New SFP Requirements (Seller Fulfilled Prime), Starting February 2021

There are new SFP requirements! These are mandatory as of February 1st, 2021, and they aim to provide shoppers in the U.S. with better delivery speeds.

These changes apply to all sellers, no matter what fulfillment channels they use.

In this article, we’ll cover Amazon’s latest SFP requirements so you can take the necessary precautions to maintain a healthy metric performance.

This article is based on official information from Amazon Seller Central.

Overview of 2021 SFP Requirements

Weekend Delivery

Starting February 1st, 2021, SFP enrolled sellers must operate and deliver standard-sized Prime products six days out of the week, including either Saturday or Sunday.

They also must utilize shipping options supporting weekend-delivery and pick-ups to give customers a more reliable delivery experience all through the week.

You can check your Shipping Settings here. Choose ‘General Shipping Settings’ or go to Order fulfillment settings (sign-in required) to review and update your settings for Weekend pick-up and Delivery.

Note: Any customer buying on Friday after the cut-off time or Saturday before the cut-off time MUST ship on aSaturday.

SFP Requirements: One-Day and Two-Day Delivery

SFP sellers will also have to meet one and two day delivery dates.

These delivery metrics gauge how many customer page views displayed a one or two day delivery promise when your SFP offer was featured, whether or not there was a purchase.

The delivery speed targets make certain that a buyer’s experience will be reliable no matter who is in charge of fulfilling their Prime order.

To assist you in reaching these targets, Amazon introduced a new dashboard that determines the quoted delivery speed of your SFP offers.

You can see these two metrics on the dashboard:

• Percent of One-Day or Less
• Detail Page Views

Delivery Nationwide

Offering nationwide delivery coverage for all standard size delivery products will also be a requirement for SFP sellers.

Note that ‘nationwide coverage’ includes only the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia.

To check if your products are standard size or oversize, go to the Manage SFP page via this link:  https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-fulfilled-prime/analytics/.

Amazon’s continuous innovation with tools and offerings will assist in creating a more compelling SFP experience to you and the customers they share.

You and SFP are important to Amazon and their customers, Amazon has created a guide to assist in walking you through these changes.

The Tools and Features of SFP

Below, there are some existing tools and features that can assist you in attaining faster Delivery Speeds:

• Pick-up and delivery on the weekends for Prime, offers faster Delivery Speeds.

Having order cut-off time options that are flexible that change depending on the day of week and shipping service: These settings allow sellers to get the maximum number of customers seeing their offer before cut off time, and in doing so, improve Delivery Speeds.

Shipping Region Automation assists in setting up regions you deliver to for 1-Day Delivery and 2-Day Delivery.

These regions will be visible from time to time to show the latest of your shipping service speeds.

Enabling this means that manual configuration for your delivery regions for Premium Shipping Options is not necessary and can benefit from increased Prime coverage at a ZIP3 level:

●          Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance: This page has details on the targets of Delivery Speed metrics and how you are currently performing.

●          The Delivery Speed report. This lets you examine and identify the SKUs that are partly causing lower Delivery Speeds. This requires the application of the aforementioned tools in order to increase speeds.

●           The classification of your products into standard-size or oversize will appear automatically. It is determined by the weight and dimensions of the product’s packaging.

You can learn more in Manage SFP and see more info on the SFP Item Size, Weights, and Dimensions Help page.

●      Manage SFP now provides SKU-level visibility into the calculated Prime coverage percentage for the assigned shipping template, making it easy to ensure your SKUs are on the appropriate shipping template.

You can expect even more tools and features that enhance Delivery Speed in the future as Amazon continues to innovate and improve.

New 2021 SFP Requirements| Delivery Speed Metrics

Amazon Seller Central defines Delivery Speed metrics as “calendar days.” between when a customer views an offer on the product detail page and the Promised Delivery Date provided on the product detail page.

The metrics show the distribution of delivery promises weighed by the product detail page views. They measure the percentage of the product detail page views that displayed a 1 or 2-day delivery promise segmented by standard-size and oversize products.”

A more detailed look at how delivery speed metrics work can be found on the Delivery Speed metrics page.

You can find more information on product size on SFP Item Size, Weights and Dimensions.

New 2021 SFP Requirements | Performance Metrics

The Delivery Speed metrics will appear at the top of the Seller Fulfilled Prime Performance page.

