Overview

Amazon maintains specific requirements for carriers that deliver shipments to its fulfillment centers. Understanding these rules is essential for FBA sellers who rely on third-party carriers to transport inventory, as non-compliance can lead to shipment delays, refused deliveries, and additional fees. This reference covers the carrier performance metrics Amazon tracks, how the prepaid carrier list works, and what sellers should consider when choosing a delivery partner.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Carrier performance is actively tracked — Amazon measures several key metrics for every carrier delivering to its fulfillment centers, including appointment accuracy, on-time arrival rates, late arrival percentages, and no-show rates.
• A prepaid carrier list is published — Amazon maintains a downloadable list of prepaid carriers approved to deliver to fulfillment centers, ranked by volume and performance criteria.
• You are not limited to listed carriers — The prepaid carrier list is not exhaustive. Sellers may choose any carrier, whether or not it appears on the published list.
• Carrier eligibility has minimum thresholds — To appear on the list, carriers must meet requirements around delivery volume, US Department of Transportation registration, and operating history.
• Ongoing evaluation is recommended — Amazon advises sellers to continually assess their chosen carriers rather than assuming past performance guarantees future reliability.

How Amazon Measures Carrier Performance

Amazon evaluates carrier reliability using four core metrics calculated over a rolling eight-week period. Appointment accuracy (also called first pass yield) measures the percentage of scheduled appointments that proceed without carrier-initiated changes — essentially, how often a carrier keeps its original commitment. On-time arrival tracks the percentage of appointments where the carrier arrives within 30 minutes of the scheduled time. Late arrival captures deliveries that show up more than 30 minutes past the expected appointment window. Finally, the reflects appointments that are deleted after the carrier fails to arrive within 60 minutes of the expected time. Together, these metrics give Amazon and sellers a clear picture of how dependable a given carrier is for fulfillment center deliveries.