🚩MFN Roadmap: LDR & VTR — What Triggers Penalties?
Hello Sellers,
If you fulfil your own orders on Amazon.co.uk, two metrics on your Account Health Dashboard deserve your close attention: Late Dispatch Rate (LDR) and Valid Tracking Rate (VTR). These directly affect your ability to sell through the Merchant Fulfilled Network — and when they slip, the consequences can be swift.
For this event, we also invited an experienced seller to provide you with real, actionable insights. Please welcome seller @Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn!
This post breaks down what each metric measures, why it matters to your business, and how to stay on the right side of the thresholds.
📉 Late Dispatch Rate (LDR)
What it measures: The percentage of seller-fulfilled orders where shipment was confirmed after the expected dispatch date, calculated over rolling 10-day and 30-day windows.
Threshold: Must stay below 4%
What happens if you exceed it: Your seller-fulfilled offers may be deactivated.
Common triggers:
- Confirming shipment after the expected dispatch date
- Delayed carrier collection or first scan
- Inaccurate handling time settings in Seller Central
Why it matters: Late dispatch confirmations mean customers can't track their orders on time, leading to increased A-to-Z claims, negative feedback, and contacts to customer service — all of which erode your account health.
✅ Valid Tracking Rate (VTR)
What it measures: The percentage of your shipments with a valid tracking number that Amazon can verify through carrier scan events, calculated over a rolling 30-day period.
Threshold: Must maintain above 95% (at product category level)
What happens if you fall below it: Your seller-fulfilled sales in that category may be restricted.
Common triggers:
- Using a carrier not integrated with Amazon
- Entering incorrect tracking information or carrier name
- Confirming shipment after the parcel has already been delivered
- Tracking ID not generating a valid scan
UK-specific exemptions — these shipments are NOT counted towards your VTR:
- Cross-border shipments below £20: Shipments to and from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Sweden or Belgium below £20 (including shipping, excluding VAT) are exempt from VTR if shipped using a “letter” method.
- Untracked Royal Mail 1st and 2nd Class Letter stamps and franking are exempt from VTR if purchased through Amazon Buy Shipping (at no extra cost).
- Digital products such as audiobooks.
- Self-delivered shipments (that is, shipments that are delivered using your own logistics).
🛡️ Best Practices to Protect Your Metrics
- Check your Account Health Dashboard weekly — don't wait for a warning notification
- Use Amazon-integrated carriers such as Royal Mail (tracked services), DPD, Evri, Parcelforce, or Amazon Shipping to ensure scan events are received
- Verify tracking details carefully — select the correct carrier name from the drop-down and double-check your tracking ID before confirming dispatch
- Set realistic handling times — if you can't consistently dispatch within your stated window, adjust your settings in Shipping Settings
- Consider Amazon's Buy Shipping service — labels purchased through Buy Shipping automatically reduce VTR defect risk and provide integrated tracking
- Dispatch and confirm before your cut-off — ensure your carrier collects and scans parcels on the same day you confirm shipment
📚 Helpful Resources
Late Dispatch Rate — Seller Central Help
Valid Tracking Rate — Seller Central Help
Account Health Dashboard — Monitor your metrics
Buy Shipping Services — Purchase integrated labels
Shipping Settings — Adjust handling times
🗓️ What's Next in the MFN Roadmap
Next week, we'll tackle shipping label costs and billing discrepancies — including how to spot overcharges and manage your shipping spend more effectively.
💬 Over to you: Have you experienced an unexpected spike in your LDR or VTR? What steps did you take to bring your metrics back into compliance? Share your experience below — your insights could help a fellow seller avoid the same pitfalls.
🚩MFN Roadmap: LDR & VTR — What Triggers Penalties?
Hello Sellers,
If you fulfil your own orders on Amazon.co.uk, two metrics on your Account Health Dashboard deserve your close attention: Late Dispatch Rate (LDR) and Valid Tracking Rate (VTR). These directly affect your ability to sell through the Merchant Fulfilled Network — and when they slip, the consequences can be swift.
For this event, we also invited an experienced seller to provide you with real, actionable insights. Please welcome seller @Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn!
This post breaks down what each metric measures, why it matters to your business, and how to stay on the right side of the thresholds.
📉 Late Dispatch Rate (LDR)
What it measures: The percentage of seller-fulfilled orders where shipment was confirmed after the expected dispatch date, calculated over rolling 10-day and 30-day windows.
Threshold: Must stay below 4%
What happens if you exceed it: Your seller-fulfilled offers may be deactivated.
Common triggers:
- Confirming shipment after the expected dispatch date
- Delayed carrier collection or first scan
- Inaccurate handling time settings in Seller Central
Why it matters: Late dispatch confirmations mean customers can't track their orders on time, leading to increased A-to-Z claims, negative feedback, and contacts to customer service — all of which erode your account health.
