How to ship an Amazon order with an unlisted carrier

Before you start

• The carrier's name spelled the way the carrier spells it.
• The tracking number, or the fact that there is none because you delivered by hand.
• Seller Central access to Manage Orders.

Steps

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. Enter the date the parcel went out

   Give the day the carrier took it, or the day you handed it over yourself.

4. Set the carrier to Other

   Amazon's instruction for a carrier it does not list is to "set the carrier code as 'Other' and then provide the carrier name".

   You should see somewhere to type the carrier's own name.

5. Type the carrier's name

   Enter it as the carrier writes it, with no abbreviation of your own.

6. Enter the tracking number

   Copy the number from the label, exactly as printed.

7. Confirm the shipment

   Submit the confirmation to Amazon.

   You should see the order confirmed as shipped under the name you typed.

If it goes wrong

Confirmed is not the same as counted

Other gets the order confirmed. It does not make the number valid for the metric, because Valid Tracking Rate asks you to "Select carrier options that are integrated with Amazon". Those are two separate tests and passing one says nothing about the other.

The order will not confirm at all

During shipment confirmation Amazon may answer "Please enter a valid tracking ID to confirm shipment." Re-read the number off the label. Amazon validates "carrier name and tracking ID" for all seller-fulfilled orders and warns on invalid details.

Bulk files need the carrier twice

In the POST_FLAT_FILE_FULFILLMENT_DATA feed, carrier-code is required, and carrier-name is "optionally required when carrier-code is set to 'Other'". Leaving carrier-code out means you "will not be able to confirm shipments and can experience an increase in their late shipment rate (LSR) and an increase in automatically canceled orders due to unconfirmed shipments".

What happens next

Amazon publishes one exemption that matters here, and it is the reason this route exists: heavy or bulky items shipped by non-integrated carriers are exempt from Valid Tracking Rate. Outside that, a regional carrier entered as Other leaves the metric to carry the miss, and Valid Tracking Rate has to stay above 95% over a rolling 30 days (Amazon).

Below 95% in a category, Amazon says sellers "may face restrictions on their ability to sell non-FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) items in that category", so the cost of an unlisted carrier is measured a category at a time.