Regional vs National SFP

What’s the difference between national SFP and regional SFP?

Regional SFP means you’re turning on the “prime” badge only for specific areas in the country. Meaning you can promise 1-day and 2-day delivery to a limited region where it’s affordable for you. But Amazon is changing this starting Feb 1 for standard sized products, only oversized products are allowed for Regional SFP.

So there is no more regional SFP? It is only nationwide SFP? And without joining the SFP nationwide program our items will see less visibility due to longer delivery time?

Yes, no more regional SFP (for standard sized items), If you don’t offer nationwide you won’t be able to offer prime on those items and therefore have less visibility (other people’s prime listing will show up ahead of yours)

Can you offer 1 day shipping on certain regions for example we are in NY, can we offer 1 day in the NorthEast and the rest 2 day?

Despite having a lot of customers, I doubt it will be enough coverage to offer 20% 1-day page view nationally. It may be possible for oversized items because nationwide is not required. Please reach out to us, we can help you figure out what will work 🙂

Is Regional SFP still an option though?

Yes, regional SFP is still an option but only for Oversized items. Amazon also added an explanation under “12. Why are the requirements different for standard-size versus oversize products?” in their announcement page: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=VB5YNDGLQG4GYGR

What will happen if we can only offer part of the region with an SFP option on a certain sku? Will we lose our ability to sell as SFP just because one sku in our catalog can’t offer a nationwide prime?

I think that SKU will drag your overall metric down and make it harder for you to achieve the page view metric. Amazon measures this page-view metric using all your SFP ASINs over the past 7 days

Standard vs Oversized Packages

Has there been any change to their “standard” classification of products?

Standard size and oversized size classification is the same as the one used for FBA. Max dimension: longest 18in median 14in, shortest 8in. max 20lb. Refer to this page on Amazon Seller Central for exact details.

Do all standard items go into the SFP metrics? Or only standard items on an Prime shipping template?

Based on what we know now, only your SFP ASINs are calculated for this metric. Your standard ASINs won’t affect the page view metric.

Are the two size categories (Standard vs Oversize) linked so that if you hit one but not the other the entirety of SFP gets taken away? Or if we hit one but not the other, will our SFP be taken away for just one but we get to still keep SFP for the other?

Some sellers checked this with the SFP performance team and it seems that you need to hit both oversized and standard sized metrics, not just one. However oversized items have a lower requirement and does not need to be shipped nationwide.

Can you clarify more about requirements for different size packages under the new program?

For oversized items, on Feb 1, you need to promise 1-day or earlier 5% of the time and 30% for 2-day or earlier. You can find the full details (June numbers, Standard size numbers) on the table in Amazon’s announcement page.

1-Day and 2-Day Delivery Promise 

We are currently not required to offer 1 day shipping. So this is a change?

Yes, it was not required before, but with this 1-day or faster page view metric, sellers are now required to (at least not 100% of the time).

Are we required to offer 1 Day delivery?

Yes but not all the time, for SFP items regardless of standard or oversized items, because they now measure 1-day delivery promise of your items 20% of the time (standard size, Feb 1). You do not need to offer nationwide 1-day delivery, but only just enough to satisfy the 1-day page view requirement.

If UPS or FedEx picks up on Saturday for ground it currently shows on both carriers websites that the delivery date will be Wednesday. Will this hit the prime standards? Is amazon asking if the shipment is sent out on Saturday the delivery date should be Monday? How will this be possible?

With multiple warehouses across the country, you can be close to your customers, thus a UPS ground service can reach your customers within 1 or 2 days instead of 3 or 4 days. It will be difficult to achieve this delivery promise metric with only 1 or 2 locations.

Can I still ship via ground on SFP with these new changes?

I believe I saw some sellers offering ground shipping, but if you’re asking if 100% ground will be enough, I believe you will need to have multiple warehouses across the country. Else, you might need to use faster services (as in paying more to get them expedited).

