping”.
You will be auto-enrolled for Promise Optimization on 25th January 2024. If you would like to opt out, click here.
Thank you,
Seller Fulfillment Services
At least they were good enough to include an “OPT OUT” option so count me out.
I get enough business to keep me moderately satisfied and I do NOT need added pressure from the BEAST.
Amazon is increasingly and constantly pushing FBM for faster and faster delivery. They will continue to do so for as long as they can get away with it.
When they started setting sellers’ default handling to 2 days, I said it was just the start. Then they started resetting individual SKU handling times. Now they are changing our shipping times. It won’t stop here.
I think they’re trying to push out FBM sellers without explicitly doing so, since having FBA as the only option for sellers strengthens any potential court cases/govt actions that claim Amazon is effectively the seller of record.
If they wanted to do that, there are far more efficient ways of doing so, to say nothing of the fact that this notion is incompatible with their incessant push for new sellers. I don’t think this is the case.
I believe they want FBM sellers, they just want FBM sellers to do their work for them. They made promises and cultivated expectations for faster and faster deliveries, and now FBA has trouble meeting those promises. Also, the fact that FBM sellers don’t (or in some cases can’t) offer next day and 2 day delivery means that buyers who don’t know the difference between FBA and FBM are constantly annoyed when orders take gasp 5 days to arrive.
Rather than adjust expectations to a more realistic level or stop promising more and faster regardless of their ability to fulfill these promises, Amazon has decided to lean on sellers to make us pick up their slack. They believe that to do otherwise would forfeit ground and market share against other online marketplaces like Walmart. If this forces some sellers off the site because the requirements are unreasonable, so be it, as Amazon does not care if they keep vendors, they care if they keep customers. As long as they keep enough sellers selling enough items to keep their customer base, they call it a win.
Yep, I got the email too. Not going to happen. I came here to make sure it was legit because to opt out, you need to put your account email address or merchant token in a location that is NOT Seller Central. Still not keen on providing that information there, but I definitely DON’T want to be part of that program.
To be fair, this is not the first program opt-out to be hosted by Amazon’s preferred Survey Provider, Qualtrics; there have been several other similar situations over the last 6 years or so.
We ourselves haven’t received this notification as of yet, but I simply used our friend @dwat0870’s URL, allowed it to refresh back to the simplified default URL (often, links like these are SoA Account-specific, but Qualtrics’ automated mechanisms typically figure that out quickly, and reset to the landing page itself) - and had no qualms about entering our Merchant ID/Token, as I’ve done so many times before.
One thing I did do, however, was to save that landing page, after I’d entered the token (but before I clicked the ‘next’ arrow), as a .mht file; did the same for the ‘completion’ page, because our friend @GGX is correct about Amazon ‘losing’ things:
Ya never know when Amazon might ask for proof that you actually did this or that thing.
Great idea. I did exactly as you outlined. I have the “proof” that I did it, but really, would that even matter to Amazon considering everything that goes wrong always seems to be blamed on the seller.
Early in the prior decade (2011, IIRC), we had a situation where Amazon demanded proof from OUR records of interaction w/ Amazon.
We couldn’t provide what it wanted, so we lost that battle - prompting a revision in our policy, requiring the archiving of everything about any interaction with such a slip-shod ‘partner.’
On two subsequent situations over the next few years, having implemented said policy pulled our fat out of Amazon’s fire.
I subscribe to a hoary old aphorism which was highly-favored among my elders, teachers, mentors, military superiors, and tutors alike:
'Tis better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it.
In a bit of an ironic twist, when Amazon started this BS of “rewarding” sellers who exceeded promises, I’ve started being a little less concerned with getting packages out quickly. Probably now 25% of my orders take a day longer than they would have a year ago, when I was worried more about pleasing the customers than with getting trapped by Amazon.
That cartoon holds true for most work places – work is always given to those who do the work, never to the slackers. Because, of course, the work will get done that way.
I agree. Not just Amazon, for years I have been taking screen shots every time I interact with any kind of customer support. So they don’t forget what they promised. Now it’s easier as most will send you a chat copy upon request anyways. I don’t believe any of them when they promise stuff and in fact, I ordered a couch from a large furniture chain and talked with a rep via chat. I made it clear, because of the dogs, we need a couch with REMOVABLE cushion covers. He swore THREE times they are removable… Once the couch came, seating was permanently attached. I refused delivery and had to take my screenshots to them via BBB because they refused to issue a refund and wanted to charge me for failed delivery. I got my refund…
