Amazon issues new logistics rules again, sellers: Sooner or later they will be "driven out"

Self-delivery sellers must maintain at least 90% on-time delivery rate

Recently , Amazon issued a notice stating that from September 25, 2024, all self-delivery sellers must maintain an on-time delivery rate (OTDR) of at least 90% without extending the original commitment period .

In its announcement, Amazon wrote:

“Fast and accurate delivery is critical to customers and often determines where they choose to shop. Over time, we’ve learned that the best way to ensure reliable on-time delivery for our customers is to set accurate handling and transit times and select a reliable shipping service. To help reduce late deliveries and increase delivery speeds, we are changing our On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) policy.”

“Starting September 25, 2024, you will need to maintain at least 90% OTDR without commitment extensions to list products on Amazon.com that meet seller needs. We will screen sellers with the lowest OTDR first. For a good customer experience, we recommend that you maintain an OTDR of 95% or higher for all seller-fulfilled orders. This policy does not apply to orders using the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service, as sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery commitments for FBA orders.”

Below this announcement, it can be clearly seen that the sellers are dissatisfied with this new policy. In the likes area, most sellers clicked "dislike", which is enough to show the attitude of most sellers towards this new policy.

The so-called OTDR, or On-Time Delivery Rate, measures the proportion of self-delivered goods that are successfully delivered to buyers on or before the "delivery date" promised by the seller.

At first glance, this ratio may not seem high, but in practice, it is not easy to meet the standard. Currently, many sellers still have an on-time delivery rate below 90%, and there are less than two months left before the new regulations take effect.

It is worth noting that Amazon only counts orders from the past 21 days and excludes orders from the past 7 days. This means that for sellers who have not yet met the standards, there is not much time left for them to make adjustments.

As soon as the new rules came out, there was an uproar in the seller group, and many sellers expressed their opinions on it:

"I received an email saying that the on-time delivery rate of FBM would have to be above 90% in the future. I didn't take it seriously at first, until I found out that my on-time delivery rate between July 5 and July 18 was only 91.7%. Every time we receive an order, we send out the package on the same day, but our on-time rate is just barely passing. What about those sellers who ship the next day? I'm afraid many sellers will be screened out by Amazon. "

“Amazon has been tightening its policies and screening out sellers they deem ‘unable’ to serve consumers.”

"Well, I feel like I'm screwed. I've always had same-day delivery, but my on-time rate is only 88%, and USPS has been experiencing delays. What can I do?"

Although sellers have many complaints about the new on-time delivery policy, if they want to continue to open stores on Amazon, they must find a way to solve the problem.

It is understood that Amazon provides some solutions for sellers with OTDR below 90%. Self-delivery sellers shipping from China can use the Shipping Setup Automation (SSA) tool and Buy Shipping to meet the order commitment time. Sellers shipping from the United States can use the three tools of SSA, Buy Shipping and Automatic Stocking Time (AHT) at the same time.

In addition, sellers must strengthen inventory management to ensure that goods are sufficient in stock and can be shipped in a timely manner, optimize the logistics and distribution process, and choose reliable logistics carriers as much as possible.

It is still unknown how the new on-time delivery policy will affect sellers in the future. Now all sellers can do is try to keep the on-time delivery rate of their stores above 90%, or even above 95%. Only in this way can they ensure that the on-time delivery rate will not drop below 90% due to occasional accidents.

Amazon's new rules and policies are coming out frequently

The new on-time delivery policy is mainly aimed at FBM sellers, and Amazon also has new actions for FBA sellers.

Recently, Amazon announced that it will make major adjustments to its FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) refund policy. This change will officially take effect in two phases (October 23 and November 1, 2024).

Starting from October 23, 2024, the deadline for manual claims will be significantly shortened, requiring sellers to submit claims requests in a shorter period of time; and starting from November 1, 2024, the automatic claims policy will take full effect.

For sellers, these new regulations have significantly shortened the original claim period and require sellers to pay more attention to inventory and order status in a timely manner to avoid missing the opportunity to claim.

In addition to the new delivery regulations, Amazon has recently introduced a number of new regulations for sellers in many aspects.

According to seller feedback, this month, some sellers have received emails from Amazon regarding the new advertising management fees in Canada. According to the content of the email, starting from August 15, 2024, Amazon will charge advertising management fees for ads placed on the Canadian site.

Amazon already charges this fee for ads in France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Austria and Türkiye.

As soon as this news was exposed, it caused heated discussions in the circle. Many sellers believed that Amazon’s newly added advertising management fees further increased operating costs and squeezed profit margins.

Some senior sellers pointed out that this fee is different from normal advertising fees, which are charged on the corresponding site. Instead, it is calculated based on the clicks of the buyer's account. For example, if an Amazon seller opens an advertisement on the US site and buyers from Canada, France and other countries click on the advertisement, the seller will incur corresponding advertising management fees.

On the other hand, Amazon seems to have new regulations on the content of sellers’ listings.

According to sellers’ feedback, Amazon is working on a new plan – using AI capabilities to generate richer product information, that is, to modify listings .

Amazon hopes to achieve better sales results by adjusting listings through artificial intelligence , but compared to the wording and sentence structure that sellers have spent a lot of time studying, AI may not have an advantage.

Previously, there have been several cases in the industry where Amazon used AI to automatically modify listings, which made sellers feel like they were facing a formidable enemy. The modifications included product categories, listing titles, etc., and by the time sellers discovered them, the modifications had often been completed. If they wanted to restore the changes, they had to open a case and contact the Amazon team to modify them, and they might not be able to fix them successfully.

Amazon has been making frequent moves recently, and many sellers have been affected to varying degrees. As the new policy is implemented, sellers need to adapt to the various changes brought about by the new policy as soon as possible to prevent the number of orders from further declining.

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New on-time delivery

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