Just received an email with the following: Your account is at risk of being automatically enrolled to have Automated Handling Time (AHT) enabled. Once auto-enrolled, you will no longer be able to disable AHT. To prevent this from happening, take the actions as described to address your issues.
Your account has a gap of 2 days or more between the Handling Time you have set and your actual Handling Time. This discrepancy results in customers seeing an inaccurate delivery date.
First of all Amazon, it is my business. I should be able to run my business as I see fit. I have the Scotty mentality for my business. Captain I need more time. Scotty we need power in one hour. Scotty always delivered before it was needed.
In my earlier days on the Amazon platform, I was kicked off because I had my handling times too tight. I went out of town for Christmas, did not think I would have many orders and was very wrong. Caused my late shipments to go off the charts. Somehow I was able to talk my way back onto the platform and a support person told me that I should widen my handling times to avoid such issues in the future. I did that and I have had very few problems.
Here are the issues as I see them. Amazon has no idea how my business is run. Employees vs. no employees. I have no employees except for myself and my wife. If we are sick, on vacation, at a trade show, taking kids to college, or whatever, then I may need the handling times I have created because I need that extra time during the year for those events. NO ONE WANTS TO PUT THEIR COMPANY ON VACATION MODE! No one wants lost sales. But do you know what could be done? You could create a button that allows the days I have set to be automatically extended by the number of days that I think I will need to ship orders again. If I had employees then this would be much less of an issue and one day I would like that headache to grow my business.
Amazon does not know my religion, my beliefs, and my religious holidays. The Jewish faith and Muslim faith have holidays that do not line up with the U.S. Federal government holidays. Amazon could be forcing us to work on holidays that we are not supposed to work. Does your automated system take that into account?
What about natural disasters? Can Amazon's automated system take into account fires in LA, hurricanes, tornados, major power outages, blizzards, etc.? In certain parts of the country snow and ice can severely impact that ability of third party sellers to get to their businesses and/or the post office. In some cases, those situations my prevent third party sellers from being able to access the internet due to power outages in the area.
Let's talk about what Amazon does to third party sellers that may also be creating some of this. Amazon only pays us every two weeks. Means you are holding my money that I have earned. I am willing to bet that most third party sellers, get their orders out quicker the week that Amazon pays us. Means that about 78 days out of 365 that third party sellers are trying to push orders out faster to get paid. That is 21% of the year. Now if Amazon paid us out every week then that urgency would not be as great. Amazon probably would say doesn't that prove that third party sellers can do that year round? We likely do. But can Amazon's automated system predict when we will be sick, go on vacation, attend out of state trade shows, have family visit, take a Monday or Friday off when a holiday is on a Tuesday or Thursday, etc.? There are too many variables for Amazon to believe that their automated system can actually help third party sellers. In fact, I would argue that this is not about helping us but trying to be some sort of all knowledgeable prognosticator that can accurately predict when a package will get to the customer. Let me tell you, if USPS is involved, you never will be able to accurately make that prediction. As good as USPS is, packages seem to either get delayed or go all over the country sometimes.
If Amazon forces automated handling times, are you going to remove performance standards? That is the real issue for most of us third party sellers. I do not want to get banned from the platform and I am certain that most other third party sellers do not want that either. So how does Amazon allow third party sellers the flexibility that they may need during the year without banning them from the platform? I do not believe Amazon can if it is going to tighten handling times. Customers should actually be happy about items arriving earlier than expected. Why would Amazon consider this to be a problem? Is it not better to under promise and over perform than to over promise and under perform? I think Amazon is the only entity on earth that believes over performing is a problem.
Please stop trying to control out businesses. If we are meeting or exceeding Amazon's standards then leave us alone and let us do what we do best. Thank you.
