Amazon: how to set up shipping time and costs

About this article

This article describes the configuration of shipment costs and times via the creation of shipping templates on Amazon.

Table of contents

Introduction

Create shipping templates on Amazon

Map the correct shipping template on ChannelEngine

Total shipment time/lead time to ship

Introduction

While some marketplaces allow you to configure shipment costs and shipment directly on ChannelEngine, this is not the case on Amazon.

Amazon requires you to create shipping templates on Amazon Seller Central. There, you configure your shipping countries or regions, acceptable address types, shipping costs, and the estimated transit times, excluding the lead time to ship.

Create shipping templates on Amazon

To create a shipping template on Amazon, go to Amazon's Seller Central.

Once there, select Settings, Shipping settings.

Depending on the language or Amazon country selected, the name of the default template varies. By default, it is labelled Migrated template, though it is possible to edit that by selecting Edit in the top right corner.

1. To create a new shipping template, select the Create new shipping template option in the top left corner.
2. Choose Create a new delivery template and click OK.

3. In the template, configure shipping for National (e.g.: on Amazon.co.uk, National includes all countries belonging to Great Britain; on Amazon.de, National includes Germany, etc.) and/or International shipments.
4. At the top of the screen, set the name (make sure to use a descriptive name, especially if you want to use multiple templates) and the rate model (add shipping costs based on total order value or on weight). Certain special characters are not supported in the template's name.

5. Many default values are already entered for both the National and International shipments. Make sure to check all the settings and values before proceeding.

6. To save the changes, click Save at the bottom of the screen.

Example

• Warehouse location - the Netherlands; the default transit time to Ireland is set to 7-14 days.
• Target locations - we only want to ship orders from Amazon.co.uk to be shipped to Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. All other EU residents should buy from a different Amazon portal, with a different shipping template.
• Transit time - NL, BE, and LU = 3-5 days; IE = 7-21 days.
• Costs vary based on the order amount. When the order value is above GBP 100.00, shipping to NL, BE, and LU is free.

Map the correct shipping template on ChannelEngine

To map the correct shipping template for your ChannelEngine offers, go to Mappings, Offer mappings, Merchant shipping group.

Merchant shipping group is mapped using the name of the shipping template as it appears in Seller Central. ChannelEngine automatically maps this name to the corresponding shipping template ID on Amazon. Mapping this field is only necessary when you use more than one shipping template, since Amazon applies your default template automatically for offers where no group is mapped.

You can use a fixed value to enter the name of the shipping template. Alternatively, if you want to use multiple shipping templates, you can use advanced rules to map specific shipping templates based on specific product characteristics (e.g.: an attribute value). For guidance on using advanced rules, check out ChannelEngine: advanced rules for channel mappings.

Amazon also requires a lead time to ship (handling time) per product. Map this under Offer mappings, Fulfillment availability: lead time to ship (handling time), alongside the shipping group. This value represents the number of days needed to process an order before it is handed to the carrier, and is separate from the carrier transit time configured in the shipping template.

The lead time to ship (handling time) value determines which handling tier Amazon applies to the offer:

Total shipment time/lead time to ship

The total shipping time for Amazon is based on the lead time to ship (handling time) you set up on ChannelEngine, with the carrier transit time added.

Example

• Order date - 6 December.
• Warehouse location - the Netherlands.
• Shipping to - Belgium.
• The lead time to ship is set to '1' in Offer mappings.
• The shipping template states 3-5 days for shipping to Belgium.

• Result - expected delivery date = between 10 December and 14 December. This is an illustrative estimate: the actual value can vary if your carrier delivers on weekends, and Amazon's own calculation may also account for its operational calendar. After the expected delivery date has passed, Amazon considers the shipment late, which has an impact on your metrics.