✅ Valid Tracking Rate (VTR)
What it measures: The percentage of your shipments with a valid tracking number that Amazon can verify through carrier scan events, calculated over a rolling 30-day period.
Threshold: Must maintain above 95% (at product category level)
What happens if you fall below it: Your seller-fulfilled sales in that category may be restricted.
Common triggers:
- Using a carrier not integrated with Amazon
- Entering incorrect tracking information or carrier name
- Confirming shipment after the parcel has already been delivered
- Tracking ID not generating a valid scan
UK-specific exemptions — these shipments are NOT counted towards your VTR:
- Cross-border shipments below £20: Shipments to and from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Sweden or Belgium below £20 (including shipping, excluding VAT) are exempt from VTR if shipped using a “letter” method.
- Untracked Royal Mail 1st and 2nd Class Letter stamps and franking are exempt from VTR if purchased through Amazon Buy Shipping (at no extra cost).
- Digital products such as audiobooks.
- Self-delivered shipments (that is, shipments that are delivered using your own logistics).
🛡️ Best Practices to Protect Your Metrics
- Check your Account Health Dashboard weekly — don't wait for a warning notification
- Use Amazon-integrated carriers such as Royal Mail (tracked services), DPD, Evri, Parcelforce, or Amazon Shipping to ensure scan events are received
- Verify tracking details carefully — select the correct carrier name from the drop-down and double-check your tracking ID before confirming dispatch
- Set realistic handling times — if you can't consistently dispatch within your stated window, adjust your settings in Shipping Settings
- Consider Amazon's Buy Shipping service — labels purchased through Buy Shipping automatically reduce VTR defect risk and provide integrated tracking
- Dispatch and confirm before your cut-off — ensure your carrier collects and scans parcels on the same day you confirm shipment
📚 Helpful Resources
Late Dispatch Rate — Seller Central Help
Valid Tracking Rate — Seller Central Help
Account Health Dashboard — Monitor your metrics
Buy Shipping Services — Purchase integrated labels
Shipping Settings — Adjust handling times
🗓️ What's Next in the MFN Roadmap
Next week, we'll tackle shipping label costs and billing discrepancies — including how to spot overcharges and manage your shipping spend more effectively.
💬 Over to you: Have you experienced an unexpected spike in your LDR or VTR? What steps did you take to bring your metrics back into compliance? Share your experience below — your insights could help a fellow seller avoid the same pitfalls.
6 replies
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
Okay as I have been tagged into this I will start this.
LDR for us is fairly easy to manage, all of our items are on hand in our warehouse and we set an Order Capacity limit so that we don't get overwhelmed with orders.
In our business we have a mix of Letter Post, Large Letter Post and Tracked Post all of which is sent using Royal Mail. Letter post is brought through Amazon as per the VTR policy.
With Large Letters we have always had problems maintaining VTR above 95% . The issue is one that many sellers face when sending large letters via Royal Mail Click and Drop. Royal Mail don't scan all RM48 large letters on delivery which causes VTR to drop below 95%. Amazon also don't recognise 2nd Class Large Letter brought through Click and Drop as valid for VTR which causes VTR to drop below 95%.
We are currently buying all of our letter and large letter post through Amazon. Tracked post is brought through Click and Drop. Our VTR is currently above 95%. It is not 100% as we have the occasional issue using buy postage and have to purchase letter post through Click and Drop.
The policy also states the following. It has always been wrong since day 1. It would be good if a Mod could feed this back as Franking is not brought through Amazon Buy Shipping. Franking is just a way of buying postage in the UK. Franking is no longer allowed to be used as it breaks the Amazon VTR policy.
Seller_z8IrACXHdsz8a
@Kris_Amazon I wonder if you can help with a problem we are experiencing with exactly the exemption mentioned in your post.
We are an established Amazon UK seller based in France. The majority of our orders are small orders below £20, sent to UK customers using the “letter” shipping method.
Despite qualifying for the cross-border exemption you describe above, Amazon is counting these shipments as non-exempt for VTR. Our current VTR dashboard shows 162 non-exempt shipments, although the great majority are qualifying cross-border letters below £20.
This has now resulted in our offers being deactivated repeatedly. We appeal, explain the exemption and provide Amazon’s own VTR policy as evidence, and our listings are reinstated — but the underlying VTR calculation remains unchanged and eventually they are deactivated again.
Shipments that do require tracking are sent using a tracked La Poste service and tracking is entered in Seller Central.
Is there a way to have this investigated so that qualifying France-to-UK letter shipments are correctly recognised as exempt, rather than having to appeal each time our listings are deactivated?
I would also be very interested to hear from any other cross-border sellers who have experienced the same problem.
