How to confirm Amazon shipments on time
The parcel is in the carrier's hands the day you say it is, and the order is confirmed inside your stated handling time.
Checked against Amazon's Fulfilled by Merchant page on September 13, 2026.
Before you start
- Your handling time, set in shipping settings, and the last carrier collection or counter time you can make.
- The labels printed before that cut-off, not after it.
- Seller Central access to Manage Orders.
Steps
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Buy the label on the day the parcel leaves
Print for the run you can actually make, so the date on the label and the date in Seller Central are the same day.
You should see a ship date you can enter truthfully.
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Get the parcel scanned, not just collected
Hand it over early enough to be scanned that day, because Amazon treats shipping on time as "the moment of the carrier's first scan".
You should see an acceptance scan dated the day you claim.
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Open Manage Orders in Seller Central
Sign in to Seller Central and open Manage Orders, which is where Amazon tells sellers to "review it, confirm shipping, and provide tracking information".
You should see the orders that are not yet confirmed as shipped.
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Open the order you are shipping
Find the order in the list and open it to confirm the shipment.
You should see the shipment confirmation for that order.
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Enter the date the carrier took it
Give that day, and leave it alone if the parcel slipped to tomorrow.
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Enter the carrier, service and tracking number
Copy all three off the label so they belong to the same carrier.
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Confirm the shipment inside your handling time
Amazon's instruction is direct: "Make sure you confirm shipment within your stated handling time."
You should see the order confirmed as shipped with a date the scan will back up.
If it goes wrong
- A confirmed order with no scan
Confirming early does not start the clock in your favour. On-time is read from the carrier's first scan, so a label printed Friday and dropped on Monday reads as a Monday shipment however the order is marked.
- Your label can never be OTDR Protected
Since 29 June 2025 that protection needs all three of: "Shipping Settings Automation is enabled on your shipping template", labels "purchased shipping labels marked as 'OTDR Protected' when using Amazon Buy Shipping or Veeqo", and that you "have shipped on time". An outside label cannot carry the second one.
- Unconfirmed orders cost twice
Amazon links missing confirmations to "an increase in their late shipment rate (LSR) and an increase in automatically canceled orders due to unconfirmed shipments". A cancelled order takes the sale with it.
What happens next
Amazon also excuses regional failures: "if there is a major disruption event that impacts all sellers shipping to a specific region (as determined by Amazon), Amazon will not count deliveries that are late as a result in your OTDR." Everything else on an outside label is yours.
A-to-z claim protection needs a Buy Shipping label, on-time shipping and a reply "within 48 hours" in Buyer-Seller Messaging, so on your own postage the realistic defences are an early drop-off, a tracking number Amazon can validate for the 95% Valid Tracking Rate, and a typo corrected "within 24 hours of the order being shipped".
Print the day's orders before the last pickup
Late confirmations usually start as late printing. Import a CSV or paste rows into The Workbench, part of Pro, rate the batch against USPS and UPS at once, then print one merged PDF. The tracking numbers come back on the batch, which is what you work from when you walk down Manage Orders.
Related questions
From the carrier's scan. Amazon defines shipping on time as "considered the moment of the carrier's first scan", which is why the drop-off time matters more than the confirmation time.
No. The protection requires labels "marked as 'OTDR Protected' when using Amazon Buy Shipping or Veeqo", alongside Shipping Settings Automation and shipping on time.
Confirm when the parcel has gone, and enter the real date. The confirmation has to land inside your stated handling time, but a shipping date the scan contradicts is the version Amazon can check.
Only region-wide disruptions are excused, and Amazon decides what qualifies. Carrier delays on a single parcel sit with the seller unless the order was on an OTDR Protected label.