Amazon shipping policy changed?Multiple sellers receive performance warnings.

Yesterday, a new policy from Amazon regarding delivery scheduling was widely circulated. It stated that if the estimated delivery time filled in by the seller does not match the scheduled warehouse entry date of the logistics provider, the seller will not be able to schedule a delivery, causing an uproar among sellers.

Recently, many sellers have reported that Amazon’s performance assessment for deliveries has become increasingly strict. As long as the delivery exceeds the scheduled time, a “delivered outside of delivery time slot” reminder will appear. Some deliveries will even receive a performance warning - “missed delivery time slot”. Some sellers have been talked to because they delivered outside of the scheduled time slot.

The new Amazon delivery policy is being widely circulated in the industry.

A “Notice of Changes to Amazon’s Scheduling Policy” is being rapidly spread within the industry, forwarded by several cross-border logistics providers, attracting the attention of sellers.

In this notice, overseas warehouses remind sellers: Starting from today, Amazon’s system will be upgraded and will be strictly enforced in the future. The planned warehouse entry date filled in by the seller in the backend must match the warehouse entry date scheduled by the logistics provider. If the dates do not match, the seller will not be able to get an appointment, which will lead to an inability to schedule a delivery, affecting dispatch. The notice also emphasizes: If the range of the scheduled warehouse entry date is incorrect, you will not be able to get a new appointment! This will cause the delivery to become invalid!

Logistics providers have interpreted the notice to mean that sellers should change the warehouse entry time to the ETA +7 days after the container's ETA (Amazon ETA +3 days). Sellers need to fill in the ETA one week later for the West Coast warehouse and the ETA 8-12 days later for the Central warehouse. The final warehouse entry time should be as long as possible. Here, ETA refers to the estimated time of arrival.

As soon as the news came out, sellers couldn't sit still: Did they look down on the accurate delivery time yesterday, but can't afford it today?

Jack Chen, a senior freight forwarder in Shenzhen, received inquiries from several sellers about the "new policy". He said: The appointment policy mentioned in the notice has always been there, it is not a new policy, there will be warnings if the warehouse is not entered within the scheduled delivery time range, and it may also affect performance. It was not launched today, but was "re-fried" after being turned out. In addition, "if the warehouse is not delivered within the expected time, the freight forwarder cannot schedule the delivery", which is also a bug on Amazon's side. As for the subsequent suggestions for filling in the expected warehouse entry time, the reference is also quite limited.

At the same time, recent delivery situations have made sellers start to pay attention to the performance problems of shipments caused by inaccurate delivery times.

Several sellers have eaten shipment performance because the delivery time is not accurate.

Starting from April 24 last year, Amazon's US site added a mandatory item in the FBA delivery process, that is, sellers need to provide an estimated delivery time slot when creating a shipment. This requirement applies to small parcels or LTL shipments delivered by non-cooperative carriers, and has a wide impact. For shipments shipped from domestic addresses in the United States, the optional delivery date range is 7 days, and the optional delivery time slot for cross-border shipments is 14 days.

The purpose of Amazon's move is to gradually calibrate and provide more accurate estimated arrival times for future shipments for faster processing. Even if the shipment does not arrive on time, the seller will not be punished, and Amazon will not take mandatory measures. Therefore, in the past year, most sellers have only roughly filled in the time and have not put too much effort into accuracy, but now the situation has changed.

Some sellers have found that the recent shipment performance assessment is very strict. As long as the delivery time is exceeded, whether it is early delivery or late delivery, a red exclamation mark will be received - "Delivered outside of delivery time slot".

A seller mentioned on Zhiwubuyan that they had received a case of "violating Amazon's logistics delivery time slot requirements". Amazon requested a phone call and trained the seller on how to avoid this problem. Another seller suggested that peers pay attention to such issues: "We have received emails about delivery outside of the delivery time, requiring a POA to be written, and a phone call to be made, otherwise the delivery permission will be closed. Everyone should pay attention."

Recently, sellers have been much more cautious when filling in the time range. A freight forwarder in Shenzhen told the editor: "Before, customers might randomly fill in the estimated warehouse entry time. Now they are much more conservative. They will ask about the approximate delivery time, and then fill in a one-week delivery time in the backend that matches. For example, if I tell him that the estimated delivery to the warehouse is on April 12, he will write 'Estimated delivery from 4.12 to 4.19'."

Sellers are not clear about the evaluation criteria for this performance. Some sellers believe after exchanging their situations that the delivery standard set by Amazon is below 23.57%, and generally a few will be picked out from the deliveries that exceed the delivery time to remind, not all will be included in the shipment performance.

As Amazon's management becomes stricter, sellers hope to deliver as much as possible within the delivery time slot to avoid performance issues. Amazon's solution is that if the shipment is sent out and the estimated delivery time is outside the delivery time slot filled in, the seller can edit and modify the delivery time slot in the last step of "Send to Amazon" before the delivery time slot arrives to match the actual progress; but after the delivery time slot starts, no modifications can be made.

Therefore, some sellers suggest that when the estimated delivery time is approaching, you can check the logistics progress. If necessary, edit the delivery time slot, but it is easy to overlook this after the delivery is over, so you should pay attention.

If you want to ensure that the delivery time is accurate, Jack Chen's suggestion is that sellers can cooperate well with logistics providers. For example, larger logistics companies can provide relatively accurate estimated delivery times, or have subscription functions, can provide update information for each logistics node, notify updates in real time via SMS, WeChat, email, if the actual transportation progress of the shipment is different from the estimated warehouse arrival time, it is also convenient for sellers to modify the estimated delivery time.

In addition, after the warehouse configuration fee goes online, sellers face greater pressure in the delivery link.

To save this cost, some sellers used ERP to lock the warehouse for delivery in March, but have recently received warnings. Amazon stated in an email that its records show that when sellers create shipments through the Amazon API or third-party integrators, a large number of abandoned shipments are generated. Any shipments that sellers ignore, delete, or abandon will result in abandoned shipments, which in turn will result in warehouse defect fees.

The rise in costs is already a foregone conclusion. But even if the seller delivers as promised, they may face shipment defect issues and warehouse defect fees. One seller complained: "For example, when creating a shipment, divide it into 5 warehouses and send it in 2 weeks. According to the general ship time, the West Coast is 35 days, and the Central and East Coast are 45 days. The first week is best to send to the Central and East Coast, and the second week to send West Coast shipments. Otherwise, if you send to the West Coast first and arrive early, the second ticket will exceed 30 days and you will have to pay. It's really a pitfall, it's stuck."

In the entire delivery link, the amount of work for sellers is getting bigger and bigger.