Below that are other metrics such as:

• On-time Shipment
• Buy Shipping usage
• Cancellation Rate
• On-time Delivery

You can find Delivery Speed metrics under Pre-Order Eligibility Metrics, and some other under Post-Order Eligibility Metrics.

Delivery Speed metrics can be filtered for:

• 7 days
• 30 days
• 6 months
• 1 year, as well as customized time periods

Download Speed Report

The Download Speed Report links to a generated report, showing an ASIN that has had an effect on your Delivery Speed metrics.

How to improve Delivery Speed metrics

1.             Enable or increase Prime coverage of 1-Day Delivery. This can be done by manually including more states on your Prime shipping templates. Utilizing Shipping Region Automation for setting Prime regions by including more shipping services and/or updating the delivery zone limit of said services can improve coverage.

2.             Make the cut-off time order for your orders later in the day and alter pick up times taking the pick-up schedules of your local carrier’s into consideration. If you have more than one carrier with variable and have pick-up schedules, it is recommended to adjust the cut-off times for orders daily for each carrier that you use.

3.    Use shipping services that do weekend pick-up and/or delivery. Check here for ways that you can customize your fulfillment settings (this includes order cut-off times, weekend operations, and weekend delivery.)

New 2021 SFP Requirements | Speed Report

According to Amazon Seller Central, the speed report “shows the list of Seller Fulfilled Prime offers you listed on Amazon and the number of detail page views for each delivery promise speed that are less than or equal to (<=) 1-Day, less than or equal to (<=) 2-Day and greater than (>) 2-Day. “

In Seller Central you are able to download new reports or previous reports.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Go to Seller Central.
2. Press the link in the Seller Fulfilled Prime performance section. Here, you can tailor the time periods.
3. Click “Request.”

It may take a while before the report is ready. You will know it’s all set if the download icon appears.

These are the data columns included in the speed report:

ASIN

An Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) has unique blocks of 10 letters and/or numbers that identify items and are assigned by Amazon. These can be found on the product detail page.

Selection Segment

Your product’s size tier classification: Standard-size versus oversize.

Detail page view total

Standard-size: The combined number of detail page views per standard-sized product with the respective promised delivery speed.

Oversize: The combined number of detail page views per oversized products with the respective promised delivery speed.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

In order to make Prime faster, Amazon is shifting from a 2-day to a 1-day delivery program – investing in their fulfillment and transportation capabilities:

1. Why is Amazon making these changes?

On top of improvements to Prime for customers, Amazon also wants to make sure that SFP lives up to what customers expect of Prime.

However, U.S. SFP customers have not had their expectations met, largely due to the fact that many Sellers don’t do weekend operations.

These changes aim to provide U.S. customers with a reliable Prime experience.

2. How will these new requirements be enforced?

A dip in performance metrics below the new required thresholds may be grounds for suspension of your Prime eligibility.

3. What factors influence the Delivery Speed metrics?

Your ship-from location, ship-to destination, and performance of your preferred carriers are all considered and help to accurately ascertain the promise shown to customers.

Using this info, a sure delivery date is displayed to customers on the product detail page.

Delivery Speed metrics may also be influenced by later order cut-off times, weekend deliveries, and weekend pick-ups.

4. What happens if I meet the speed requirement for standard-size products but not oversize?

Your Prime eligibility may be suspended unless speed requirements are met for all product sizes.

If Delivery Speed targets for standard-size or oversize products are not achieved in the trailing 7 days, then Amazon will follow the same enforcement process in use today for the existing eligibility requirements.

This may entail the suspension of your Prime eligibility until you submit a plan of action and it is accepted by Amazon.

5. Do I need to ship nationwide to meet the 1-day Delivery Speed target?

No, but in order to meet Delivery Speed targets for standard-size and oversize items, it is a requirement to give

1-day delivery coverage for the customers that view the detail page.

The <= 1-day Delivery Speed target is dependent on the percentage of product detail page views when the customer delivery promise displayed is 1 calendar day or less.

This is determined by the 1-day delivery region coverage defined on your shipping templates along with your order cut-off times, weekend operations, and delivery settings defined under Order Fulfillment Settings.

