yes
this is for those who use bulk shipping methods … go by the last ship by date on the order …
this would be normal for a 3 day handle time … what is your handle time associated with this order?
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Why that particular date?
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Thank you!!!
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The Handle Time gap is a rolling 30 day average which is compiled approximately 12 days behind the current date.
September 25, 2024 is when Amazon starts the new OTDR policy and when AHT may be turned on by Amazon on the sellers who have a Handle Time gap greater than 2.0 days over a rolling 30 day period.
If you subtract 12 days from Sept 25th, you would be at September 13th and the prior 30 day period would have began on August 14th (remember August has 31 days).
Amazon is also changing Standard Shipping transit times to have the longest setting at 3-5 days instead of the current 5-8 days on August 25th (just 3 days).
If you started on August 5th … then by August 17th you would start to see how the change in AHT behavior is effecting the overall picture before things begin to change with the first change happening in just 3 more days … August 25th.
The AHT, SSA and OTDR are all tied together in this policy. Making adjustments prior to each date to meet what Amazon is pushing for helps you avoid being caught up in a sudden forced change that could serverly hinder your business.
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Good advice for people that insist on using Amazon "buy shipping’ but I want everything in one place for all my sales outlets so I use Endicia/Dazzle.
I just need to start putting in the tracking numbers a few hours later now. My current ‘late shipment’ rate is about 1% so I could take a couple hits if I need to but just slowing tracking number entry should take care of the problem.
Still seeing a LOT of posts on the NSFE that show people have no clue about the new madness that Amazon is going to hit them with.
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If you buy outside of Amazon, when do they count your actual handling time? The time you confirm?
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I didn’t notice this at first, but it’s 12 days ago for the DELIVERY BY date, not Ship By (which was what I assumed it was).
So that means that it’s just now showing orders I shipped out on July 30. So if you are using the 5-8 day delivery time (the only viable option for MM), then it’s about a 25 day lag between shipping and seeing a result.
Makes it darn hard to monitor what’s going on. None of my “slowdown” orders are even showing yet; that won’t be until next week.
I’ll also mention that I noticed my gap dropping to 1.8. But it had also dropped my “Promise” time; so if they take that back up to 2.9, then I assume my gap will also increase.
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Well, today is the 22nd. Minus 12 is the 10th. The date being calculated for my gap is currently 7/11 to 8/10. Are you saying only the stuff delivered within those dates are being counted?
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I’m afraid you lost me there. I don’t see where this relates to “bulk shipping.” It’s just to the right on my Messages screen and shows a day-later ship-by date on every message (for different buyers).
Purchase date on this one: Aug. 9…a Friday; my 2-day handling makes this a ship-by Aug. 13, Tuesday (two business days later). This Messages page shows Aug. 14, a day later than what is correctly shown on the Manage Orders page.
All my Messages pages show this extension.
It doesn’t work that way for me, for whatever reason. A Friday sale for me gives me until Tuesday to ship. Two business days.
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It is confusing. The data is provided based upon the the deliver by date available 12 days ago. Which is needed when calculating your Promised Delivery Time verses your Actual Delivery Time.
The Handle Time Gap calculation is done from the purchase of a label on Amazon Buy Shipping or the input of the tracking number for those who buy off site.
We also were in this 5-8 delayed data void. We are just now seeing the data from around those orders shipped after August 5th.
What effects your gap the most is how you handle your orders in relationship to how you have set up your handle time and when you ship.
We have two orders that came in today Thursday August 22nd with the last ship by date as Monday Aug 26th (we have 2 day Handle Time … closed weekend / no weekend shipping). If we send those orders out tomorrow Friday Aug 23rd, then those orders will have a gap of 3.5 days. If we send those orders out on Monday Aug 26th, those orders will have a gap of 0.7 days as we will buy the label on Monday morning. If we purchase the label on Sunday Aug 25th around 2:00pm our time (noon Pacific Time), those orders will have a gap of 1.5 days even though the label will be bought for a Monday 26th shipping.
As you can see … how we manage our order shipments in relationship to how we have our handle time set will greatly effect the outcome of the handle time gap measurement.
The shipping transit time does not effect the handle time gap … it only effects your OTDR and the difference between promised delivery date and actual delivery date.
