Come ask questions about the On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) policy updates at an Ask Amazon event on October 1st, from 8 am to 5 pm PT!
Community Managers and the OTDR team will answer your questions posted in this thread. Please note that this thread will be locked until closer to the event’s date.
What is the new OTDR policy?
Effective September 25, 2024, to help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, we’re changing our OTDR policy. The new policy requires a minimum of a 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon. We have also changed our recommended standard for a great customer experience to 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders, but only an OTDR below 90% can result in restriction of a seller’s ability to have seller-fulfilled products listed. This policy does not apply to offers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
We also changed the way we measure OTDR to now measures the percentage of your tracked seller-fulfilled items that were delivered on or before the seller-promised “Deliver by” date prior to promise extensions being added. Prior to this change OTDR was measured after promise extensions were added.
If you have questions about these policy changes, please join us on October 1st!
*Note: We cannot provide legal advice or otherwise interpret regulatory requirements on situations that are specific to individual sellers.*Before posting, did you search for your topic or question? Click the magnifying glass icon at the top of the page.
That’s what I’d like to know – I’m not sure I had ever heard of a promise extension before all this latest OTDR hoopla. Who is getting these extensions, for what and how? (Also, Promise Extensions sounds like a hair product. Just saying ;0)
When Amazon deems that there is a local event (Hurricane, Tornado, delivery network issues, etc) that is worthy enough of impacting delivery they will add time to the delivery window.
They have it as a tool in their toolbox but it sounds like it isn’t something they will actually utilize.
If we remember correctly, there was also a reference to promise extensions where freight / oversize orders were being sent to customers (just can’t find where we saw that one right now).
It became a thing in the immediate wake of the COVID-19 Crisis- inspired Goods Prioritization Initiative, beginning Q3 of 2020.
There was a good deal of chatter about it the NSFE during that year’s Q4, albeit it was generally not-then known, outside of the SFP community, that the ‘Amazonese’ nomenclature for this practice is “Promise Extensions;” every fourth quarter since has seen discussion of this ramp up, only to die back down during spring.
This year has been an exception, as complaints persisted right up until the first week of May, when they began shifting to a notice of how such extensions were being folded into AHT.
Amazon moves the goal posts of delivery promise to the customer which extends the time for delivery keeping the customer from claiming late delivery A to Z claim.
We have seen it happen with orders we have purchased but usually it is something that was an FBA order (meaning Amazon was saving their butt). We can’t remember seeing a FBM order have it happen too.
Some notes on the “promise extension”:
a) Amazon mod says that Amazon unilaterally decides what an extenuating circumstance is (this will be binding even though it’s written nowhere except in the fora, which can’t be legal, but, well, it’s Amazon, so legal shmeagal).
b) The promise extension will NOT help your OTDR. This is insane: “we are aware the city no longer exists due to nuclear activity, but too bad.”
c) Amazon may remove those metric hits for deliveries from an impacted area, but there may also be no automated way to do this, so prepare for a long fight with support
d) This exemption is only for packages ORIGINATING in an impacted area. Not ones TO or THROUGH (or having to go around) that area.
e) Amazon can suck it. I’m so tired of these stupid rule changes, which only ever make the platform worse and less rational.
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