Best Practices for Handling MCF Lead Times

Issue

When using MCF for your NON-Amazon marketplaces, the lead times (also referred to as dispatch time) set on your NON-Amazon marketplaces can conflict with Amazon's shipping time.

Example

You have your lead time for eBay set to 1 day. A client orders a product from you and selects standard delivery. eBay will expect that order to be shipped out after 1 day, and the product will be delivered roughly 3-7 days after that. For Amazon, standard shipping method is 4-5 days (for the U.S.). Amazon will get that product to the buyer within 4-5 days, which meets eBay's requirements of when the product should be delivered. However, what is important to note, is that Amazon does not respect the 1 day lead time that is set in eBay. Since Amazon has fulfillment centers all across the U.S., they can ship product incredibly quickly. So they may wait 2-3 days before they actually ship the product, and then deliver it to the client in 2 days.

The issue here is the disconnect of eBay and Amazon's lead times. eBay will ding you for not adhering to your set lead time, even though the product was still delivered on time. 

Solution A

Set your lead time in the NON-Amazon marketplace to take into account this difference.  

Solution B

If you want to keep your lead time low, offer expedited shipping only for your NON-Amazon marketplace. This will ensure that Amazon ships those orders out at a much quicker pace, meeting that lead time for the NON-Amazon marketplace.

Additionally, Listing Mirror has the capability to set all of your incoming NON-Amazon marketplace orders to have expedited or priority shipping. So Amazon will see these MCF orders has expedited, even if the buyer chose Standard on the NON-Amazon marketplace.