Amazon pending order: how long it takes, what you see and what to do

What a pending order on Amazon means

Amazon's Orders API describes the status in one sentence: "The order has been placed but payment has not been authorized." The next status, Unshipped, is defined as "Payment has been authorized and order is ready for shipment."

So a Pending order is a real order. The order id exists, the items and quantities are fixed, and a customer has clicked Buy. The only thing missing is the payment authorisation from the buyer's card issuer or bank. Until it arrives, Amazon keeps the order out of your workflow.

In Seller Central you find these orders under Orders, Manage Orders, with the status Pending. You will notice what is hidden: no buyer name or address, no order total and no button to confirm shipment. Seller Central has a short help page called Pending Orders, and the practical rule is simple: wait.

Why an order sits in Pending

The usual reason is a payment check that has not finished. The buyer's card issuer still needs to approve the charge, a slower payment method has not cleared, or Amazon is running its own checks on the payment. None of this is something you can influence, and none of it is a sign that something is wrong with your listing or your account.

How long does Amazon pending take?

Amazon's documentation on order reports gives the typical number: "the fulfillable date of an order is usually 30 minutes after the order has been created." That is why order reports run with up to a 30 minute delay, and why most Pending orders turn into Unshipped within about half an hour.

Usually is the key word. Amazon has said on its Seller Forum that an order can stay Pending for up to about three weeks in rare cases. In between are the orders that take hours, and on our account those are more common than the documentation suggests.

If a Pending order has been sitting for days, the honest answer is still: wait. Amazon will either authorise the payment and move the order to Unshipped, or cancel it. You do not have to do anything, and you cannot speed it up.

Order statuses from Pending to Shipped

The Orders API knows eight statuses: Pending, Unshipped, PartiallyShipped, Shipped, Canceled, Unfulfillable, InvoiceUnconfirmed and PendingAvailability. Four of them matter for almost every order you get.

PartiallyShipped means some items of a multi-item order are on their way. Unfulfillable, InvoiceUnconfirmed and PendingAvailability are rare, and Seller Central explains them when they appear.

No prices in Pending

Amazon's Orders API reference is explicit: "When an order is in the Pending state ... the getOrderItems operation does not return information about pricing, taxes, shipping charges, gift status or promotions." Seller Central shows you the same picture: a Pending order without an order total. Any tool that reports your revenue has to either wait for Unshipped or estimate. Your first Amazon sale is a good example: you see the order long before you see the money.

What to do with a pending order as a seller

1. Do not ship it. Payment is not authorised, and for FBM orders Amazon has not released the buyer's address to you yet.
2. Do not try to cancel it. You cannot act on a Pending order; only the buyer can cancel it, in the first 30 minutes after ordering. What happens after that is in cancelled orders from the seller's side.
3. Check your stock if you fulfil orders yourself, so you are ready the moment the status changes to Unshipped.
4. Leave it alone if it stays Pending for days. Amazon resolves it without you.
5. Count it as a sale for your morale, not for your books. Revenue only becomes reliable at Unshipped.

Pending orders and your sales notifications

This is the part that affects your day more than the status itself: when does anyone tell you about a new order?

The official Amazon Seller app does not push FBA orders at all. An Amazon employee wrote on the EU Seller Forum: "There are no SMS push notifications for FBA, only for FBM. You can get an email every 2 hours summarizing recent FBA orders shipped, but no email as FBA orders are made." More on that in what the Seller app does and does not notify.

Amazon's Selling Partner API also offers a push notification for order changes. In our measurements it does not fire for FBA orders while they are Pending; the first push arrives at a later status. So an app that only listens to Amazon's push learns about your sale when it becomes Unshipped, half an hour or several hours after the customer bought. Amazon itself recommends a backup: "As a best practice, we recommend that you have a means to retrieve needed information in the event of an unexpected outage or delay in notification delivery."

That is why Agent ChaChing checks your orders every minute and rings at the first status it sees, usually Pending. The alert shows the marketplace, the SKU, the quantity and an estimated amount marked with ≈, based on your average unit price for that SKU, in the marketplace currency: dollars on amazon.com, pounds on amazon.co.uk, euros on the EU sites. When Amazon releases the real amount, the app updates it silently. If the order is cancelled later, there is no second cha-ching; the day total is corrected. The alert usually arrives two to three minutes after the order is placed, often faster. How that compares with the alternatives is in how fast an Amazon order notification can be.

If you are a buyer

You probably searched for "why is my Amazon order pending" and landed here. Short version: Pending in Your Orders means Amazon is still confirming your payment. In most cases it clears on its own within about half an hour. If it takes longer, open the order in Your Orders and check the payment method. You can cancel the order yourself in the first 30 minutes after placing it. The seller cannot see your details yet and cannot speed anything up, so if the order stays pending for days, contact Amazon customer service rather than the seller.