Amazon
What Amazon counts as a late dispatch
Late Shipment Rate is simpler than Valid Tracking Rate and catches people for a different reason: the action that stops the clock is not the action sellers think it is.
Confirmation stops the clock
Amazon measures whether you confirmed dispatch before the ship-by date. It does not measure whether the parcel physically moved at that moment. Confirming dispatch is an administrative act, and it is the one being timed.
This has an obvious exploit and a serious consequence. Sellers confirm early to protect the metric, and if the tracking then fails to scan they have traded a Late Shipment problem for a Valid Tracking problem, which is worse.
The ship-by date is given, not derived
Like TikTok, Amazon provides a latest ship date on the order. You do not need to compute it from your handling time - that computation has already happened, including weekends and your own settings.
Use it directly. Sellers who track handling time in days rather than reading the date get caught by the cases where Amazon calculated it differently from how they assumed.
Handling time is a promise you set
Your handling time drives the ship-by date, which means it is the lever you actually control. Setting it optimistically wins you slightly better conversion and loses you the metric.
For dropshippers, handling time should reflect your slowest realistic supplier for that product, not your fastest. The cost of two extra days on the listing is small. The cost of a Late Shipment Rate problem is your account.
The weekend trap
An order placed Friday evening with a short handling time can carry a ship-by date that arrives before your next working session. Suppliers who do not dispatch at weekends make this structural rather than occasional.
If most of your suppliers are closed Saturday and Sunday, your handling time needs to absorb that. Pretending otherwise produces a predictable cluster of late dispatches every Monday.
What to do when you will be late
You have two bad options and one is clearly less bad. Cancelling the order is a seller-driven cancellation, which is weighted more heavily than lateness. Shipping late is a Late Shipment Rate hit that is proportionally small if your volume is reasonable.
Ship late. Message the buyer. Do not cancel to protect a metric, because you will damage a worse one.
The routine that prevents it
- Sort open orders by ship-by date, ascending, every working session
- Buy from the supplier on receipt for anything with a near deadline
- Confirm dispatch only when you have a number you believe in
- Check the next 24 hours of deadlines before you finish for the day
That last step is the one that catches the Friday orders, and it takes about a minute.