Product Detail Page View Day	Product Detail Page View Time	Expected Ship Date	Customer Delivery Promise	Product Detail Page View   (calendar days)
Monday	Before order cut-off	Monday	Tuesday	1 calendar day
Monday	After order cut-off	Tuesday	Wednesday	2 calendar days
Friday	Before order cut-off	Friday	Saturday	1 calendar day
Friday	After order cut-off	Saturday	Sunday or Monday*	2 or 3 calendar days

*Sunday delivery, for now, is only available for specific ZIP codes supported by Fedex Home Delivery.

6. How can I see what shipping templates meet the new nationwide shipping SFP requirements for standard-size products?

Navigate to the Settings and click on Shipping settings. There, you will see a list of current templates on the left side. In order to determine if a template is eligible for standard-size products, verify that the chosen Prime regions encompass the 48 contiguous United States and the District of Columbia.

7. What shipping services are available for weekend pick-ups?

Buy Shipping is the place where you can see all purchasable shipping services that do weekend pick-ups from FedEx, USPS, and/or UPS.

Note: Ontrac Ground may not be found on Buy Shipping and as of now does not support weekend pick-ups.

8. What shipping services are available for weekend deliveries?

Fedex Home Delivery, UPS Ground, USPS Priority Mail, USPS Priority Mail Express, and Ontrac Ground are supported.

By February 21st, 2021, Amazon’s support for FedEx will be extended to their 2-Day and FedEx Overnight shipping services, which includes One Rate.

They will also be supporting UPS Second Day and Next Day Air shipping services.

9. When will new sellers be allowed to re-enroll in SFP?

The priority of Amazon is to assist current sellers in becoming familiar and to these changes.

More information on SFP enrollment and eligibility in the U.S may be given in the future.

10. I don’t operate on the weekends. Can I get an exception?

No, there will be no exceptions to this. SFP enrolled sellers are required to support weekend deliveries and pick-ups (a choice between either Saturday or Sunday).

While customers do have the option of selecting a method of delivery that is slower, sellers still maintain the responsibility of offering options for pick-up and delivery on weekends.

11. Why are my Delivery Speed metrics so low despite my setting up my operations to enable 1-day and 2-day Prime shipping options?

Your ship-from location, ship-to destination, and performance of the carriers of your choice will help to accurately ascertain the promise shown to customers.

Amazon may increase the standard time that it takes for transit and extend the delivery promise for some products temporarily.

Just in case carrier performance decreases due to factors such as weather events, capacity constraints, etc.

Delivery Speed metrics may seem lower than expected because of this; however, these orders will not be included in performance calculations, so your performance metrics will not be affected.

It’s vital for sellers to keep their word with Prime customers.

12. Why are the SFP requirements different for standard-size versus oversize products?

Shipping via air is more cost-effective for standard-size products if necessary, to satisfy the delivery promise.

Having this selection offered with a two-day delivery promise makes it available to the maximum number of Prime customers.

Oversize products are usually shipped by ground and will be eligible for fulfillment regionally.

13. What’s the difference between standard-size and oversize?

When packaged completely, standard-sized products weigh less than or equal to 20lb and do not go beyond the packaging dimensions of 18 x 14 x 8. Oversize items go beyond these dimensions.

The weight and dimensions of your packaged item can be updated at Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime.  The most precise information is used in determining whether an item is standard-size or oversize if there is more than one source for dimensional data.

14. Amazon shows many of my products are standard-size even though they are oversize. How do I change this?

If any of the dimensional values are absent from an item, it will be considered as standard-size. These items can be viewed in Manage Seller Fulfilled Prime. Here the item can be updated to the right values or a bulk upload can be submitted.

Updating will categorize the item into the correct size tier and it will show in Seller Central and on the product detail page.

15. Do these new SFP requirements apply to SFP outside the United States?

No.

16. Will you institute these SFP requirements outside the United States in the future?

They are only applicable in the U.S. Amazon will directly inform participating sellers if there are changes to the requirements in other countries.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how the new SFP Requirements will be shaping the way order fulfillment works, don’t forget to keep track of your seller metrics and visit the ‘News’ section of your Amazon Seller Central account to stay informed on the lates updates and policies.

Seller Central has details, examples, and answers to all your questions.

You can also reach to Amazon’s support team at sfp-performance@amazon.com

The post New SFP Requirements (Seller Fulfilled Prime), Starting February 2021 appeared first on AMZ Advisers.