Shipping Templates Details

Shipping Templates are the new method provided by Amazon for setting shipping rates in Seller Central. The following applies to ALL sellers of merchant fulfilled items. i.e. Sellers of BMVD (Books, Music, CDs, Videos and DVDs) and non-BMVD (i.e. everything else) products. For sellers of BMVD products, this will be a major change. This only applies to merchant fulfilled items and does not impact FBA inventory.

While it may seem that there are a lot of changes happening (both at Amazon and on AMan), once you get familiar with shipping templates on Seller Central, this will actually become quite simple. Our recommended procedure for migrating is below.

Other pages related to this topic (also accessible via our Support page):

Our recommended procedure for migrating is below.

Very Important: Once you have converted to shipping templates, you should generate and import an open listing report (using Amazon Reports->Generate Open Listings Report) on EVERY copy of AMan. If this is not done, AMan will not be aware that you are using shipping templates or know of the templates created on your account.

Configuring AMan to use Shipping Templates:

AMan is unaware of any newly created shipping templates until at least one item is assigned to that shipping template. There are two ways to do this with AMan:

  1. Typing into List an Item with AMan:
    • Using List an Item, create a new listing using the new shipping template – the shipping template name will need to be typed in.
    • Click on Inventory Management Menu->Listing/Pending Tasks->Force Queued Uploads to force AMan to immediately list the item .
    • Restart List an Item and the shipping template should appear in the pull-down list.
  2. Using Seller Central:
    • NOTE: Because it may take quite some time (often many minutes or over an hour) for Amazon to update open listings reports, it may take a long time for the shipping template to appear in AMan and you may have to generate the report multiple times.
    • Add a new listing or modify an item on Seller Central so that at least one item uses the new shipping template.
    • After some time, generate and import an Open Listings Report on AMan (using Amazon Reports->Generate Open Listings Report).
    • AMan will now be aware of the new shipping template.
       

Changes to AMan to support Shipping Templates:

  • When using List an Item to list or modify inventory, the Shipping Template for the item must be selected from the pull down list (populated from the shipping templates obtained from the Open Listings Report) or typed in the area provided. The shipping template section replaces the section where BMVD shipping options (Expedited etc.) could previously be specified).
  • List an Item may be configured to always start with a specified shipping template by:
    • Select or type the shipping template you wish to use when List an Item starts.
    • Click on 'Set as default'
       
  • List an Item named settings will now store the shipping template name. Initially that will be blank. You will need to add the shipping template to any named settings by doing the following:
    • Use 'Load setting' to load the named setting.
    • Select or type the shipping template you wish to use with the named setting.
    • Click on 'Save setting' to save the named setting.
       
  • For Add New Inventory Wizard, the shipping templates for the SKUs in the input file may be specified in one of two ways:
    • A column in the input file may be mapped to the AMan column of ShipTemplate. This column must contain the name of a valid, non-blank shipping template for each SKU.
    • Alternatively, a Shipping Template may be selected towards the end of the dialog which will apply to all SKUs in the input file. By default the Shipping Template selected as default in List an Item (see above) will be selected.
       
  • To use AMan to change the shipping template on one or more items with AMan, please do the following:
    • Have the items that require changing in Pending Uploads.
    • Select the items in Pending Uploads.
    • Right click on the Pending Uploads grid.
    • Select Change Shipping Options->Change Shipping Template for Selected.
    • Type the shipping template name.
    • Select the items in Pending Uploads.
    • Click on Upload to Amazon->Upload Shipping Methods + Prices.
       
  • Upload New/Modified, Purge/Replace and Shipping Options will require that the shipping template is non-blank for all items in the upload.
     
  • Active Listing and Pending Listings display have an additional column 'ShipTemplate' which is the shipping template assigned to a SKU. This column may be used to sort and in the Filter bar.
     
  • Display (Active) Listings with AMan Fields and Export (Active) Listings with AMan Fields will contain the shipping template for each SKU.
     
