The latest YCD news is that in anticipation of the Royal Mail strike action and related UK delivery service disruptions, Amazon will extend all seller fulfillment commitments to customers during the affected period. During this time, Amazon protections will also cover sellers for late shipment defects.
Amazon safeguards
The dates covered by Amazon’s safeguards include delivery dates on Thursday and Friday last week, as well as shipments on Wednesday and Thursday this week, corresponding to the latest round of Royal Mail strikes.
Given that shipments may take longer to deliver and exceed Amazon’s promised delivery dates to customers, Amazon may temporarily increase the standard transit time for shipments in order to maintain reliable delivery commitments. These adjustments will result in customers seeing longer delivery times on Amazon.com.
Any addition of customers facing delivery commitments by Amazon will not change the handling and shipping time settings in your Seller Central account, which Amazon requires sellers to set as reliably as possible to reflect expected times. When managing operations, keep the following 2 points in mind:
- Notify your carriers in advance of capacity forecasts and demand changes. If possible, you may consider using multiple carriers to ensure you can ship on time.
- Provide effective tracking: Knowing the status of the goods is crucial for customers. If an order is delayed beyond the expected delivery date, please ensure you provide correct tracking information and update it regularly.
If you are unable to process customer orders at all, Amazon recommends activating the “on holiday” feature in your Seller Central account in Settings under Listing Status. This will disable all seller-fulfilled listings. Note that you must still process and ship all orders you receive until you activate the Holidays feature.
The next Royal Mail strike dates are set for December 9, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 24, following expected strikes on Wednesday and Thursday this week.