Can I just turn off Prime on weekends?

Some sellers asked this to the SFP performance team and they require sellers to operate 6 days within the last 7 days. So turning off Prime for the weekend may endanger your SFP eligibility, however there might be some exceptions like bad weather. It would be good to confirm by emailing the SFP performance team.

Is anyone meeting the new page view requirements? We find this nearly impossible without 3-4 warehouses around the country

I believe so, it would be near impossible without 3-4 warehouses. Because you need to be promising 1-day delivery to a lot of page viewers. 1 or 2 warehouses won’t cut it if you can’t afford to expedite your packages (maybe using 2-day negotiated rates from carriers)

When they say “Ship on Saturday and lets say it’s shipped UPS ground. Does it have to be picked up on Saturday even though the package being ground won’t actually move until Monday?

Ship on Saturday would mean you need to have the carrier pick up the package on Saturday. I think it would be best to check with your UPS rep to see if they can move the package immediately (as they operate 7 days a week now)

3pl pricing is all over the place. Is there any way to make sure I’m getting the best deal?

Cahoot has a 3PL RFP template that might be helpful. https://www.cahoot.ai/rfp-template-3pl-order-fulfillment/

Do you think it will be feasible to turn off Prime after cut-off each day to maintain the metric or do you think that will be considered “abuse”?

While in theory it might be possible to do, however it might reduce your sales significantly because you essentially stop selling prime in the evenings (e.g., people shopping after work). Perhaps this is something you can ask (while worded nicely) to the SFP performance team.

If I understand this correctly, most orders after the cut off time on Thursday, and all day Friday – won’t show a 2 day delivery (on most items since delivery is limited on Sundays). So all views of these products will hurt the delivery speed metric. Is this correct?

UPS and FedEx provide Sunday delivery only for select areas, so what you’re saying can be true. At least until we have a reliable carrier that does Sunday delivery for the entire US. However I think it’s better to get clarification on this issue by emailing the SFP performance team.

Is there any advantage in metrics to make the ship setting for Sunday rather than Saturday. I’m just thinking that might drop some of the higher priced shipping options?

Some sellers are concerned that Sunday pickups from carriers don’t get an origin scan until Monday. Therefore they don’t really see Sunday as a viable option to operate (because orders can arrive late). However this is something you might want to discuss with your carrier reps. I’m not exactly sure how turning off Saturday will drop higher priced shipping options.

Weekend Pickups and Daily Cut-Off Times

So the shipper must ship on Saturdays?

Amazon requires SFP sellers to ship on Saturday OR Sunday

When was the Sunday option made available?

This was announced on the first week of January, you can find it on Amazon’s announcement page under “Weekend Delivery” https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html?itemID=VB5YNDGLQG4GYGR

Do I have to operate with the same cut off time on Weekends?

No, for weekends amazon allow cut off times as early as 10.30am. See this page: https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/202096730?language=en_US&ref=ag_202096730_cont_GB96WHU9AT74W2T3

I understand that we are not obligated to ship items that day that come in after 2pm, but it does expand our shipping options and that can be a big difference in shipping cost. That should not be understated

Indeed, sellers can extend their cut off time up to 30 minutes to pickup time. The latest pickup time for US orders is 6PM at the time of this webinar, so you can extend up to 5.30pm (provided you can process the orders quickly).

If you have multiple Distribution Centers, can you set regional cutoff times?

Cut off times are set to local time of the point of origin.???? 

Where in Seller Central can the daily pickup times be configured, please?

Guide on modifying your pick up times can be found here under “Carrier pick-up times and order cut-off times” https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/202096730?language=en_US&ref=ag_202096730_cont_GB96WHU9AT74W2T3

When it takes hours to rate-shop labels, how can we extend our cut-off time?

With next gen shipping software (like Cahoot’s), lowest-cost label generation is fully automatic, so you can start picking the moment new orders arrive. https://pages.cahoot.ai/shipstation/

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