Errrrrmahgerd, NAILED IT.
(And by crappy FBA Sellers, we mean no one here on SAS but folks doing brands, Amazon’s customers, and Amazon’s policies dirty, while Amazon rakes in the fees and has policies on books to enforce when a Seller is too uppity. 
)
Hi all, we’re trying to keep any automated handling time only info/posts and questions here together in this main (public) thread, so you might see some posts rearranged or joined from elsewhere.
There is also a (private) companion topic for the bigger OTDR issue/announcement over in 
SAS Confidential (members only), Amazon’s newest farce: OTDR.
Thanks–
@moderators
Duh,. They’ll punish you. They won’t call it a punishment; they’ll just do things like take away your BB. But result is the same.
And remember; these changes are based on your AVERAGE performance; but the penalties are based on the WORST outliers. The exact same numbers that will get your “rewarded” this month can get your account dinged next month. And you can bet that they are going to ding you one way or another.
Can I guess that the handmade seller did not contact handmade support? OR has that also been lumped into seller support for everyone? I’m not over there nor do I need to ask questions any more – since I’m here.
OR seller support hasn’t been trained in this area yet?
OK I have a question that just came to mind.
In the past, if I wanted to take say a Friday off, I’d upload a PRE-PREPARED spreadsheet for 2 day handling (friday off and a normal one day, so if the order comes in on Thursday, it needs to be shipped on Monday).
I take two one-week long work trips (one coming up in September). Instead of closing the shop and putting it on vacation, I do a 7 day handling time. I’m fully aware that orders will slow down (GOOD) but they can still come in because I’m NOT on vacation. In September, it’s really no big deal. But November it is a big deal. That week is over Thanksgiving, and on Monday, I usually have done too well. But I can’t take the chance that Amazon will put it back to one day. I don’t want to SHIP while I’m on the road and travel with all that extra crap and work in the evenings blah blah blah…let me ship on Monday. If that slows orders down, FINE so be it. I’m happy with that.
So each time, I wanna go over the AHT, do we have to ask Seller Support for in a sense a WAIVER and then cross our fingers our additional days will stick in the computer?
According to last Thursday’s email
Effective 09/23/2024 [60 days from today], you’ll need to maintain a minimum 90% On-time delivery rate (OTDR) without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. com.
Do they mean seller fulfilled prime or just FBM? Are they saying we are forever banned from FBM if we somehow fall below 90%?
FBM, I don’t know about SF Prime.
Sounds like it.
It’s a good question, and I’m not sure. That is what it sounds like, though.
I never noticed my OTDR being anything but 100. Yesterday I dropped to 97 and change and today I’m at 96.88. USPS has been crap on delivery lately and oddly enough most of my problems have been with Priority. WTF are we supposed to do?
When Amazon decides to change the sampling period from ‘Last 30 Days’ to ‘Last 14 Days’ - for ANY metric - methinks that you can pretty-much count on this unwelcome prediction having a significant chance of proving true, dadgummit:
Chaos Ensues…
More-damnable still is how long it takes for experiments like this one to pass up and down the Byzantinely-intricate Chain of Command - and even moreso when external factors beyond Amazon’s control factor into it’s calculations.
I think I figured out my plan.
Right now my average handling time is 1.1 days.
My projected handling time is 3.1 days.
I just have to get the average handling time above 1.1
I used to ship orders that came in the same day I was shipping. No more. I will ship on the last day possible.
Customer service will be way down, and amazon will be happy lol
Link to NSFE: Post I made on the NSFE in regard to AHT
I read this thread in the Handmade forum and it appears KJ just wants to spout the usual boilerplate bs. The exemption she claims is available, seems to be unobtainable for Handmade sellers at least as reported from several sellers who have reported this from multiple threads. In Handmade, customized AND personalized is prevalent (except for the Ali-Express sellers), so it would make sense for Amazon to exempt Handmade altogether. I have not followed the Handmade group on the NSFE but it does not appear that any of the old Amazon Handmade team are there to advocate anymore.
Fortunately as far as late shipments go, I can move fast enough on my made to order production as long as I can avoid an order with same day shipping. If so, I guess I can reduce my max orders per day to assist during peak times. As far as OTDR, maybe bump the transit times up a notch on the shipping template?? All of which will most likely affect my product visibility.
I know it says my OTDR is protected with buy shipping but it is still unclear to me if my account is in risk of suspension IF I fall below 90%???
So many questions.
YET. It doesn’t exist “yet” because this doesn’t go into effect for a while. Amazon is required to disclose the change ahead of time, but because it isn’t active “yet” they don’t have the code activated nor does “any” of support even know of its potential existence.
The information of the change (that actually hasn’t happened yet) causes mass hysteria, paniced posts on the forum, and flooding support about something there is no “solution” for because the exemption doesn’t exist yet because technically the “problem” (AI intervention) hasn’t happened yet either.
We’re (sellers in general) right to get upset about the change, but we (sellers in general) need to slow our roll in freaking out about trying to find the “solution” that might exist “soon” but definitely isn’t there “yet”.
The change with AHT is set to happen with the changes to shipping which will limit transit times. Amazon’s goal is to get everyone on board with AHT, SSA and using Buy Shipping by promising various protections while putting parameters in place that may be hard to survive with for those that don’t.
Our plan of attack will be to leave our Default Handle Time at 1 and our item level handle time at 2. In addtion, we will wait 24 hours after the order placement before we buy a label. We will still run production of our custom items the same but just be a little sluggish in the final step of shipping.
Our plan of attack for the shipping templates is to create a new one that does NOT have Expedited Shipping and set all of our items to this template. All orders will be set to standard with 5-8 day transit for lower 48 states and 7-14 for Hawaii and Alaska. We will also create one template for SSA parameters so that we can change to it if needed. Not that we intend on using it, but just have it ready in case it is needed.
Finally, we use Buy Shipping and everything goes out USPS Ground Advantage (and some Priority Mail Flat Rate which we will eliminate with the dropping of Expedited Shipping). Between now and the change over, we will create a work flow that could be used if Buy Shipping does not provide the option of USPS Ground Advantage.
If the roll out is too disruptive, we will go on vacation for a time to let things shake out. 4th Quarter is not our busy time of the year so Amazon did us a favor timing wise (although we feel for those who’s bread and butter comes at this time).
Mine dropped below 100% too.
So I pulled the report and looked at the tracking – it got stuck somewhere with the post office.
Yep – kinda consider that out of my hands and out of my control.
But won’t you cause potentially another problem for OTDR?
Exactly my policy. Since this announcement, I’ve already dropped my “faster by” number by a full tenth of a point. (and I was already doing this a bit, just based on suspicion of the “rewards”; now that we have confirmation, I’ll take it a step farther. Too bad for the customers…)
Nope. I have a 2 day handling time for most of my items. I do that as a buffer for computer, internet, Mail issues (they don’t always pick up the mail).
So now instead of when that order comes in while I am shipping orders shipping the order, I just let it sit for 2 days.
We ship on Mon, Wed, Thur night and Sat. Weekend orders ship on Mon, Monday night and Tuesday orders ship on Wednesday. Thursday night used to be any order that came in after 12 on Wednesday. Now it is any order that comes in before 3 am on Thursday. The rest can wait till Monday. I won’t ship on Sat anymore.
All this was to promote good customer service. Now I have to make them wait.