  • When exporting inventory data from one copy of AMan for use in the same or other copy of AMan, it will be necessary to export the ShipTemplate field in addition to fields that you currently export. When importing that data using Add New Inventory Data Wizard or Merge Inventory Data Wizard, it will be necessary to map the ShipTemplate column. This will require changing named maps used prior to shipping templates.
     
  • Please review BMVD Items and Shipping Templates for changes in AMan specific to BMVD inventory.
     

Recommended procedure for converting to using shipping templates:

Note: If you have already migrated to shipping templates, skip to step B.

  1. Steps to migrate on Amazon Seller Central:
    1. If you have received an email from Amazon stating that your shipping settings will be migrated automatically in the future, we strongly recommend that you manually migrate as, by doing so, you have a lot more control.
    2. Place your account on vacation.
    3. Allow at least 30 minutes for the vacation status to completely change.
    4. Visit https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/shipping/dispatch.html (US) and https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/sbr/introduction (UK) - Logon to Seller Central will be required - to perform the migration.
    5. If you use shipping overrides, you should take the opportunity to generate the overrides report when offered as shipping overrides are not migrated.
    6. Once complete, you will have at least one shipping template called Migrated Template which, by default, will be used when listing new inventory on Amazon. If you sell BMVD products, you will have four more shipping templates (one for each of the BMVD categories). These will be used for your existing BMVD products (see BMVD Items and Shipping Templates for more details).
    7. Each of your items will be assigned to one of the shipping templates created by Amazon.
    8. The templates will need to reviewed to ensure that they meet your business requirements. Since only one template is created for each of BMVD and all other product categories, it may be necessary to edit and/or create templates.
      Important: Since the shipping options (Expedited International etc.) you will be providing customers are specified in the shipping templates, it is very important that you verify that the values configured in your shipping templates are correct.
      For BMVD sellers this is especially important as (for instance) you may not have offered Expedited and/or International on heavy books. Since there is only one shipping templates for all of your books, you may need to create extra shipping templates for your heavy items.
    9. If you create one or more shipping templates, you should assign those templates to at least one of your active SKUs using Manage Inventory. This will ensure that AMan is aware of the newly created shipping templates when completing B below.
    10. Once you are satisfied with your shipping templates, you should allow at least an hour to pass to ensure that your shipping templates have been synced on all Amazon servers.
       
  2. Steps to follow in AMan once migrated to shipping templates:
    1. Generate and import an Open Listings Report on ALL copies of AMan to ensure that AMan is aware of the templates used on Seller Central. Please make sure that you are prompted by AMan that it has detected that you are using shipping templates. If not, this means that Amazon has not yet synced all servers or that you have not activated shipping templates. You will need to retry again later.
    2. If you wish to change the shipping templates assigned to some or all SKUs, please use the procedure detailed above.
    3. If you use List an Item, you should set the default shipping template using the procedure above.
    4. If you sell BMVD products, please follow the steps in BMVD Items and Shipping Templates .
    5. If you have changed the shipping rates for products, you should review your MinPrice, MaxPrice and Cost values if used for repricing in AMan. These may be instantly updated in the Active Listings display.
       
  3. Making the shipping templates live:
    1. Take you Amazon account off vacation on Seller Central.
    2. If you use AMan for repricing, you should either start automatic repricing or manually price using Price Active and then Upload Prices Only.
    3. For the next few days, orders should be monitored to verify that the correct shipping rates are being charged to your customers.
    4. If you change the shipping rates on any shipping template on Seller Central or you change the shipping templates assigned to SKUs and you use AMan for repricing, it is very important that you immediately run a Price Active to allow AMan to pick up the new shipping rates and price accordingly. Once complete, you should then use Upload Prices Only to cement the changes both in AMan and Amazon.

Very Important: Once you have converted to shipping templates, you should generate and import an open listing report (using Amazon Reports->Generate Open Listings Report) on EVERY copy of AMan. If this is not done, AMan will not know of the templates created on your account.

 


image
 image