Amazon Deferred Transactions: How DD+7 changes payout timing

Amazon’s DD+7 (delivery date plus seven days) reserve model changes when Amazon Marketplace sellers receive funds from completed orders. Instead of releasing payment after an order ships, Amazon releases funds seven days after delivery is confirmed.

That shift turns delivery timing into a cash flow variable. What was once an operational milestone now determines when revenue becomes available.

For teams managing inventory purchases, payroll, advertising spend, or working capital, the effect compounds quickly. A shipment that takes five days to deliver pushes payout twelve days from ship date rather than being tied primarily to shipment activity. At scale, those additional days accumulate across hundreds or thousands of orders in transit.

Whether DD+7 becomes a manageable adjustment or an ongoing source of friction depends on how delivery confirmation is handled across finance and operations systems.

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Amazon’s delivery-based reserve model

Amazon’s deferred transaction policy reflects a shift in how fulfillment completion is defined. Settlement timing is no longer anchored to shipment creation, but to delivery outcomes and the customer’s experience of the order.

What are Amazon deferred transactions?

Amazon deferred transactions place seller funds in reserve until fulfillment conditions are met. Rather than releasing funds when an order ships or enters the carrier network, Amazon holds payment until delivery is confirmed and the reserve period clears.

During that window, funds remain unavailable for inventory replenishment, operational expenses, or cash planning. Fulfillment may be complete, but access to revenue is temporarily restricted.

DD+7 formalizes this model by tying payout eligibility to delivery outcomes instead of shipment creation.

How DD+7 changes payout timing

Under earlier payout models, sellers could forecast disbursements once tracking information was uploaded and the carrier accepted the package. Shipment creation effectively started the clock.

DD+7 changes the trigger. Delivery confirmation starts the seven-day reserve period, not the ship date. Every additional day a package remains in transit extends the time funds stay reserved.

Transit time variability now directly affects cash availability. Two sellers shipping similar volumes can experience materially different cash positions based solely on delivery performance and confirmation timing.

Why payouts depend on delivery

Amazon’s reserve model is designed to keep funds available until fulfillment is complete. Holding payments through delivery confirmation provides coverage for refunds, claims, or chargebacks before funds are released.

This approach aligns settlement timing with the customer’s experience of the order rather than internal shipping milestones. Once delivery becomes the trigger for payout eligibility, transit time and delivery confirmation shift from operational signals into financial ones, and sellers have more incentive to use faster shipping methods.

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How DD+7 changes cash flow dynamics

With delivery as the financial trigger, payout timing becomes more variable. Cash availability now depends on factors that sit between fulfillment execution and confirmation, in addition to a 7 day waiting period.

This variability does not exist under shipment-based models, even when order volume and fulfillment performance remain stable.

Payout reserves

When DD+7 is first applied, it is common for sellers to see most or all funds held in reserve temporarily.

This occurs because reserve balances are calculated based on the volume of open orders that have yet to be delivered, as well as orders that have been delivered and are sitting within the reserve window. Until deliveries begin clearing this rolling period, deferred transactions accumulate.

This pattern reflects how the reserve is calculated. Funds begin releasing on a rolling basis as deliveries clear the reserve window.

Delivery variability

Amazon determines delivery dates using available tracking data. When valid tracking is provided through an integrated carrier, Amazon uses the actual delivery date. When delivery confirmation is delayed or unavailable, payout timing can be affected until Amazon resolves delivery status using its internal validation processes.

Even with valid tracking, confirmation timing is not uniform. Some deliveries are scanned immediately, while others are batch scanned later. Weather events, missed scans, or network disruptions add variability.

Tying payouts to delivery confirmation makes forecasting harder when delivery data is fragmented across carrier systems.

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When delivery becomes a financial constraint

As payout eligibility moves downstream, delivery confirmation begins influencing decisions beyond accounting. What happens in transit now shapes operational priorities, not just reporting timelines.

How DD+7 reserves impact decision-making

Delivery-based reserves influence more than payout timing. They shape how teams make day-to-day operating decisions.

