Handling time FAQ

What is handling time or time to ship?

Handling time refers to the number of days taken by a seller to procure, pack, and ship a product after the customer order for the product is confirmed. For a Self-Ship order received on Monday 8:00 PM IST with a handling time of 1 day, the ‘ship by date’ will be next day, that is Tuesday by 11:59 PM. For an Easy Ship order received on Monday 8:00 PM IST that has a handling time of 1 day, you will need to schedule pick-up latest by 12:45 PM on Tuesday.

Is handling time for my existing products changing?

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

What happens to new products that I start selling?

Once the default handling time for your seller fulfilled offers has been changed to 1 day or 2 days, any new products added to Amazon will automatically have a one-day or two-day handling time as default (that is if you do not add a handling time for specific offers) unless you manually set handling time for the product.

Does handling time apply to Sundays?

No. Handling time is in business days which excludes Sundays. For example, an order that you receive on Saturday with a 1 day handling time is expected to ship on Monday.

What can I do if I do not want to ship in one business day?

You can always change the handling time for your product via the Inventory page. Go to Inventory > Manage Inventory 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 . In the 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 days and consider reducing this to 1 day. Lowering the handling time to 1 day can help to grow sales for those products and improve customer experience.

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

We recommend that you keep your Late Dispatch Rate (LDR) under 2% and Cancellation Rate (CR) under 2% to enable good customer experience and maintain good seller performance metrics. To avoid impacting these metrics, we recommend that you ship out your orders by the ‘ship by date’.

Is there any impact of default handling time on Easy Ship Guaranteed Delivery and Easy Ship Prime offers?

Easy Ship, Self-Ship Guaranteed Delivery orders, and Easy Ship Prime orders will not have any impact due to change in default handling time. The default handling time will only apply on Easy Ship and Self-Ship standard orders.