Every year e-commerce sales are at an all-time high during November and December. This is largely driven by Christmas shopping, alongside retail events such as Black Friday and Cyber week.

Q4 always presents a variety of challenges for eCommerce sellers. Whether it’s ensuring your website can handle the traffic spikes, getting stock manufactured or fulfilling orders on time. Read on to find out what we learned from last year's peak and what you need to do to ensure your customers have a good shopping experience this year.

While we prepare for peak, there are a few tools that we would like to highlight in order to alleviate support pressure and answer some of the most common questions.

Where Is My Order? 

It’s not just the warehouses that struggle during peak, parcel carriers find it difficult to keep up with demand and struggle to collect on time throughout peak.

New SLA Times

We would like to let you know that our SLA times across multiple processes will be increased for the months of November and December. The Peak Season start date is the 1st of November 2022 until the 10th of January 2023. In addition, the carriers have also increased their delivery SLAs accordingly. Please see below the changes:

Bezos:

*Days: Working days (Monday to Friday)

Carriers:

*Days: Working days (Monday to Friday)

Customer Support:

*Hours: 09:00 am to 17:00 pm (Monday to Friday)

Reducing Error by Using the New ON HOLD Feature

What is the “ON HOLD” feature?

This feature will automatically hold all orders for 1 hour once they have been sent to Bezos, before sending the order to the warehouse to be picked and packed.

However, if the order is received within 1 hour of the cut-off time we will instantly send the order to the warehouse to ensure it is despatched before the cut-off. Therefore your cut-off time will remain the same when this feature is turned on.

You will be able to see orders that are on hold by going to the seller portal and looking for orders with the warehouse status “ON HOLD”.

By holding the orders you will now be able to go onto the seller portal to edit any information or cancel the order within 1 hour of the order being created.

View & Request Proof of Deliveries in the Seller Portal

We have added the following buttons to the order actions and order details page:

• View Proof of Delivery:
  This is for orders that are delivered from the following couriers Royal Mail, Hermes, DPD and DHL. When clicked this will take them to the couriers tracking page where you can view the Proof of Delivery online.

• Request Proof of Delivery:
  This is for orders that are delivered from the following courier's Yodel, Parcelforce. When clicked it will automatically request the Bezos team to get proof of delivery from the courier as they aren't available online. The Bezos team will follow up by email with the proof of delivery.

Order Cancellation

Bezos sellers can automatically cancel orders that have not been sent to the warehouse. If an order has been sent to the warehouse, Bezos sellers can request a cancellation through the Seller Portal and the Bezos Ops team will do their best to cancel the order, however, this is not guaranteed.

How to Cancel an Order

1. Go to the Orders details page of the order you want to cancel in your Bezos Seller Portal

2. In the top right corner click the “Cancel Order” button.

If the order has been despatched, the “Cancel Order” button will be greyed out and we are unfortunately unable to cancel the order.

3. If the order hasn’t been sent to the warehouse then you will be presented with a pop-up that informs you that your order has been successfully cancelled.

Note: It will take a few minutes for the status on the order summary to update

4. If the order has been sent to the warehouse then you will be presented with a pop-up that informs you that you can request a cancellation.

Once you request a cancellation, a request will be raised with the warehouse team to see if the order can be cancelled. You will be notified of the outcome of the cancellation.

Note: if an order has been despatched then you cannot request a cancellation.

Why can’t I cancel/modify some orders?

When an order is sent to the warehouse, and the products haven't been picked and packed, we are able to cancel/modify it. However, sometimes the order has been already packed and placed in the courier collection area and that is why we are unable to make any changes to the order.

Returns

During the peak, returns will not be processed immediately as there are often high quantities of orders being sent back. The returns process requires hands-on work unpacking, checking and restocking items which are normally completed within 72 hours from when the return arrives back. However, during peak, this can take up to 5 days as the warehouse team will be focusing on despatching your orders on time.

Goods In

During the peak period last year, our warehouses needed to prioritise picking and packing orders to get everything despatched on time.

To ensure your products are ready to go so that you don’t miss out on any sales, it is best to forecast your order volume for October, November and December. Getting your stock in the warehouse ahead of time will reduce the chance of any errors or delays. Avoid customer disappointment and submit your forecasts using this link.

To get your stock ready as fast as possible and reduce errors it is best practice to ensure that your suppliers send different SKUs in different cartons.

Warehouse Closure Dates

We would like to share with you the confirmed warehouse closure dates during December and January 2022. If there is any updates to these dates, we will inform you immediately. 

You can also find all the details in this link here, which will be constantly updated.

UK-OGDBD2

UK-DHLNN6

DE-DAT90574

UK-CLOPO1

*Evri will have the last collection on Friday, 21st December.

UK-AIRTW4

UK-OCFSN5