Follow up with OTDR
@Jameson_Amazon why was the thread locked? There are many of us that want to follow up on the answers to the questions asked. Some of the responses were vague and need clarification. In particular, I would like clarification on the answer to my exemption question.
"Here's the OTDR team's answer to your follow-up question here:
"The On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) metric is calculated based on all your shipped units that have valid tracking information. If you have a unit that is exempt from the Verified Tracking Requirement (VTR), and you do not purchase a shipping label with tracking for that unit, then that unit will not be included in the OTDR calculation. However, even if a unit is exempt from VTR requirements, if you still purchase a shipping label with tracking for that unit, then it will be counted towards your OTDR metric.
The seller support team is equipped to assist with handling time exceptions and related issues. They have established processes and resources to help you create an exemption ticket and guide you through the appropriate steps."
Please let me know if this helps. And of course, if you have any additional questions for the team.
All the best,
Jameson"
When you say, "purchase a shipping label", are you referring to a label from Amazon? We do not buy shipping from Amazon, so that would lead me to believe the OTDR should be exempt as our VTR is, which would make the report not applicable.
Please clarify.
Thank you.
21 replies
KJ_Amazon
Hello @Seller_OvL8C4BJWiuS9
Our partner team is continuing to work through all the great replies and will respond to the remaining questions as soon as possible. We will be adding answers there as they are investigated and written.
"Are you saying that if we are exempt from VTR, then we are exempt from OTDR? If that is the case, why do we still have the report showing the %?"
Can you please provide more details about your original question?
I understand that you are not using Amazon Buy Shipping. Are you purchasing tracked shipping outside of Amazon? Or do you ship VTR-exempt tracking USPS shipping methods?
If you are using shipping label with tracking, those will count towards the OTDR calculation.
Seller_ZDUFw1qRNIbgB
To add to this issue, we also have a question....why are returned orders with bad addresses being counted against our OTDR? so are forwarded addresses and customers who are not available or willing to sign for a 'signature required' shipment..shouldn't the first attempt at delivery be the one used to figure whether or not we delivered an order on time?
ALL of these situations, which are the customers fault, are being counted against our OTDR...and for us that is the difference between meeting the minimum standard and NOT meeting it, possibly resulting in the destruction of our business after 15+ years on this platform...how are sellers supposed to prevent this?
Seller_r9wMm8LrE5iKj
@KJ_Amazon, @Christine_Amazon:
In addition to questions that weren't answered, there were questions that were answered by parroting whatever internal teams had been told to tell you was the company line, or simply restating the info we already had, without clarification.
1. I don't understand how automating handling will improve transit time. These are two different things.
2. I provided data showing that the AHT calculations must be wrong for our recent sales ... you seem to feel an outlier or two can explain this, but the recommendations are so much shorter than the actual times that it's impossible (certainly the one where you're chopping SIX days off an item with 4 day handling is wrong, and most reductions are 2+ days out of 4). Also, you seem to believe (like some bots) that average time is what matters, when it's the percentage of orders within a deadline that counts. It's like a metrics-driven company doesn't understand the math going into their metrics.
3. You failed to explain how buying an IDENTICAL label from outside of Amazon should result in a lack of protections.
4. You failed to explain how removing the promise extension -- which is explicitly designed to account for transit interruptions -- from our calculation makes sense, especially as the customer does not expect the package until later, and in another answer you said that delivering too early is just as wrong as delivering too late.
5. WHY is FBA exempt? If a seller has bad metrics through FBA due to their random shipments being held up, how is that any different than an FBM seller missing the mark due to random shipments (or one shipment of many items) being held up? The customer is still disappointed, and you keep insisting this is about meeting customer expectations and not forcing people to FBA/Amazon buy-shipping.
6. If maximum transit time is 8, not 7, days, how does this make sense? "We’ll pull data from shipments that had a promised delivery date in the last 21 days, and exclude the most recent 7 days as the shipments from last 7 days may still be in the process of being delivered. "
7. None of this makes any real sense, but please explain to us why buying even faster shipping fails to get us protection for a metric that measures transit time?
8. If transit time is so important, why are you continuing to onboard sellers shipping from China at an alarming rate?
9. Why is every other metric, including delivery-related ones, per order, rather than per-item like this one?
10. How can my promised transit time be 9.8 - 10 days? Why do you keep saying "day" without clarifying whether that's workday or calendar day or 24 hours or something that has to do with timezones?
11. How is requiring us to move to FBA and/or paying Amazon for shipping improving transit times? Is FBA buying more expensive labels to meet average promised delivery times (I think not), or simply relying on the fact that FBA has no metrics? I see our available labels have changed since these new edicts ... but I assume FBA is still shipping on the cheapest label available. Shouldn't the bar be set at "do as well as FBA, not some arbitrary percentage"? What are FBA's metrics sitting at, exactly? Why is this info not available? Is FBA doing above 95%? This is the RECOMMENDED performance.
And why are individual sellers within the FBA program not being booted, since some of their metrics must be below 90% if the average is above 90% but you're talking about millions of sellers? You could say that those sellers have no control over what happens with the shipment once they give their items to Amazon, but you can say the same of FBM once we hand the package to a valid shipper. This is all clearly a fig leaf for other Amazon objectives.
Why can I order an item via Prime and it shows up a week late with no repercussions, but one delayed-by-hurricane FBM shipment (of 15 of the same item) could end my career here?
12. Every metric you offer eventually becomes a requirement. How long until we are required to deliver 95% of our business packages during business hours, and why won't that apply to FBA using identical labels? Will implementation of that change be as rushed and poorly thought through as OTDR?
