I wish they would tell me what’s wrong with my manufacturer issued invoices.
I wish they would tell me why my items are misclassified.
I wish they would…
So I went to look at that NSFE thread, it becomes even more confusing.
A snip from the OP’s opening of this NSFE thread
The email states that I can only ship 1 day early or I get in trouble, but your help reference states that I can process faster with no issues.
I am confused which do we have to comply with.
So if that is true the center statement, it looks like Amazon is codifying my technique of “the box of despair” order management.
Except now I MUST ship in a two day window, the day it should ship where they are telling me “In Danger of Late Shipment” in screaming red, or the day before it should ship.
…but your help reference states that I can process faster with no issues.
This relates to my statement about how a river can change it’s path, and the map from last year, may not show where the river now is.
This morning one of the orders we had was a customer that requested a special order on a “commercial” product, one we manufacture “On Demand” it could not ship until Friday or Monday, though they sent me a convo (Amazon message in Etsy speak) and wanted it sooner. I did get it done, so sent it today.
For that reason I would be spanked or worse based on this email. Thank you Amazon may I have another.
As I said in the past “Life on the River.”
It makes no sense to me. Yet I understand what lake indicated here.
The problem is we are not doing it to game the system, we are doing it to make Amazon Customers (and they are Amazon Customers not my Customers) happy. In this case they are in New Hampshire, where we are located. They were near Portsmouth to our east. They were happy we were nearby in our great state, I was happy to help them… For now.
I do hope @Handmade and @Booksellers are following this thread…
Handmade should be OK for now. Not sure why this would affect booksellers more or less than other sellers.
The NSFE has been inundated with posts about this. Apparently NO ONE looks to see if anyone has already posted about it.
AHT has been an issue that has been cussed for probably two years already. Frankly (and my almost sincere apologies to those this will offend) anyone who could not see this coming must have just gotten off the Amazon turnip truck.
I have been working as hard as possible to ship the LAST day they require, as have lots (hopefully most) of other sellers that have paid attention.
AND it was widely discussed here as well a long time ago.
Amazon lurks in the weeds and pounces once sellers are distracted by OTHER events – think DD+7+1.
I think that at least part of this will have little effect on many booksellers (used books, anyway). I think most of us rarely have more than one copy of a book on a sku; so even if that particular sku gets nuked, we’ll never use it again anyway, so perhaps not a problem.
Although I can see the possibility of Amazon counting up the ones that they’ve deemed were shipped too fast, and deciding on a more global punishment.
I think the old 'average more than 2 days early" will still cause problems regardless of sku level settings.
So Amazon says.
Regardless, one of the seasoned & savvy forum vets has already experienced evidence of the promise proving hollow:
Color me unsurprised, dammit.
But didn’t they already email us that they would shut down listings that were not complying? It’s the only reason I turned AHT on. Did they change their minds?
The only good thing about AHT is they seem to give me more leeway, as in my handling time was two days and they are giving me 3 days. I am still shipping in 2 days.
That has always been my thought – if this situation is not a good fit for the existing punishment – modify and expand the punishment.
Far more likely than getting away with it.
Ever since the Gap was announced, I have only shipped early once – wasn’t going to be able to ship next day.
For a low volume seller like I am, one single misstep is BIG
Yep; this is at least the third version of “we want to force you to ship in 1 day” that’s come along (not counting the “hints” dropped in the DD+7 announcement to ship sooner so you get paid.) Each one seems to go a little deeper. Pretty soon it’s going to be 100% mandatory, and Amazon won’t be able to figure out why long-time sellers are leaving. (not that they’ll care…)
Because the interface to filter topics is less friendly than a rabid wolverine in final stages of hydrophobia, and the majority of the users of the NSFE are as versed in forum etiquette as… well, as that same wolverine
Mods are too desperate for participation to care about duplicated topics
And are also not very competent
How wonderful… the seller’s only strategy is to hold things that might ship sooner so as to not be required to (essentially) ship everything same-day, even that order that came in at 4:55pm when the post office closes at 5:00pm.
So, things that might have shipped sooner don’t, and shipping times get longer, not shorter.
Silly Amazon, Tricks Are For Kids!
As a bonus, when the PO scans your package at a minute after midnight, Amazon won’t cover it for INR or OTDR!
I’ve noticed that although I usually ship the next day, AHR gives me two days. I think it might be because the first scan is a day late. I still ship next day so that AHR doesn’t keep pushing the expected delivery date too far out.
Amazon,
Force everyone to use AHT and SSA without forcing everyone to use AHT and SSA.
I am absolutely positive, Amazon is Bipolar!
So on Wednesday Morning we get the email I talked so much about above.
Then Wednesday Afternoon, we get a Warning about being switched to AHT since our we shipped items early;
You handed off packages to carriers on average 2.1 calendar days before your promised handling time.
Today (Friday) it is already down to 2.0, we always tried to keep it below 1.7 for a buffer.
Talked about this upthread too.
This afternoon (Friday) on my Seller central page;
Actions
Investigate account health risk
A critical event has occurred causing your account to be at risk of deactivationWhen clicking on it I see this…
Your seller-fulfilled offers are at risk of deactivation
- Your On-Time Delivery Rate is 87.5%; the target is 90%.
To avoid deactivation of your seller-fulfilled offers, monitor your performance metrics and maintain rates that meet minimum standards. Go to the Customer Service Performance and Shipping Performance page for more details.
Wait, wait, wait wait, in the last two days you (Amazon) told me I was warned about shipping to fast, now what!
So I thought, ok, I may have shipped a media mail item, and it did not arrive on time. Experience told me it would.
So I go to the order number that had the problem. I actually shipped it Ground (disadvantage) Advantage on time, actually one day early, it was scanned on time, and arrived late. And I shipped it with Amazon shipping, and it has the “Claims Protected” badge. USPS just had it arrive a few days late.
So in a three day window we are punished for shipping to fast, and shipping to slow, with a Claims Protected Guarantee on that shipment from Amazon.
They want you to ship faster, but they also want you to use faster shipping. Next day air if that’s what it takes.
Well, let’s look at the Bay. When we ship and something arrives early, we often see feedback to the tune of “Fast shipping, awesome” or “Arrived fast, great” and customers are excited/pleased. I’ve never seen feedback like “Got here too fast, darn.”
Promise something decent and realistic (on the high side of times just in case) and hope for faster-than-expected delivery. Why not go with that model, Amazon?? Oh, right, because you don’t actually understand customers in the least; people that might understand won’t work for your under-industry-standard wages in the Marketplace group.
Amazon is such a hypocrite. They want third-party sellers to guarantee delivery within about a 10-minute timespan, but when I ordered coffee a few days ago with delivery on a Monday, it arrived Sunday. They even had given me 1% off for the Monday delivery date. Very efficient, Andy. What if I had planned to be away all day Sunday and the package was stolen?
I would rather be given an estimated delivery timeframe than be told a parcel will arrive on a certain date knowing it could be inaccurate. It just doesn’t do any good to be specific when often it doesn’t turn out that way.