I do not have AHT enabled and don’t want it. For the second time in recent months, my handling time gap has reached 1.9. We’re not even sure how that’s possible, because we ship most items in two business days or sometimes after one business day, and we always print the shipping label (using Amazon Buy Shipping), after noon Pacific time. It seems to me as if Amazon has, in the past week or so, been calculating the gap differently, and possibly inaccurately, but what do I know?
Since AHT began, our gap has been right around 1 day for the most part, and our shipping patterns have not changed. Yet for the past two weeks, it’s shot up to 1.5, then 1.7, now 1.9. This happened about two months ago as well.
My questions, if anyone knows:
- If my handling time gap hits 2 days, even just once, will I be automatically slammed with AHT? Or does Amazon go by an average over a certain period?
- I read recently on the NSFE that there is – or perhaps was – a way to ask for an exemption from AHT, and one of the mods mentioned that one of the eligible categories was media, which I sell exclusively. But sellers seemed to think that option is no longer available. Anybody know anything about this?
- If I am unwillingly enrolled in AHT, is there any way to get back out of it?
No, because I hit it, bit my nails, and nothing happened.
If Amazon enrolls you into AHT because of your gap being higher than 2.0, then no .. there is no going back.
If your gap is approaching 2.0, that means you are shipping earlier than your stated handle time. To avoid this, you need to ship on the last ship by date on the order. If you ship before the last ship by date of the order, then your handle time gap will go up.
The way the gap works is to penalize you for shipping earlier than your stated handle time. Don’t ship early … just be consistent and ship on the last ship by date on the order.
When you go into your order page are YOU setting them to rank by ‘ship by’ date, or are you trusting (a fool’s errand) that Amazon will actually have them ranked in the correct order?
I pushed almost everything out today due to the rate increase on Monday. After I had printed the packing slips I double checked and caught one that they had in the middle of the pack that doesn’t even have to go out until Tuesday.
I thought I had all my stuff set at the SKU level for 2 days. Surprise – I was wrong so I have to fix about 3500 ASINs and I do NOT trust the Amazon spreadsheets or my ability to do them correctly at this stage!
The 2 Monday orders came in after I had gone to the PO.
Funny you should ask that. I always have the orders sorted with newest at the top, and I do all the packing and shipping. But my husband, who is the bookkeeper, always sorts them so the oldest is at the top, and he frequently has to go in and change it because Amazon seems to present them in random order. I never see this. For me, on my computer or phone, they’re always in the same order. As the packer and shipper, I am always acutely aware of the ship-by dates. Honestly, we don’t have so many orders that it ever gets confusing.
We always set to Order Date (Descending) which put the newest at the top. If we have to close the browser or restart the computer, we have to reset this selection … but it stays that way until the next time the browswer is closed or computer is restarted. The order of the orders is always consistant and newest to oldest.
Since all of our items are 2 day handle time, we know what day the order ships by the day that the order was placed.
Ordered - Ship by
Mon - Wed
Tue - Thur
Wed - Fri
Thur - Mon
Fri - Tue
Sat - Tue
Sun - Tue
Except for Holiday weeks, this holds true for us.
We also set the order page to pull up orders for the past 30 days. This way we are ensured to see everything current.
I order mine by ship-by date (ascending). Amazon has been known to glitch, though. I had one that was way out of order. The ship-by date was Thursday in a pile of other ship-by-Wednesday days. Not sure what happened. I triple checked. All other shipments were in order except for that one.
I don’t know if this is doable for you, but have you thought of shipping on the last “day” but printing your labels out and shipping them like you do now? I know you can’t do that when buying shipping from Amazon but if you use something other than Amazon’s buy shipping, it could work. This is what I do on the Bay.
Note: I am virtually 100% FBA so my thought above is just that… a thought to try out, if possible. I’m sure others will correct me if I’m wrong.
I had brought up shipping early and confirming shipping on the last day, but someone thought that might suspiciously look like drop shipping if done on a regular basis. I don’t know if that’s true, but I believe it would totally mess me up having to keep track of what I’ve shipped that I need to enter later. I just ship on the day before the last day and it works out to having a 1-day gap, which is acceptable to Amazon for now.
I’ve wondered about this, too. Buy shipping elsewhere, ship on my preferred schedule and mark as shipped on the last possible day. I would be concerned that Amazon would detect a pattern and not like it, i.e. a bot would flag orders already shipped on my reported shipment date. But I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m a small seller and won’t be forced to go to the post office every single day.
My handling time gap stayed at 1.9 for two days and now has been back down to 1.7 for two days. Usually my normal routine of shipping in 1 or 2 business days doesn’t cause a problem. (I have every one of my items for sale set for 2 days at the SKU level.) Our own calculations show that our gap should not be as high as Amazon says it is, but what else is new?
