▲New self-fulfilled shipment confirmation policy: After handing the product over to the carrier, self-fulfilled sellers need to complete the "Confirm Shipment" action in Seller Central.
▲Amazon US Marketplace return and refund policy update: Effective May 25, 2021, if you ship order items valued at less than $25 from outside the US to sellers in the US, you must provide a valid US return address.
▲Valid tracking rate requirements for the Amazon US/UAE/Saudi Arabia/Japan Marketplace: If you cannot maintain a valid tracking rate above 95%, your ability to sell Seller-fulfilled products in the relevant categories may be suspended.

You’ve probably run into the headache of excess inventory caused by seasonal or personalized products, the difficulty of not knowing what shipping support to choose for items that are too large or too small, and the challenge of having products with unstable sales that you don’t want to turn into a large amount of unsold inventory.

Merchant Fulfilled Network (MFN/FBM) can, to some extent, help sellers solve some of these challenges. Let’s first look at some of the common scenarios where sellers choose Self Ship:
▲ You have a large selection of products and want to manage inventory flexibly
▲ Your products are seasonal, personalized, or customized
▲ Your products are light and small products, hoping to control logistics and warehousing costs
▲ Your product is an extra-large, heavy item that exceeds Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) size and weight limits, so it can’t be fulfilled using FBA

🚩Please note: Using Amazon “Buy Shipping” will automatically generate an order number and upload tracking, making the process easier.

Using Amazon’s formula for calculating total delivery time, setting accurate delivery times for products helps ensure a good customer experience and increase sales. Most buyers prefer to buy products with faster delivery speeds, and the right delivery times can also help you achieve better store performance.

🚩Please note: Amazon calculates handling time and transit time based on the number of business days, and you need to set processing time and transit time in Seller Central!

Handling time, or your lead time. If you do not enter a value in the “Handling time” field, the system will automatically use the default handling time setting. You can modify the handling time yourself to give yourself enough time to prepare your order. Click “Inventory > Manage Inventory > Edit > Handling Time,” and enter the appropriate number of handling days (whole number).

Please click the link to change the lead time.

Navigate to “Settings > Shipping Settings > General Shipping Settings” in Seller Central to view the current default shipping address and default lead time.

Set shipping address:
Go to “Shipping Settings” to edit “General shipping settings” and “Shipping Templates”.

Set up a shipping template:
Shipping templates help you manage shipping settings for multiple products at the same time (such as default service levels, delivery regions, transit times, and shipping costs). You can create up to 20 shipping templates for specific groups of SKUs. Before creating a template, please make sure you understand the minimum requirements for shipping templates and confirm that your default shipping address is accurate. Amazon shipping costs are calculated using two models: quantity/weight-based shipping and price-banded shipping. On the "Create New Shipping Template" page, select the shipping fee calculation model you need, and enter the appropriate amount under "Shipping charges" for the shipping service level you selected.

Select the appropriate time option in the “Transit Time” drop-down menu to ensure that customers receive the item within the estimated delivery time.

Please click the following link to view:
Minimum requirements for shipping templates
Quantity-/weight-based shipping
price-banded shipping

Step 1: contact the carrier
Contact the shipping company (carrier), agree on the pickup time and location, pack your products, and wait for the carrier to pick them up.
🚩Please note: You can choose to ship the goods directly to the buyer’s address, or you can first send the products to a third-party overseas warehouse. When a buyer places an order, the overseas warehouse can ship it directly, which can also shorten delivery time.

Amazon continuously evaluates fulfillment center capacity and regularly updates this limit. We recommend that you regularly go to Seller Central Inventory Performance or the Shipments Processing Progress page and check the Replenishment Limit Monitor for the latest updates.

1 The seller issues a full refund without requiring the buyer to return the item.
When a buyer initiates a return request, you can communicate with the buyer through Buyer-Seller Messaging. We recommend that you complete the entire communication process within 24–48 hours and reach an agreement in the end: you issue a full refund without requiring the buyer to return the item.

3 Seller-provided prepaid international return shipping labels: you can return products to your domestic address by purchasing a paid international return shipping label from a relevant service provider
Please click the link to view related carrier information on the Amazon Service Provider Network page.

🚩Please note when confirming the return method:
▲ Starting May 25, 2021, if you ship orders worth less than $25 from a country outside the US to sellers in the US, you must provide a valid US return address. When the return is eligible, Amazon will use this address to generate an Amazon Prepaid Return Label for the buyer. If a US return address is not provided, Amazon will issue a refund to the buyer for eligible returns under $25 and will not require the item to be returned (that is, return without refund) NEW!
▲ To ensure buyers have a consistent experience, when handling Seller-fulfilled returns, you must provide the same return policy as Amazon’s return policy.
▲ You need to issue a refund within 2 business days of receiving the return. If you do not process the refund, Amazon will refund the buyer on your behalf and deduct the corresponding amount from your seller account.
▲ Once a refund is issued, it may take 3–5 days for the refunded amount to appear in the buyer’s payment method, depending on the payment method. If you believe there was an incorrect charge, go to Appeal an A-to-z Guarantee Claim.
▲ Please click the link to learn more about A-to-z Guarantee Claims👇

You can view key performance metrics for self-fulfilled sellers by navigating to “Performance>Account Health>Delivery Performance” in Seller Central. Sellers who fail to meet Seller Fulfilled performance metrics may have their selling privileges for seller-fulfilled products suspended, or even be at risk of account deactivation.

