Amazon Logistics New Changes! Will Sellers Be Penalized for Shipping Too Fast?

Amazon has made frequent changes to its logistics this year. With the implementation of new policies such as warehouse configuration fees, low inventory fees, and return processing fees, sellers' costs have risen sharply. Now Amazon has updated its logistics policy again, shortening the shipping time to the United States from 28 days to 20 days. Sellers say that this will have a 100% negative impact .

Shorten delivery time to 20 days

Recently, Amazon released the latest policy announcement, notifying sellers of changes in order processing and shipping time settings for orders shipped to the United States. The latest changes are as follows:

Shipping time settings : Starting October 25, 2024, shipping time settings for shipping from China to the continental United States (all states except Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. protectorates) will change. Sellers will have more shipping time ranges to choose from on the shipping template, with options ranging from 2-4 days to 14-20 days.

The maximum shipping time will be shortened from 28 days to 20 days. It is worth noting that if the seller currently manually sets the shipping time to 14-28 days, it will be automatically updated to 14-20 days.

Handling time settings : Automatic handling time sets a handling time for each SKU based on the time it took to process orders and hand them over to the carrier in the past . If there is no historical shipping record for a SKU, the handling time manually set by the seller will be used.

Starting October 25 , Amazon will enable automatic handling times if your manually configured handling times are two or more days slower than your actual handling times (known as a handling time gap). If automatic handling times are enabled for this reason, you will not be able to disable it.

Sellers can request manual handling time overrides for custom, heavy, and bulky SKUs if needed. Any exempted SKUs will not receive On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) protection for late deliveries. If sellers have automatic handling times enabled, the late shipment rate will be impacted by late shipments.

Amazon claims that fast and accurate delivery is critical to customers and often determines where they choose to shop. Over time, it has learned that the best way to ensure on-time and reliable delivery is to set accurate handling and shipping times and choose reliable shipping services.

However, many sellers said that Amazon’s new policy did not take into account many variable factors at all , but no one on the platform seemed to care about these variables , nor did they care about the sellers’ costs, which had a great impact on self-delivery.

Will sellers be penalized for shipping too quickly?

In response to this new change, seller Tony said: " 100 % will have a negative impact on the store . Our indicators have been affected and it is completely out of control. The original processing time was set at 2 days, and an additional 1-2 days of shipping time was provided. If this does not change, we will be completely out of control. I have added and deleted products and set a manual time frame, but it is always automatically overwritten . "

Seller Danny 's questioning of the new policy speaks for the thoughts of many of his peers. He said: " Am I reading this correctly? If our delivery speed is really faster than the time we manually configure, will Amazon punish us for delivering too quickly ? "

"I had to run to the post office tonight to drop off a package because all my items have a one-day delivery time instead of the two-day delivery time that I manually added. There is no way to override the setting back to two days without deleting and re-adding it. All my orders are shipped on time or ahead of schedule, and our on-time delivery rate is 91%. This impact puts my account at risk of deactivation. We shipped on time, but now I am responsible for delayed deliveries that were beyond our control. Is this fair?" Sellers Tina and Danny have the same question.

Many sellers are questioning Amazon's change, and they have been impacted to varying degrees. One veteran seller lamented: " Of all the changes Amazon has made, punishing sellers who ship early is the strangest. The platform has gone off track and fallen into a bottomless abyss of dysfunction. "

Not long ago, Amazon updated its on-time delivery policy and delivery settings. The change is that from September 25, sellers need to maintain at least 90% OTDR without extending the commitment in order to list their own products on Amazon.com.

At the same time , starting from August 25, Amazon's delivery time requirements will be updated. For domestic U.S. delivery, the maximum delivery time for standard delivery is 5 days, and the maximum delivery time of 5 days applies to all SKUs (except for media such as books, magazines and DVDs). The maximum delivery time for free economy delivery is 8 days.

The automatic processing time was enabled for sellers whose manually configured processing time was two days or more slower than the actual processing time starting from September 25. Now the platform has changed this to October 25.

At that time, many sellers found that mistakes would be made, and some were punished for early delivery. One seller said, "I have 8 orders marked as delayed delivery. I downloaded the report, and the report itself showed that the delivery date of 7 delayed orders was on the promised delivery date or even earlier."

Pushing up costs and cleaning out a group of small sellers

Danny said, "As a seller, I certainly don't want to see some sales opportunities missed because of delivery expectations? But why should Amazon tell us how fast we should work? Do I run the company or does Amazon run my company? I want to decide how much breathing room we have to process orders , and I want to be able to meet customer expectations when possible . I don't want to be forced to let my employees work overtime, nor do I want to be forced to spend more money on shipping.

This year USPS has been very slow and uses the cheapest shipping method for items weighing less than 1 lb. For such items, it may cost an extra $1 or more per order to ship via UPS. But usually USPS does not show up as a protected shipping option unless we add a 2 handling day buffer.

We ship thousands of packages a month that weigh less than a pound. If we had to pay UPS an extra $1 or more per shipment, it would cost us an extra person's salary per year.

In addition, there are many unconventional products that find it difficult to adapt to the new delivery policy. A seller selling plants said : "We ship live plants. In order to protect the plants, a special preservative will be applied to the leaves. The leaves must be dried for at least 24 to 48 hours before packing. Automatic processing time may be effective for books and cosmetics. But it is not realistic for live plants!"

While questioning the new policy, industry insiders believe that Amazon's changes seem to be aimed at cleaning out a group of small sellers. The platform prefers successful medium and large enterprises , which can provide efficient, fast and stable logistics and delivery services, while small sellers are not . Carrying the burden of many small and amateur sellers will give other platforms that only accept large sellers a competitive advantage over Amazon.

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