As funds remain held through the reserve window, available cash tightens. Teams may slow inventory replenishment, adjust advertising spend, or reprioritize shipments. Some also introduce logistics financing to bridge the gap created by delivery-based reserves, allowing execution to continue while funds remain unavailable.

The common constraint across these decisions is predictability. Variability in delivery confirmation timing across carriers and lanes makes it harder to forecast when funds will be released and how much capital will be available. The challenge is not execution, but visibility into when delivery outcomes convert into usable cash.

Predictability over speed

DD+7 shifts attention away from how fast packages move and toward how consistently delivery outcomes can be anticipated.

Inconsistent confirmation timing turns forecasting into guesswork, even when fulfillment performance is strong. Teams are forced to plan around ranges and buffers instead of clear release dates.

Predictable delivery signals support deliberate decisions. Inconsistent signals create hesitation and reactive adjustments.

Where shipment-based workflows break

Processes designed around shipment events struggle when delivery confirmation controls cash flow.

Manual carrier checks do not scale. Spreadsheet tracking becomes a bottleneck. Systems referencing different delivery timestamps produce conflicting projections.

Without delivery confirmation integrated into systems, reconciliation becomes reactive instead of routine.

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Why reporting and workarounds fall short

Delivery-based reserves introduce requirements that many existing tools were not designed to support.

Limitations of marketplace reporting

Amazon’s Payments Dashboard provides visibility into deferred transactions, but the data is designed for review, not integration.

Delivery and reserve data is accessible through dashboards and downloadable reports, but exports are manual and formats vary. These views are not built to feed reconciliation or forecasting systems directly.

Manual checks and cash buffers

Some teams respond to DD+7 by increasing cash buffers or reducing spend. These steps can relieve pressure temporarily. What they do not resolve is visibility.

Without consistent delivery confirmation flowing into financial systems, forecasts remain estimates. Buffers are consumed unevenly. Decisions are made with partial information.

Delivery-based payouts require delivery-based inputs. Financial workarounds without delivery visibility address symptoms, not the constraint.

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Preparing for delivery-based payouts

Delivery-based settlement changes what data matters, not which systems are required. The shift centers on making delivery confirmation available wherever financial decisions are made.

Mapping delivery triggers

Start by identifying workflows that depend on shipment dates and mapping where delivery confirmation will replace those triggers. This reveals which steps rely on manual checks or marketplace exports.

Making delivery a shared input

Evaluate how delivery data is accessed today. Teams that rely on carrier portals or dashboards often encounter delays as volume grows under delivery-based reserves.

Delivery confirmation needs to flow into finance, operations, and reporting tools as a shared input rather than a manually retrieved reference.

Preparing before DD+7 applies broadly

Testing delivery data integration with a subset of shipments helps validate consistency before DD+7 applies broadly.

Referencing a shared delivery signal across systems restores predictability to payout timing. The goal is alignment, not overhaul.

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How ShipWise supports DD+7 workflows

Delivery-based payouts depend on delivery data that is consistent, accessible, and system-ready. That requirement sits at the center of how ShipWise supports DD+7 workflows.

Access to  multi-carrier data via one API

ShipWise captures delivery status and delivery dates based on carrier-reported events. The API returns delivery data in a consistent format across carriers, allowing finance systems to retrieve shipment-level delivery status without manual intervention.

Delivery event tracking via webhooks

ShipWise webhooks push delivery events as they occur. When a shipment is marked delivered, internal systems instantly update automatically.

This enables reconciliation, forecasting, and reporting workflows to operate on delivery confirmation rather than manual checks.

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What this shift signals

Delivery-based reserves point to a broader shift in how marketplaces manage settlement and risk. As delivery outcomes carry more financial weight, the systems that track and interpret them become part of core infrastructure.

Teams that adapt most effectively treat delivery data as a shared system input rather than isolated context. When delivery events are consumed programmatically, timestamps stay consistent across tools, and financial workflows trigger on confirmation instead of manual review.

DD+7 does not require rebuilding existing systems. It requires alignment around delivery data. Through the ShipWise API, delivery events can be consumed programmatically and applied directly to reconciliation, forecasting, and reporting workflows.

Building delivery outcomes into system architecture makes reserve periods manageable and restores predictability to payout timing.

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