Sellers need to promptly provide valid tracking information for self-fulfilled orders based on the requirements of each Amazon Marketplace. Detailed order tracking information shows the progress of order delivery, can reduce buyer contacts, order defects, and loss costs, and can also help improve seller feedback ratings.

▲ Amazon US/United Arab Emirates/Saudi Arabia Marketplace requires Chinese sellers to provide valid tracking numbers for seller-fulfilled orders of $5.00 (including shipping) or more, and the number of orders with a valid carrier name and tracking number must account for 95% or more of the total number of seller-fulfilled orders NEW!
🚩Please note: If you cannot keep VTR above 95%, your ability to sell Seller-fulfilled products in the relevant categories may be suspended. You need to submit a Plan of Action (POA) based on the performance email notification and have it approved before you can regain your selling privileges.

▲ Amazon Japan will require Chinese sellers to provide a valid carrier name and a tracking number for self-fulfilled orders of 1,000 Japanese Yen (including consumption tax) or more, and the number of orders with a valid carrier name and tracking number must account for 95% or more of the total number of self-fulfilled orders.
🚩For sellers selling on other marketplaces, please note: if you cannot keep your VTR above 95%, your selling privileges will not currently be suspended. However, this can lead to negative customer feedback or claims, returns, etc., which can affect your seller performance.

There are many benefits to providing a valid tracking number:
▲ Reduce buyer contacts: spend less time answering delivery-related questions.
▲ Reduce the Order Defect Rate.
▲Protected when you receive A-to-z Guarantee Claims: Without tracking information, you may not be able to dispute all “Order Not Received” A-to-z Guarantee Claims.
▲ Can improve seller feedback ratings: according to buyers, being able to track packages is one of the main reasons they give positive feedback.
▲ Can reduce the cost of lost shipments: If the package is lost in transit, the seller can use the tracking number to identify where it was lost and then determine responsibility.

For unshipped orders, when confirming shipment, you need to provide the correct carrier name, shipping service/shipping method, and tracking number. Please note:
▲ Select the correct carrier name from the drop-down list;
▲ Select the relevant delivery service correctly from the drop-down list;
▲ Provide the tracking number for the selected carrier
🚩Please note:
1. Please do not leave the tracking information blank.
2. Do not enter special characters (such as punctuation marks) in tracking information that Amazon systems cannot recognize.
3. Please do not copy/paste the tracking code from the carrier's website because it will add zero-width space characters. Sellers should manually enter the tracking number when confirming shipment, or you can use the “Buy Shipping” service, and the tracking number will be uploaded automatically.
▲ Make sure your tracking number has at least one carrier scan record. Shipped orders: You can edit order tracking information until the order items are delivered.
🚩To edit details, follow these steps:
1. In Seller Central, select Orders, and then click Manage Orders.
2. Click “Advanced Search”, enter the order number, and then click “Search”.
3. Once you have found the correct order, click “Edit Shipment” and enter the revised tracking number. Please wait 72 hours, after which the reports and metrics will show the updated information. If your order has already been delivered, the tracking number is no longer useful to the buyer, so it isn't included in the Valid tracking rate metric.

When you ship an order and don’t see your carrier in the drop-down menu, select “Other (Others)” and enter your carrier in the text field.
🚩Please note:
▲ If you use a carrier not supported by Amazon (a carrier not listed in Seller Central), Amazon cannot verify the tracking information, so it cannot be counted toward the Valid Tracking Rate metric. Amazon is actively adding support for more carriers.
▲ Marketplaces such as the United States, Europe, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia currently recommend that sellers maintain a valid tracking rate above 95%, which means that in your total orders, at least 95% of orders must use Amazon-supported carriers to ensure a good buyer experience.
▲ Self-fulfilled orders that use Amazon-supported carriers, select the correct carrier name and shipping service, correctly enter the tracking number, and have at least one carrier scan record can be counted toward the valid tracking rate.

Late Shipment Rate (LSR): the percentage of seller-fulfilled orders that are confirmed as shipped after the estimated ship-by date within a 10- or 30-day period.
LSR should remain below 4%, or it may result in account deactivation.

Cancellation rate (CR): the percentage of all orders canceled by the seller out of the total number of self-fulfilled orders over a given 7-day period.
CR should be kept below 2.5%, or it may lead to account deactivation.

🚩Please note: If you do not confirm shipment within 7 business days after the ship date, Amazon will automatically cancel the order. Once an order is canceled, Amazon does not charge the buyer anything, even if it has already shipped.