Ecommerce News Roundup: July Recap
As Amazon turns the page to August, it is time to check the announcements from Amazon and upcoming changes that could significantly impact your selling strategies. From policy updates to new features, Amazon will cover what you need to know to stay ahead in the competitive Amazon marketplace.
July 2, 2024
Exclude products from catalog-wide Brand Tailored Promotions
The new ASIN Exclusion feature in Brand Tailored Promotions enables you to exclude up to 100 parent ASINs from a catalog-wide promotion for greater control over your sales strategies.
ASINs can’t be retroactively excluded from promotions that are “running” or “scheduled.”
To exclude ASINs from a promotion, do the following:
Select the brand you want to promote and the audience you want to engage.
At the product selection step, you can either choose Add all products to select your entire brand catalog or Exclude specific products to exclude up to 100 ASINs. Enter a parent ASIN to exclude all related child ASINs from the promotion. You can also exclude individual child ASINs.
Enter any other promotion details and submit the promotion.
For more information on how to use this new feature, go to Brand Tailored Promotions.
July 8, 2024
Fulfill orders quickly and efficiently with new Veeqo features
Amazon recently launched some new features on Veeqo, its free multi-channel fulfillment software, to help you fulfill orders faster and reduce your cost-per-customer.
The new features allow you to do the following:
Identify and merge orders from the same customer: Amazon automatically identify orders from the same customer and suggest that you combine them into one shipment, saving you time and potential shipping costs.
Sort orders by SKU, customer, or bin location: You can now streamline your operations by sorting orders and printing documents in that order, too.
Route orders efficiently: Amazon selects the warehouse closest to the delivery address to help you deliver products faster and reduce potential shipping costs. This feature ensures that there’s stock available in the warehouse or distribution center before allocating inventory to the customer.
To streamline your fulfillment operations, sign up today.
For more information, go to Veeqo.
July 19, 2024
Size normalization now includes more product types
Last year, Amazon implemented product size normalization on search and product detail pages, to ensure that customers receive consistent product size information across all stores.
This year, Amazon is expanding the scope of this feature to include additional product types, including pitchers, binoculars, and pressure cookers.
To add or update a product’s size value, go to Manage Inventory.
For more information on included product types, go to the Size normalization FAQ.
July 20, 2024
Track product performance and view translated customer feedback
To show you how your products perform against industry benchmarks, Amazon has updated some features on the Voice of the Customer dashboard.
The Negative customer experience (NCX) review rate and the NCX return rate show how your product review and return rates compare to product category benchmarks. This information enables you to track your product performance over time so that you can make informed decisions to improve quality. On the listing’s detail page, you can now dive deeper into performance trends, including your overall NCX rate, over the past 12 weeks.
Amazon has integrated a Frequently returned items badge under the Action column on the dashboard. This badge provides detailed feedback, including reasons for the frequent returns, enabling you to take corrective action and improve your product offerings.
Amazon has also enhanced the Customer feedback section. Previously, customer feedback was only available in English. Now, you can read feedback in multiple languages.
To view these features, go to the Voice of the Customer dashboard.
July 25, 2024
Update on Reimbursement Automation and Eligibility Window to file reimbursement claims
Starting November 1, 2024, Amazon will proactively reimburse you for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) items that are lost in its fulfillment centers. Amazon will issue reimbursement as soon as an item is reported as lost by the fulfillment center, which you can track in the Reimbursements report on Seller Central. This more seamless experience saves you time and money by minimizing the need to manually research and file claims for lost items.
Almost all reimbursement claims related to warehouse lost and damaged and customer returns cases will now be proactively reimbursed. However, if you do not receive an automatic reimbursement and believe your inventory has been lost or damaged, you will need to file a manual claim. Additionally, all removal claims will still need to be filed manually.
Also starting October 23, Amazon are updating its eligibility window policy. All manual claims must now be submitted within the following timelines:
A fulfillment center operations claim for an item that is lost or damaged in the fulfillment center must be submitted no later than 60 days after the item was reported lost or damaged.
An FBA customer returns claim can be submitted between 60-120 days after the customer refund or replacement date. Claims must not be submitted before 60 days to ensure the customer has time to return the item to us for processing.
A removal claim for items lost in transit can be submitted 15-75 days from the shipment-creation date. Claims must not be submitted before 15 days to ensure the shipment can be delivered back to you.
All other removal claims must be filed within 60 days of the shipment being delivered back to you.
Amazon understands that you may need to make changes to your current processes to ensure that all claims are submitted within these new eligibility windows. To ensure you have adequate time to adjust, the new policy will go into effect on October 23.
The FBA inventory reimbursement policy will be updated once the policy goes into effect on October 23.
July 26, 2024
New Updates to Amazon On-time Delivery Policy and Shipping Settings
Fast and accurate delivery is essential for customers and often determines where they choose to shop. Over time, Amazon learned that the best way to ensure reliable on-time delivery for customers is to set accurate handling and transit times and to choose reliable shipping services. To help reduce late deliveries and improve delivery speeds, Amazon is changing its on-time delivery rate (OTDR) policy.
