Modify handling time

Amazon provides the estimated delivery time to buyers on the offer listing and checkout pages. We base this estimate on the time between when the buyer places an order until the order is delivered to the buyer’s address.

Total Delivery Time = Handling Time + Transit Time (+ any holidays)

Handling time: Handling Time (also known as Production time or Lead time to ship) is the time between when the buyer places the order and when you hand the order over to the delivery service. Handling time is part of the delivery time calculation displayed on the offer listing and checkout page. You can change your default handling time and also customise your handling time at a SKU/ASIN level.

Transit time: The time between when you hand the order over to your carrier until its delivery to the buyer’s address. You can modify the transit times for your SKU/ASINs by editing your shipping templates.

Default Handling Time:

Default handling time refers to the handling time set at an account level and will apply to all your products by default unless you specifically change the handling time for your SKUs/ASINs. You can view the default handling time in shipping settings under General Shipping Settings . You have the option to set the default handling time to one working day or two working days.

Change Default Handling Time:

To change your default handling time:

1. From the Settings drop-down menu on the top right of Seller Central, click on Shipping Settings.
2. Under General Shipping Settings, identify the Handling Time section and click on Edit.
3. Choose your default handling time as ‘1 day’ or ‘2 days’ and click on Save.

Product level Handling Time:

Offer level handling time refers to the handling time that you can set for specific SKUs/ASINs. You can set customised handling time for a specific product separately as well as in bulk by overriding your default handling time for selected products.

Change Offer level Handling Time:

In order to change handling time for each SKU/ASIN separately:

1. From your Seller Central home page, click on Inventory -> Manage Inventory page.
2. Identify the SKU/ASIN for which you wish to change the handling time and click on Edit button at the right corner of the page.
3. Navigate to the Handling Time field on the product information page and update the handling time for that ASIN.
4. Click on Save and Finish for your changes to be updated.

There are three ways you can modify the handling time in bulk at offer level:

Using Inventory Loader:

1. From Inventory file templates page, navigate to General Templates section and download your Inventory Loader file.
2. Read through the instructions in Data Definitions tab in the Inventory Loader file.
3. In the Listings tab, fill in all the required fields and the handling-time field (one SKU/ASIN per row).
4. Save the file in text-tab-delimited format.
5. Upload the file through Inventory -> Add products via Upload -> Upload your inventory file.

Using Listing Loader:

1. From Inventory file templates page, navigate to General Templates section and download your Listing Loader file.
2. Read through the instructions in Data Definitions tab in the Listing Loader file.
3. In the Template tab, fill in all the required fields and the lead time-to-ship field (one SKU/ASIN per row).
4. Save the file in text-tab-delimited format.
5. Upload the file through Inventory -> Add products via Upload -> Upload your listing loader file.

Using Price and Quantity File:

1. From the Inventory file templates page, navigate to General Templates section and download your Price & Quantity file.
2. Read through the instructions in Data Definitions tab in the Listing Loader file.
3. In the Price Template tab, fill in all the required fields and the lead time-to-ship field (one SKU/ASIN per row).
4. Save the file in text-tab-delimited format.
5. Upload the file through Inventory -> Add products via Upload -> Upload your listing loader file.

Amazon generates handling time recommendations for a product based on your overall delivery performance, your actual delivery performance for that product and delivery performance of similar products on Amazon. The recommendations are refreshed monthly and are based on the prior month’s handling time historical performance to reflect the most recent fulfilment capabilities.

We encourage you to regularly monitor and update your handling times recommendations. Setting more accurate handling times will enable more accurate estimated delivery dates to customers.

To view and configure your recommended handling times, please follow the below steps:

• Under Inventory on Seller Central navigation menu, click on Manage Seller Fulfilled Products
• Under the Recommendations tab, you can view all the products that have recommended handling times.

• Click on Update to accept the recommended handling time. Your handling time will be updated for that product. You may select multiple products to update handling time in bulk.
• Click on Ignore to ignore the recommendation.
• Check back on the first day of the next month to view updated handling time recommendations.

Frequently Asked Questions