Overview

Amazon requires sellers to meet specific minimum criteria when setting up shipping templates in Seller Central. These rules govern which shipping speeds you must offer, where you need to ship, how you set your rates, and how you handle different address types. Understanding these requirements upfront helps you avoid error messages and ensures your listings remain active and buyable across the marketplace.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Standard shipping is mandatory — Every shipping template you create must include at least a standard shipping option, regardless of what other speeds you offer.
• Two-day templates require standard shipping too — If you set up a template that offers two-day delivery, you must also include standard shipping within that same template.
• Continental U.S. coverage is required — Your standard shipping option must cover all states in the continental United States. Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. protectorates may be excluded.
• Rates must be uniform across regions — You cannot charge different standard shipping rates for different regions within the continental U.S.
• P.O. box shipping is optional, street addresses are not — You can choose not to ship to post office boxes, but you must offer shipping to all street addresses in your covered regions.
• No rate variation by address type — You cannot set different shipping prices based on whether the destination is a street address or a P.O. box.

Shipping Speed Requirements

Amazon's shipping template system is built around standard shipping as the baseline. Every template must include a standard shipping option — there is no way around this requirement. If you want to offer expedited options such as two-day delivery, that is permitted, but it must be layered on top of standard shipping rather than replacing it. This ensures that every buyer has access to at least one affordable delivery option on every listing tied to your template. Sellers who attempt to create a template with only expedited shipping will receive an error message and the template will not save.

Regional Coverage Rules