Effective September 25, 2024, you’ll need to maintain a minimum 90% OTDR without promise extensions to have seller-fulfilled products listed on Amazon.com. Amazon ill start by addressing sellers with the lowest OTDR performance. For a great customer experience, Amazon recommends that you maintain a 95% or greater OTDR for all seller-fulfilled orders. This policy does not apply to offers using the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service because sellers are not responsible for on-time delivery promises for FBA orders.
Also, Amazon will make the following changes to shipping settings to help sellers with Professional selling plans set accurate delivery dates:
Transit time settings: On August 25, 2024, Amazon transit time requirements will be updated to match the delivery capabilities of shipping services. If you’re shipping within the contiguous United States (excluding Hawaii, Alaska, and US territories), you can set a maximum transit time of five days for standard shipping and eight days for free economy shipping. To learn more, go to Default transit time. Note: The 5-day maximum transit time applies to all SKUs except media such as Books, Magazines, and DVDs.
Handling time settings: On September 25, 2024, to help improve the accuracy of handling time, Amazon will enable automated handling time for sellers that have a manually configured handling time that is two or more days slower than their actual handling time (also known as a handling time gap). To see your handling time gap, review your Fulfillment Insight dashboard.
Amazon understands changes like this are significant and require time to prepare. You can manage your delivery dates using the tools we have provided, or you can manually adjust your transit time and handling time settings. We designed these tools to set accurate delivery dates, reduce late deliveries, and to meet or exceed the minimum OTDR requirement, and because Amazon is making calculations on your behalf that affect OTDR, you will get OTDR protection from late deliveries on items shipped through standard shipping if you use all three tools as follows:
Shipping Settings Automation (SSA), for Professional selling plans, sets accurate delivery dates through automated transit time calculations of your preferred shipping services. You must choose one of the preferred ship methods in the SSA templates, which will mark the transit time on the shipping template as “Managed by Amazon.”
Automated handling time, for Professional selling plans, sets accurate handling times per SKU based on how long it usually takes you to pass each SKU to carriers. You must ensure that automated handling time is enabled in your shipping settings.
Amazon Buy Shipping, for both Professional and Individual selling plans, sells shipping labels that use highly-reliable ship methods. You can use Amazon Buy Shipping through Manage Orders, Shipping API, Veeqo, or select multi-channel integrators with access to Amazon Buy Shipping. You must choose shipping labels marked as “OTDR Protected” when using Amazon Buy Shipping or Veeqo.
You will receive an email with your current OTDR and recommendations on how to improve if you are below the minimum requirement. To learn more, review your OTDR on your Account Health dashboard or go to On-time delivery.
July 30, 2024
Peak Readiness and Timelines for FBA Capacity Limits
The busy holiday season is approaching, which means it is time to start sending in your inventory.
Amazon wants you to succeed this holiday season, and to ensure you have enough products in stock for peak, Amazon recommends sending your FBA inventory to fulfillment centers in August and September.
Inventory must arrive at Amazon fulfillment centers by October 19, 2024, to guarantee its Prime badge-ready by Black Friday.
Amazon fulfillment center teams will be focused on receiving inventory in September and October to ensure your products are placed in the right fulfillment centers ahead of peak.
In November and December, Amazon will shift its focus to processing customer orders as this is Amazon busiest time of year.
Note: Amazon will have limited slots to accept your shipments at Amazon fulfillment centers during November and December.
This seasonal shift helps us ensure faster delivery speeds and maximizes your sales potential during the holidays. Also, you may see lower estimated capacity limits for October and November. On average, the estimated capacity limits for October and November can help provide enough storage for six months of inventory.
The Capacity Monitor tool helps you stay up to date on capacity limits. You can now view estimated capacity limits for October, and November capacity limits will be available starting August 20. All date recommendations are subject to change.
Additionally, to help you simplify operations and manage inventory more efficiently during peak, Amazon eliminated the overage fee for storage effective July 1, 2024. This means if your on-hand inventory exceeds your capacity limit, you will not incur the overage fee. Any overage fees incurred in June 2024 were charged to your account on July 2, 2024, but no further overage fees will be applied going forward. To learn more, go to FBA inventory storage overage fees.
July 31, 2024
Update to How Product Detail Page Images are Selected
In January, Amazon announced that product detail pages for hardlines product types may display images from multiple sellers. In the coming months, Amazon will expand to include both soft lines and consumables product types. This change will help increase sales by providing customers with more information on product detail pages to make informed purchase decisions.
Based on seller feedback, Amazon has also adjusted how these images are selected and will prioritize brand owner images. Amazon will only use Amazon or brand-registered sellers’ content if the required images are missing in the product detail page or upgrade low-quality content, such as sketches or low-resolution images.
As a reminder, each product detail page must have at least three required images: one with the product on a white background, one with the product in an environment, and one with product information, such as dimensions or nutritional facts. To help us fulfill these requirements, these images will be automatically selected and displayed in an order that is helpful for customers.
For more information about image requirements, go to Product image requirements.
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