What is a Pending Order on Amazon Seller Central?

The uninterrupted sale of physical and digital products is a sign of a healthy Amazon business. Sometimes though, for various—and often unexplainable—reasons, the status of your customer orders may change to pending or canceled, disrupting sales flow. 

Failing to act soon could result in reduced profits or negative seller feedback!

Fortunately for you, order-related issues are easy to fix. 

So, what is a pending order on Amazon seller central? Read on to know the answer to that and other order-related issues that may pop up in the future!

What Does Pending Order in Amazon Seller Central Mean?

Orders become ‘pending’ following a successful add-to-cart and checkout process. Amazon keeps orders on hold for 30 minutes to allow buyers enough time to cancel the order (Buyer-canceled orders appear in Manage Orders and are grayed-out, i.e., non-actionable). 

The most common reason for pending orders is authorization; Amazon wants to verify buyers’ credit card details and pushes orders into pending status for a while. The process usually takes around a few minutes but could drag on for as long as 21 days. If the order status remains pending for more than an hour, contact Amazon customer support.

As soon as the buyer’s order details are verified, the order status will change to Unshipped (i.e., ready to be shipped out).

Additional reasons for why orders go into pending include:

1. Amazon is preparing your product for an FBA customer
2. An FBA order is pending if it’s for multiple items, but one or more items are out of stock. Amazon could split the order and ship out available products if it wants to.

There’s a good chance that your order status switches to pending during popular holidays like Christmas and Black Friday – bear with it as Amazon is currently dealing with the extra load and is trying its best to ship products to its customers on time.

Note that you won’t be able to ship out a product until its status changes from pending to unshipped.

Where Can I Find Pending Orders in Amazon Seller Central?

Pending orders appear on the Manage Orders page, not the Orders or Unshipped Orders report. The order is grayed out, meaning that you won’t be able to click confirm or cancel. 

Also, suppose there was only one unit left in your inventory when the order was placed. In that case, your listing will disappear from the Amazon offer page until more stock arrives at a fulfillment center. 

How to Resolve Orders that are Pending on Amazon?

Pending orders are a regular occurrence on Amazon. The problem arises if the pending status persists for more than half an hour. The best course of action is to contact Amazon and ask for more information.

Amazon instructs sellers not to ship out pending orders even if at buyers’ request. Instead, you could ask your customers to contact Amazon customer service for more information. Amazon can later remove any negative feedback from refusing to ship out pending orders.

Can I Cancel a Pending Order on Amazon?

Buyers have 30 minutes to cancel their orders, but sellers can do so until they ship out the product. To cancel an order, head over to Manage Orders and select Cancel Order in the Action column. After mentioning the reason for cancellation, click Submit. Once an order is canceled, the buyer receives an e-mail notification from Amazon. 

Professional sellers can cancel multiple orders using the Order Cancellation file. But be wary; Non-standard cancellation of one or more products negatively affects your seller metrics and puts your seller privileges at risk. 

Non-standard cancellations are not initiated by the customer and include instances like:

1. Order cancellation because the item went out of stock
2. Order cancellation because of an undeliverable address
3. Order cancellation due to an unresponsive buyer
4. Auto cancellation, i.e., Amazon cancels the order because seven days have passed since the expected shipping availability date and the seller did not ship the product.

Seller metrics are not affected by standard cancellation requests, a fraudulent buyer, or in case of a payment verification failure.

Conclusion – Change Pending Status to Unshipped

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