Multi-channel

Dispatch deadlines compared across four marketplaces

Every marketplace wants the parcel out quickly and each expresses that differently. Running several at once means reconciling four different ways of saying the same thing.

Given versus derived

Amazon and TikTok Shop give you an explicit timestamp on the order - ship by this moment. eBay gives you a handling time in days and leaves the arithmetic to you. AliExpress, as a supply side rather than a sales channel, gives you the supplier is own processing estimate, which is a forecast rather than a commitment.

Given deadlines are easier and stricter. Derived ones are more forgiving and easier to get wrong.

Normalise to one column

Whatever the source, compute a single deadline field in one timezone and sort everything by it. The alternative - mentally translating between channels while working - is where mistakes happen, particularly late in the day.

This is the single highest-value piece of data normalisation in a multi-channel operation.

Weekends do not work the same way

Some platforms exclude non-working days from handling time, some do not, and whether your own settings say you dispatch at weekends changes the answer again.

The practical consequence is the Friday evening order that is due before Monday morning on one channel and comfortably fine on another. If you do not work weekends, your handling times need to say so explicitly on every channel that supports it.

The supplier is the real constraint

All of these deadlines measure you. None of them measure your supplier, and your supplier is the one who determines when a tracking number exists.

So the useful number is not the deadline itself but the gap between the deadline and your supplier is realistic dispatch time. Where that gap is negative you are listing a promise you cannot keep, and no amount of diligence fixes it.

Setting handling time honestly

• Measure actual supplier dispatch time over thirty orders, not the claim
• Use the slow end of that range, not the average
• Add a day for weekends if your suppliers do not work them
• Revisit when you change supplier, which is when it usually breaks

The daily routine

One list, all channels, sorted by normalised deadline, worked from the top. Anything you cannot make, message about today rather than apologise for tomorrow.

It is a boring routine and it is most of what separates sellers with clean metrics from sellers without them.

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