Unplanned services

When you comply with Fulfillment by Amazon’s Packaging and prep requirements and Shipping and routing requirements and ensure that your carriers and suppliers also follow them, it enables efficient and accurate receipt and storage of your inventory at the fulfillment center.

When there are problems receiving inventory at the fulfillment center, we perform unplanned services to successfully process products into your sellable inventory. This may cause costly delays and affect your ability to sell products quickly.

See Inbound performance summary for further details on problems with shipments received in Amazon fulfillment centers and the action to take to avoid these issues in the future.

Inbound performance coaching levels

Additional coaching or product prep requires resources. For repeated instances of the same problem group, Amazon escalates your coaching level (Standard, Elevated, Critical).

How to see your coaching level escalations

Follow the steps below to see your current coaching level and escalation criteria.

1. In Seller Central, go to the Shipping Queue page, click Track shipment to the right of the shipment with problems
2. On the Shipment summary page, go to the Problems tab and click View Details and scroll to Coaching Details
3. Check your Problem Rate and the Maximum Permitted Problem Rate for the particular problem group
4. Amazon calculates the problem rates below over a four-month period:
   • Problem rate (shipment-level): Number of shipments with problems / total number of shipments sent
   • Problem rate (item-level): Number of items with problems / total number of units shipped
5. If your problem rate exceeds the maximum permitted problem rate, we escalate you to the next coaching level for that problem group.

Example of coaching level escalation and de-escalation

The following table provides an example of coaching level escalation and de-escalation for problem group Unplanned Prep – Bagging. The maximum problem rate permitted for this problem group is 0.36%.

Problem date	Your problem rate	Coaching level	Problem quantity	Notes
April 14	0.01%	Standard	2	First instance for this problem group
				There is a 21-day grace period where we do not escalate you further for this group.
April 20	0.40%	Standard	6	No escalation
				You are still within the 21-day grace period (beginning April 14)
May 10	0.50%	Elevated	5	Coaching level escalated
				Problem rate exceeds the maximum permitted problem rate (0.50% > 0.36%)
				Outside the 21-day grace period (beginning April 14)
June 20	0.50%	Critical	10	Coaching Level escalated
				Problem rate exceeds the maximum permitted problem rate (0.50% > 0.36%)
				Outside the 21-day grace period (beginning May 10)
Oct 25	0.20%	Elevated	5	Coaching level de-escalated
				Problem rate below the maximum permitted problem rate (0.20% < 0.36%) for the last four months (June 20 to Oct 20)

How to de-escalate your coaching level

If your problem rate remains below the maximum permitted problem rate for a four-month period from the first date of escalation (June 20 in the example above), we lower your coaching level by one.

Unplanned prep services

Table 1. Unplanned Prep Service fees

Problem Type	Unplanned Prep Service	Charge
Barcode Label Missing	Label Unit	$1.62
Label Required	Label Unit	$1.62
Poly bagging Required	Enclose Unit in Poly bag	$1.90
Bubble Wrap Required	Bubble Wrap Unit	$1.90
Opaque Poly bagging Required	Enclose Unit in Opaque Bag	$1.90
Taping Required	Tape Unit	$1.90

You can view a list of products that have been charged the Unplanned Prep Service fee in the Summary tab of the shipment creation workflow and in the Inbound Performance report.

To learn more about problem types, refer to the help page Inbound Performance Feedback.

To ensure accuracy in the assessment of these fees, Amazon will be reviewing photos taken in our fulfilment centres of your shipments. You will be able to view these photos that demonstrate noncompliance with our prep requirements in Seller Central.

Other service options

We want to help you improve your inbound processes and better plan your prep and packaging activities, by providing greater visibility to your inbound shipments, increased use of our Inventory Requirements help content, and planned service options such as the FBA Label Service.