Business Hour Delivery Rate - is this a joke?
So now we are somehow supposed to time deliveries for business hours? Is this some kind of joke? How in the heck do I make sure the carrier delivers during business hours for my $7-$15 items shipped via Ground Advantage? It is not like I can assign a shipping method to a certain customer, so now I have to make sure ALL deliveries are done during business hours?
Yet another metric set up to make sure 3rd party sellers can be eliminated.
16 replies
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
Yep, possibly most absurd metric ever.
I live in NJ. Get shipments going to NYC, which generally get there next day. Business orders on Wednesday evening, so I have to ship Thursday or Friday, but they're closed Friday and Saturday.
I either have to ship late, or get a ding on the Business hours rate.
Insane.
Seller_9ifjYLRCpqwuz
Most of our business customers are hotels - open 24hr but we still get late deliveries.
Seller_OQTPwvIVqfKpB
From what I've read, according to the help page for this metric, this will not affect any of our account health or performance metrics.
It's kind of like "voice of the customer" where its "just for our visibility", and to help us improve.
Obviously its a metric that just doesn't make sense to put back on us, because how are we supposed to dictate that? But if we are to take them at their word, if yours is below what they think it should be, it shouldn't be affecting anything negatively like ODTR would.
Seller_roNdLQpqbVoOH
Did you just say that with a straight face? 🤣
Seller_nRFmxiQg4EGrw
Amazon likes to include an invisible word at the end of these statements:
"YET".
Somewhere down the road, they will probably start punishing us for it, just as we now get punished for delays by the shipper after we ship on time.
Seller_oDXVaydIpi3Hi
Come on...someone justified their 200k a year salary at Amazon by coming up with that peach of a helpful metric
Seller_3ytsKyY2oXqoP
anyone else notice services that were 3 days are now a week? Example priority mail.
Seller_NzEmZKTEdcpPZ
It is a joke, I agree. In most cases (unless a Priority Overnight delivery by 10:30 am / noon) is chosen, there is no way sellers or even Amazon can do anything about this. The only thing that Amazon SS will tell us if we complain is "...work on your relationship with the shipping carriers to improve...", which is a senseless and insulting advise.
Moreover, Amazon's own carrier (Amazon Delivery) fails in this department miserably. We set our business hours reasonably: 9 am to 5 pm, Monday-Friday, just like most of the business in this country. And yet, they are constantly trying to deliver our orders after the business hours, sometimes as later as 7-8 pm, effectively delaying the delivery by one business day. Do they punish themselves for that? I don't think so.
Seller_PCshC7t8gZjqm
We're heavy Seller Fulfilled Prime shippers. What I find extra annoying is that we can tie On-Time Delivery defects under the SFP program to data Amazon shares about Business Hour Deliveries that clearly show a) FedEx attempted to deliver on-time, b) this attempt occurred during the customer's stated business hours, c) the business was closed or nobody was available, and d) Amazon has all of this information, yet still feels like we, as the Seller, should be responsible for it somehow.
I mean, really?
Seller_nhi477bTbe6YJ
Hi, I completely understand the frustration. We're continuing to build free tools for Amazon Business sellers to help them improve this metric.
The reason this is such a priority is because your business customers cannot accept deliveries outside of their business hours nor on weekends. Packages left unattended can get damaged by weather or stolen. This is by far the top customer complaint we receive related to fulfillment, so we're doing our best to highlight this issue to sellers - even though it's difficult to control.
My recommendation is to look at your BHDR report in your Fulfillment Insight Dashboard to see which carriers are performing well and which aren't. Amazon Buy Shipping (available on certain 3PIs) will also automatically filter out shipping options that deliver on weekends. I know this doesn't solve everything for you, but I hope it helps.