FYI
If it happens on Oct-8, the new policy states that you will not be able to revert it back.
We are running between 1.1 days and 1.6 days and no conversion yet.
Though they are still hitting us with extra shipping charges in the way of 2 day shipping in the west, and south of the pan handle in TX. (We are near Boston)for those dealing with this stupid Amazon idea.
We do ship all "west orders set to 1-2 day handling on day 1. So far it has not altered our gap goal of less than 2 days.
We do not wish to alter our shipping tables since they work for us for stuff east of the Rockies. So far our workaround of shipping “west” orders on the first day of shipment is working. Without eating into our below 2.0 day limit.
We managed to get it to 0.5 days.
Still kills me to hold orders for 2 days rather then ship them immediately, but WTF it’s what Amazon wants.
But this is the same notice I got before, and last line says:
After Automated Handling Time is enabled, if you prefer to manually set your Handling Time per SKU, watch this video to learn how. After you configure your SKU-specific Handling Time, you can disable Automated Handling Time on your Handling Time Settings.
so, it means I can still disable this on Oct-8, hopefully. 
To be fair, that particular Seller University Module - “Set ASIN-specific handling time” (link, simplified, non-YouTube) in the “Fulfill customer orders directly (MFN)” Course does not appear to have yet been updated, by the Editorial Team, to reflect this year’s changes; my records seem to indicate that it hasn’t been updated for nearly two years…
As such, I wouldn’t be hanging my hat on that particular peg…
Agree … the email seems to be in template form and this new AHT policy still has moving parts so we would expect it to follow the clip we provided.
With that said, you are at 1.4 days gap which is below the 2.0 day gap threshold so it is also possible that you received this email notice in error.
Prepare for the worst and be happy if it doesn’t happen.
I can’t stand it. We have a “box-o-crap” that should ship but we are not allowed. I did figure out how to manage it with filters and flags on ShipStation. This tells the day it should ship, or if it is ok to ship. It also tells us if the item is west of the Rockies or south of the Texas panhandle. We have found those locations need to ship one day ahead. As in we have 1-2 day shipping, we ship on day one, not day two. It is the only way to avoid Amazon demanding 2 day shipping.
The ones that kill me are the custom, or handmade items. We may get those done 2-10 days early. The sit in the “box-o-crap” waiting for the day to come.
So far shipping early to avoid high shipping costs to the west coast has not put us out of the window, we have been able to stay in 1.2-1.6, under the 2.0 requirement.
Interesting note, other channels and our own websites we do not hold the shipments. Word may be getting out. “Buy it on Amazon and it will take longer.”
Unintended consequences.
So when I have packages that are due to ship on Monday, and since I get up early and leave the house on Monday, I ship on Sunday night. But what I have been doing is changing the ship date to Monday’s date instead of leaving it on Sunday. Does that do anything when I print the label in terms of handling time?
So you are dropping the packages off in a mail box (drop box) on Sunday night …
As long as you purchase the label after 12:00pm (noon) Pacific Time on Sunday with the Monday date as the shipping date on the label, your gap should be at or under 1.5 days.
As long as they continue to use first scan as the measurement for the end of handle time gap (which Amazon changed to 9/17/2024), you should be okay.
If Amazon changes again, then we all have to adjust again.
Let’s all hope this stays as it is now as it will allow for us to keep 2 day handle time and process labels the night before shipping.
Are you saying Monday is the first day Amazon says you can ship, or is it the last day?
Nope. I load them in my car Monday morning and drop them off at the post office Monday afternoon,.
Then …
Just watch your drop off scan and the first scan when it goes through your local USPS distribution center (this needs to be before 11:59:59pm Pacific Time that day).
I am not seeing this change reflected in my handling time gap, is this written in Amazon policy somewhere?
If the first scan when it goes through your local distribution center doesn’t happen until the next day, shouldn’t that be reflected by an increase in your handling time gap?
Shouldn’t this then result in an increase in handling time when AHT is turned on?
The answers here are imperative for making AHT work correctly.
