Amazon is obsessed with showing shoppers accurate delivery estimates. As a result, Amazon changed how sellers’ Order Handling Capacity settings are set. As of February 7, Amazon will automatically set a threshold that is a conservative estimate of the volume capacity sellers can handle based on their average daily orders over the past 30 days.
The setting is a bit like a safety valve – if sellers get a sudden spike in orders and they exceed their order handling capacity, Amazon will show shoppers a delivery date that’s a day longer, giving sellers an additional day of handling time.
“This provides customers with more accurate delivery dates and can help you avoid late shipment rates when you receive more orders than you can manage,” Amazon explained.
- Amazon will recalculate the order handling capacity every week based on a seller’s historical data.
- For sellers who fall below their order handling capacity, Amazon will automatically adjust the threshold so it’s closer to what they’ve been able to handle.
- Sellers can set a higher limit at any time in Order handling settings.
Order handling capacity only applies to Standard and Free Economy shipping options, not to Premium Shipping or Seller Fulfilled Prime orders. Amazon explains Order Handling Capacity in the following video posted to its YouTube channel last year:
Amazon posted the announcement about the new change on February 7, the same day the policy took effect.
