Manage your delivery time

Amazon provides the estimated delivery time to buyers on the offer listing and checkout pages. This is the estimated time between when the buyer places the order until the order delivery date.

Enable the following configuration using your shipping settings:

Total Delivery Time = Handling Time + Transit Time (+ any weekends and public holidays in Australia)

• Handling time: The estimated time between when the buyer places the order until you hand the order over to a delivery service.
• Transit time (also known as shipping time): The time elapsed between when you hand the order over to the carrier until the delivery of the order.

Configuring an accurate delivery time for your products help ensure a good customer experience and is beneficial for sellers as well.

• Customers are more likely to buy items that have faster delivery. For this reason, shorter delivery times may increase your conversion and sales. This is particularly relevant for events such as Christmas shopping as customers may only be interested in products arriving before a certain date (for example: December 24, 2018).
• Items with a faster delivery date are more likely to win the Buy Box on Amazon.
• As a seller, your cash reimbursement is likely to be faster when you set shorter delivery times.

Modify your delivery time

1. Modify handling time: The default handling time is set to either 1 business day or 2 business days. If you are not able to meet this requirement, you can modify your handling time at an offer level to reflect the amount of time you need to prepare the order for shipment.
2. Modify transit time: For your self-ship orders, you can edit your shipping templates within Shipping Settings to customise your transit times. For Australia in particular, setting up different transit times per destination region is critical to provide customers with short and accurate delivery times.

What is handling time?

Handling time is the number of days taken by a seller to pack and ship a product after the order has been received. 'Ship by date' for an order is defined based on handling time.

What is default handling time?

Default handling time refers to the handling time set by default for offers where you leave the Handling Time field blank in Manage Inventory page. The default handling time can be either 1 business day or 2 business days.

Why is setting the correct default handling time important?

You can check the default handling time applicable on all of your marketplace offers under the Settings tab of Shipping Settings page. The estimated ship date/Ship-by date for your orders is calculated based on order date + handling time. For example, if the default handling time is 1 business day, then estimated ship date for an order placed till 12 midnight will be the next business day. If you don’t ship orders by the estimated ship date, your late shipment rate will increase and may result in order cancellation.

Is handling time for my existing products/offers changing?

• Offers where you have not specified any handling time (that is left blank) will have to be shipped based on the set default handling time. The default handling time can be set at 1 business day or 2 business days under Settings > Shipping Settings.
• If you choose your default handling time as 1 business day, all products with a blank handling time value will now have to be shipped the next day. If the default handling time is set at 2 business days, you will have 2 days to ship the order.
• Products where you have set the handling time (either individually or using Listing Loader as any value) will have to be shipped accordingly. Offers where you have entered any value for handling time days will continue to have the handling time you manually set that is default handling time would not apply to products for which you have set handling time manually.

What happens to the new products/offers I start selling?

Once the default handling time for your offers has been changed to 1 business day or 2 business days, any new offers added to Amazon will automatically have a 1 business day or 2 business days handling time (as applicable) as default unless you manually set handling time for the offer.

Can I set a different handling time for different ASINs/offers?

Yes, you can set different handling times for different ASINs.

How can I set longer handling times for specific products/offers that take longer to ship?

You can always change the handling time for your product via the inventory page. Go to the Manage Inventory page and click Edit for any ASIN for which you wish to change the handling time.

To change handling time for your offers in bulk, follow the steps below:

• Use the Listing Loader feed file for new listings.
• Use the Price and quantity feed file for existing listings.

To change the default handling time, go to Settings > Shipping Settings page. On the General Shipping Settings tab, navigate to Handling Time and click Edit. Select the desired default handling time and click Save.

How else can I improve my handling time?

Review all products that have a handling time of more than 2 business days and consider reducing this to 1 business day. Lowering the handling time to 1 business day can help grow sales for those products and improve customer experience.

How does this change impact Late Shipment Rate and Cancellation Rate metrics?

Amazon requires that you keep your Late Shipment Rate (LSR) under 4% and Cancellation Rate (CR) under 2.5%. To avoid affecting these metrics, ensure that you ship out your products by “Ship by date”.