It’s nearly impossible for sellers to take a day off from shipping orders because of strict delivery deadlines set by marketplaces. But Amazon is now giving sellers who fulfill their own orders a break with a new Fulfillment by Merchant feature.
The only alternative until now had been to use the Vacation feature, but that hides sellers’ listings from shoppers. Amazon announced the new Seller-Set Holidays feature on Monday, explaining:
“You can now set your own holidays, which are days when your business is closed while keeping your products visible to customers. Previously, you had to use vacation mode to manage time off, which made your listings temporarily undiscoverable. The system automatically adjusts delivery dates to account for your holiday schedule. Go to Shipping Settings to configure your holiday dates. To learn more, go to Manage Holiday Settings.”
A seller reacting to the announcement said the feature was “long overdue and much appreciated.”
Another seller wrote in part, “Delivery dates are always should be estimate unless it is 2nd day or overnight as we have all seen dismantling of USPS over the last years slowing everything down as now 5-8 days many times is not long enough even though we ship same day!”
Questions from one seller included, “What is a limit/number of seller-set holidays allowed? Also, will this still negatively affect Speed Metric for SFP sellers, just like that currently dings us during each holiday (and weekend)?”
Sellers also noted that Amazon included an incorrect link in the announcement, and some explained how to get to the correct settings to activate the new feature. Also included in the announcement was information about some additional changes:
- Improved location settings
- Enhanced transparency for delivery dates
- Improvements to multi-location inventory (MLI)
As for “regular” holidays, Amazon does not include public holidays as operating days when estimating shipping date and delivery date, but sellers can override public holidays if they choose.