Amazon have announced a new feature in your shipping templates that allows you to offer faster delivery to close proximity customers on your domestic standard shipping orders. Amazon will divide the current standard shipping delivery template into smaller regions so that you can set a faster transit time for orders with ship-to location in the same region as your default ship-from location.
This is an interesting one as it kind of assumes that deliveries happen faster. In some circumstances this is probably not the case, for instance Royal Mail will deliver locally just as quickly as from one end of the country to the other. However, especially if you have your own in-house drivers, you may well be able to deliver in your local area much more quickly than a long distance drop.
Example
Previously, England was considered as one region in the shipping template for domestic standard shipping in the United Kingdom. With the newly implemented feature, England is divided into smaller regions.
If you are based in Greater London and shipping to a customer in Greater London, you will now have the option to choose a faster transit time of 1-2 days as opposed to the existing default transit time of 2-3 days.
A new shipping rule will be created with faster transit time options for nearby deliveries, and there will be no change in the transit times that you have already set for domestic and international shipping.
Auto opt in to faster transit times and opting out
Amazon will automatically update your existing standard shipping templates with the new shipping rule between the 10th and 21st of May 2021, with a faster transit time of 1-2 days. If you do not want the faster transit option, you can opt out by editing the transit time for the new shipping rule before the 10th of May 2021.
What is the benefit of this change?
Amazon say that customers are more likely to purchase products that have a faster delivery promise. By enabling faster transit time options in your shipping templates, you will have an opportunity to provide a faster delivery promise to nearby customers. If you are unable to offer a faster transit time to these customers, you can change transit time options for the new shipping rule at any time.
How to activate the new shipping rule for faster transit times?
You can edit your existing standard shipping templates or create new templates with the new shipping rule. To create or edit your templates, follow these steps:
- Sign in to your Seller Central account and click Settings-> Shipping Settings
- Click on shipping templates and select the standard shipping template for which you want to enable faster transit time.
- Click “Edit” template. You should see a new shipping rule created with faster transit time options. Review and adjust transit times.
- Save the template.
For any new template that you create after the 20th of April 2021, a new shipping rule with a faster transit time is created by default and no manual update is required.
Opting out of the faster transit time feature
If you are unable to offer faster transit times to nearby customers, you have two options to opt out:
- Up until the 10th of May 2021, manually edit your standard shipping templates to activate the new shipping rule and update the default transit time; or
- After the 21st of May 2021, you can edit your standard shipping templates at any time and adjust the transit time as required.