No … but when Amazon changed the measure period on 9/17/2024 from 30 days down to 14 days, we saw an instant drop in our HT gap from 0.7 - 0.8 days to 0.1 - 0.2 days. Then on 9/21/2024 Amazon changed the measure period back to 30 days … but our handle time gap remained at 0.1 - 0.2 days.
We have documented this on SAS with the mathematics explaination in this post …
https://test.sellersasksellers.com/t/aht-september-25-2024-and-otdr-to-gamble-or-not-to-gamble-conversation/4764/38?u=lost_my_marbles
No … it does not increase the gap … it continues to decrease the gap and could even result in a negative gap (which means it would reflect a late shipment). The gap increases when you ship closer to the order time. The gap decreases when you ship closer to 11:59:59pm on the last ship by date.
Examples (Pacific Times)
2 day Handle Time
Monday order 12:00pm comes down
You print label at 4:00pm
You ship at Monday 6:00pm and get local post office scan.
Last ship by date is Wednesday 11:59:59pm
Your gap expected was to be 2.0 days
(This is what we all were expecting but didn’t happen - beginning of August)
2 day Handle Time
Monday order 12:00pm comes down
You printed the label Wednesday at 8:00am
You ship Wednesday 9:00am at local post office and get “In possession” scan
Shipment reaches local distribution center and gets “Arrived at” scan at 10:00pm
Your gap was 0.7 to 0.8 days
(This was happening up til 9/17/2024)
Note
We started at 2.5 days because we would print the label before the day we actually shipped on. When we went to the schedule above, we were able to get to 0.7 - 0.8 days by the end of the first week in September.
2 day Handle Time
Monday order 12:00pm comes down
You print the label Wednesday at 8:00am
You ship Wednesday 9:00am at local post office and get “In possession” scan
Shipment reaches local distribution center and gets “Arrived at” scan at 10:00pm
Your gap was 0.1 days
(This is what has been happening after 9/17/2024 with Amazon using local distribution arrived at scan)
And we asked these questions on today’s Ask Amazon event …
Ask questions about the OTDR policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st
We understand the numbers (the math behind this gap thing) and can easily match Amazon’s calculations to the purchase label prior to 9/17/2024 and scan events after 9/17/2024 that are associated with our shipments.
The only twist that we wouldn’t know would be if Amazon is running two sets of calculation for HT gap (A/B testing) and thus sellers would be seeing different results.
We definitely have identified issues with promised Transit Times when SSA is turned on. We have one area where Amazon promises 3 day transit and the orders going to this region are being delivered consistently in 5 to 6 days. Thus, we have had our first late delivers ever with Amazon.
I should have said “decrease” instead of “increase”.
I have not seen this, thus
Handling time (promise):1.9 days
Handling time (actual):0.1 days (Which is impossible since my post office arriival scans are at least 12 hours after purchasing the shipping labels.)
This is a great post. My sales are currently about 25% of what they were last year at this time. I have SSA on and AHT off with 2-day handling time. I don’t know what is causing the slow sales. I have never turned AHT on. I’m thinking about going back to my old shipping template which didn’t have SSA enabled.
This is exactly what started happening to us after 9/17/2024. Check your items and see if there is a scan at the first distribution center after your post office for a time around 10:00pm Pacific Time (… this would be around midnight Central or 1:00am Eastern). If you see this, then you have verified what we have been saying that Amazon is now using the first scan through the local distribution center as this is why we are seeing 0.1 day actual HT gap.
Problem is that our old templates with 5-8 day transit times (and they still show this) are now being calculated at 3-5 days which is what SSA is being calculated at. So it will not do any good as we loose anything over 5 days.
FYI … we finally got our first sale tonight after having AHT turned on for 48 hours (normally we don’t have zero days). It will be interesting to see if they go back up to normal or trend towards normal.
I am seeing those scans, but my handling time is 0.1 days, not my handling time gap. If they were using those scan times to calculate handling times, then my handling time would have to be at least 0.5 days (12 hours). My handling time gap is 1.8 days.
Do you buy labels 2 to 3 hours after the order comes to be shipped out later or even the next day?