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When you used the phrase “ship by date extended”, we understood that to be something that is associated with bulk orders (or better said as a large item shipped by a freight company). These type of shipments can have an “extended ship by date” and is common for those shipments.
We understand now that your question is about the red “Confirm as shipped by {x-date}” which is showing up under Action column on the Manage Order page.
The answer for that we also answered on NSFE here.
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Your promised handle time for this order is (and let’s say the order time is 12:00pm noon Friday)
Friday handle time = 0.5 day
Saturday handle time = 1 day
Sunday handle time = 1 day
Monday handle time = 1 day
Tuesday handle time = 1 day
Total handle time for this order = 4.5 days
Yes it is set as a 2 day handle time but Amazon is calculating this based on what you have set and what the customer can expect. So Amazon allows you till Tuesday as a 2 day HT but counts the handle time as the time the customer could wait for you to process the order which includes both weekend days.
If you wait till Tuesday (for this order) to buy your label on Amazon or wait to enter your tracking on Tuesday for this order, that red button on the side saying you have till Wednesday’s date to avoid a late shipment is nothing more than a reminder for those who buy shipping off of Amazon. Amazon needs either done as it effects all of the variables around their new OTDR policy.
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I understand that is how it is calculated. But it still appears that what I’m seeing on the report is based on orders with a DELIVERY date of 8/11; so the calculation will be based on when I printed the label, but it’s not showing up anything that was prior to having a delivery by date of 8/11, meaning anything printed after 7/31. At least, that’s the way I read it (and being Amazon, it’s confusing enough that probably none of us have it 100% right).
Right. I was just pointing out that what might at first appear to be progress in getting the gap lowered may be spurious based on Amazon tweaking the promised time; I assume something to do with weekends or holidays that fall during the period.
But other than one order with Ship By of Friday that went out today (because tomorrow is one of those times I need the 2 day for, since I’ll be out all day), everything is getting the label printed on the last day. Royal PITA. And bad customer service; but it’s what Amazon is forcing on us.
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It would appear that they’re still floundering, as this post from earlier today (082224) by one of the NSFE mods (well-known for specializing in answering questions about shipping for a few years now) seems to illustrate:
Eternally an optimist, I find myself saddened to conclude that I suspect there’s a pretty-fair chance that things on this front might well get worse due to little more than an ill-considered & poorly-parameterized initiative having been deployed in the first case - requiring, yet again, undue scrambling by the teams tasked with supporting the infrastructure.
I’m reminded anew of that that hoary old saw about the fish rotting from the head down, dammit.
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Only the stuff delivered within those dates are being counted for today. The “gap” numbers changes each day (most of the time) when the date changes.
On Sept 25th, the orders that delivered during 8/14 - 9/13 will be used to caculate the "gap"s on that day.
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That would be the only time that they would know about. EXCEPT for anyone who is using Stamps or a different service and has chosen to ‘integrate’ or ‘merge’ or whatever term they use to link that service with Amazon.
If you do that you will have the same problem that people face with Amazon Buy shipping – as soon as you print the label a data dump goes to Amazon and they will confirm shipping even though it may sit at your location for several more hours!
We just got back from supper and I finally put in my tracking for today on both Amazon and eBay.
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Maybe that could be a solution for some people?
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I use Endicia for labels, I do not integrate Amazon to my Endicia, so, I upload tracking numbers to Amazon at night manually.
From my experience, Amazon is still using the time label is printed on Endicia as the start time.
I tried uploading tracking numbers several hours later when this policy came out, but still no change in my actual handling time after 3 weeks. So, no matter whether you print labels on Amazon or other platforms, label printed time is still used in actual handling time calculation.
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Thank you for all your detailed responses here! (How do you get anything done elsewise?) 
But can I assume you have no guesses on this part of my question (or did I miss it)?:
I suppose it’s not important, and might not really matter to anyone until they see it in their own Messages area, but I thought it was odd, and really did wonder if Amazon just added a day to the ship-by date when there is customer contact.
Can anyone else confirm this date discrepancy?
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Haven’t seen it in any of our customer messages … our best guess is that within that message program has a lookup that refers to the date as the date plus one.
Are you reading messages inside Amazon messages or through an outside email client?
It’s been 100+ outside for a few weeks … today will be 106 … not much to do outside and run out of things to do inside … so we come here to learn and occupy time …
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