Amazon have extended their Christmas deadlines and are confident that it’s not too late to order Christmas presents and they’ll get them delivered in time for the big day. They expect their biggest surge in last minute Christmas shopping ever, with sales between 20th and 24th December having increased by more than 300% over the last five years.
In response to customer demand, Amazon have extend Christmas delivery deadlines, enabling customers to order presents by 23:59 on Saturday 20th December for Free Super Saver Delivery.
Prime members within the M25 can order as late as 23:59 on Tuesday 23rd December at no extra cost for delivery on Christmas Eve. For last minute orders, customers can order as late as 9am on Christmas Eve and have items delivered that evening.
For sellers how have stock in Amazon FBA this is great news. If you’re thinking of turning off your sales operation at the end of this week or early next week make sure that you leave your FBA stock live. It’s not your problem to get it shipped and uphold the delivery promise, that’s down to Amazon so take the sales while you can.
“At Amazon, we’re committed to making shopping as easy and convenient as possible for our customers, particularly during the busy festive period,” commented Xavier Garambois, Vice President of EU Retail at Amazon. “With extensions to our last order deadlines and Christmas Eve Same-Day Delivery available in selected areas, customers still have time to order any outstanding gifts as well as festive essentials from Christmas crackers to bottles of Buck’s Fizz.”
The Amazon UK Christmas ordering deadlines
20th December
Free Super Saver Delivery (order as late as 23:59)
21st December
Standard Delivery (order as late as 18:00)
23rd December
One-Day Delivery (order as late as 23:59 within the M25) or Express Delivery for 1pm the Next Day (order as late as 7pm)
24th December
Same-Day Delivery (order as late as 9am in selected areas)
For last minute gifts
Email or print a Gift Card at any time
Visit amazon.co.uk/lastorders for details.
5 Responses
For the first time this year Amazon removed the ability to extend the Christmas cut off date for pre-Christmas delivery for third party sellers. In previous years we have been able to set the date that the ‘arrives by Christmas’ message showed on listings until. So they have used the standard 2 days handling plus 3-5 days for delivery to calculate meaning since Wed 17th it has said ‘may arrive after Christmas’ on listings so losing us two days of Christmas selling. Again Amazon penalising non FBA sellers.
Hi
I agree that being able to manage your own Cut off to suit your business was a massive plus point, it is a shame to see this go this year, i am sure we may have lost out on sales. It also leaves us having to pick up lots of emails from customers who ask to cancel or are begging for pre christmas delivery.
On the flip side you have ebay who are generally happy to over promise and practically guarantee Royal Mail 48 will arrive in 2-3 days on the sellers behalf, leaving the seller to deal with the complaints. I know you can adjust your dispatch time but you get penalised for that in best match, Amazon give more time for free delivery without us being moved down the search results.
In many ways i prefer Amazon’s approach of slightly under promising so that generally we can over deliver than ebay’s over promising tactics.
Wish ebay had an app allowing sellers to design banner headlines for their own Christmas cut off dates and other relevant promo info.