I have SSA and AHT and have been consistently shipping two days after the order. Occasionally, one slips through that says I must ship next day, but I hold the line and everything is good…until this past week. Everything is now coming in forcing me to ship next day. I can’t ship in 2 days for everything to try and force Amazon to let me have 2 days. Besides, I don’t think that tactic is working anymore. I would just lose money on higher-priced shipping and still not get 2 days. Is anyone else having this problem?
If you’re using USPS, then my guess for the change might be related to whether Amazon considers Friday July 3 or Saturday July 4 (or both? or neither?) as the shipping holiday, combined with delivery expectations for your specific SKUs? 
Well, the order came in today and needs to be shipped tomorrow, so there is no holiday involved. Every order from Friday to today has to be shipped by Monday. There is no way, especially with rate hikes, that I can ship in 2 days and make money. And like I said, I’ve been doing 2 days consistently, so I do not believe that shipping in 2 days is going to push the system to give me 2 days anymore.
What’s the “deliver-by” day? Could Amazon be trying to ensure being processed through the system before Friday or Saturday?
But otherwise, yeah, you would hope it’s just a setting gone awry, somewhere.
3P Sellers shouldn’t lose money on otherwise profitable ASINs just because some Amazon shipping bot has gone wild.
That is not how 2 day handle time works. It will work for orders placed on Sun, Mon, Tue, & Wed that ship out Tue, Wed, Thur & Fri … but it doesn’t work for Thur, Fri, & Sat orders.
If you get an order on Thurs and ship it out on Sat, then Amazon sees you as shipping early because the 2 day handle time say it will ship on Mon. Fri & Sat orders with 2 day handle time should ship on Tue. If you ship Fri on Sun or Mon and if you ship Sat on Mon, then Amazon sees you as shipping early. This practice WILL get your handle time to be adjusted down to a 1 day handle time for all of the SKUs that you have been doing this “early shipping”.
We have 2 day handle time on all of our items with SSA & AHT enabled and none of them have had this issue you have described.
When I get orders on Friday-Sunday, I have always shipped Tuesday because business is closed on Saturday and Sunday. It will not let me do that now.
The bot has closed down that option. Shipping Tuesday for Friday-Sunday orders was something I was doing consistently. It is not recognizing that.
I have never shipped early unless Amazon was giving me a week, which it was doing, so I shipped in 2 days.
I don’t think deliver by date is as important as whatever shipping method they allow for protection. My allowable shipping methods become astronomically unaffordable if I ship the second day.
Given that every single order is next day, I have to cave, because I cannot ship every single order with express shipping in the hopes of Amazon resetting the handling time. Before, I could do one order here or there, but now, it’s every order – and I don’t know that Amazon will reset.