Expired Orders
Avoid letting orders expire. An expired order is one that has been cancelled by Amazon because you have not fulfilled or confirmed shipment for an extended period of time after the order date. When you let an order expire, the result is an extremely poor buyer experience.
If expired orders are negatively affecting your seller rating, here are some steps you can take to help avoid them:
Do not rely on order confirmation e-mails. These can be accidentally deleted or blocked by your spam filter. Instead, check your orders in Manage Orders.
Fine-tune your fulfillment processes to ensure you do not lose track of orders.
Always cancel an order as soon as you know you will be unable to fulfill it. Buyers may be more forgiving if you cancel immediately rather than after the expected ship date. Follow up the cancellation with an apology to the buyer.
Set your listing status to inactive if you are going on vacation or are temporarily unable to manage your account for any reason.
Be prepared for an increase in order volume during key sales periods, such as the run-up to the holiday season. Learn more about Managing Orders.