FAQs on Valid Tracking Rate policy in UK

#1

Dear Selling Partners,

We would like to provide additional information regarding the new requirements and shipment confirmation and valid tracking rate.

As a reminder, from 19 April 2021, we will require you to do the following:

  • Provide the following information during Ship Confirm:

  1. The name of the shipping service provider and the specific delivery service used for all merchant fulfilled orders; and

  2. The tracking ID for merchant fulfilled orders that are shipped with a tracked ship method or the unique parcel ID (located above the 2D barcode on the label) in case you use the Royal Mail 24ÂŽ or Royal Mail 48ÂŽ ship methods.

  • Reach a 95% VTR on your domestic shipments through Amazon.co.uk over a rolling 30-day period (that is if you ship from an address in the UK to a delivery address in the UK)
    We will measure the VTR for merchant fulfilled shipments at a category level. VTR will be measured on all domestic shipments shipped through integrated shipping service providers where Amazon receives scan information.

FAQs

  1. Are scan events provided for Royal Mail 24ÂŽ, Royal 48ÂŽ, Royal Mail 1st Class and Royal Mail 2nd Class?
    Yes, if you are using a Royal Mail 24ÂŽ/48ÂŽ/1st Class/ 2nd Class product that offers a delivery confirmation then Amazon will receive this once the product is scanned on delivery. This will provide visibility to Selling Partners, Customers and Amazon of delivery. If you are using one of these products without a barcode, please ensure you contact your Royal Mail account manager, or contact Royal Mail here, to set up these services. You will not be able to confirm shipment of an order using a Royal Mail 24ÂŽ/48ÂŽ/1st Class/2nd Class delivery method unless you provide the parcel ID.

  2. Are Royal Mail 1st / 2nd class stamps considered for VTR?
    Postage stamps are not a tracked service, if you are shipping your shipments using an untracked ship method you are not required to provide us a tracking ID for domestic and cross-border shipments.

  3. What happens if my shipping service provider fails to scan my packages meaning I miss ‘VTR’ for a product?

  • The first thing to do is engage directly with your shipping service provider to try and find a resolution with them. You should also review your labels to ensure you’re using the right ship method and that labels are being printed correctly.
  • You can also consider using Buy Shipping, which allows you to buy shipping labels through the Seller Central interface. With Buy Shipping, the shipping service provider, ship method and tracking ID are automatically provided by shipping services provider to Amazon and all tracking IDs received by Amazon through Buy Shipping are considered valid. In the UK, we currently have DPD, Hermes, Amazon Shipping and Royal Mail ship methods available. You can access Amazon negotiated rate cards or, for Royal Mail, you can link your accounts to benefit from your own rates. For more details on how to use Buy Shipping please visit this help page: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/help.html?itemID=G200202220.
  1. If my shipments do not reach 95% VTR in a category, when will I be suspended?
    You are expected to meet 95% VTR from 19 April, meaning we will review the first 30 days’ delivery performance on 19 May 2021. From May 19, you may receive an email notification if your VTR does not meet the 95% bar at category level in the last 30 days. The impacted selection may be suspended in the category level if the 95% bar in the last 30 days is not met. To reinstate suspended selection, you will need to submit a plan of action, which will need to be approved.
Clarification of Jessica's VTR faq
Is CRL bought through Buy Shipping automatically VTR compliant?
Moderators please, please clarify
Buying 1st/2nd class large letter Royal Mail directly through Amazon is now not valid for VTR?
I have one question that no one has answered, why can I not buy 1st/2nd class RM non-tracked through Amazon?
Buying 1st/2nd class large letter Royal Mail directly through Amazon is now not valid for VTR?
VTR Rollout - Is it now safe to come out from behind the sofa?
#2

How should this be entered correctly to ensure it is not included in the VTR metric?

#3

The question that has been asked a 1001 times the last few weeks is still not answered. Shake head!

#4

Just to be clear is it valid at the point of purchase or does there need to be a scan at some point. i.e. can it be mailed in a post box or will it need to be scanned at the Post Office or on delivery.

#5

It also states ‘You will not be able to confirm shipment of an order using a Royal Mail 24®/48®/1st Class/2nd Class delivery method unless you provide the parcel ID.’

But you can at present confirm shipment on at least 2nd class delivery. No warnings come up either when you dispatch this way.

2nd class stamps - please, what boxes do we tick and use. GRHHHH

#6

This is the million $$$ question

#7

Same question here - we need to switch to 2nd Class Stamps as we would need to integrate our existing system into Buy Shipping while bypassing our existing Royal Mail integration but no idea how to mark it correclt!

#8

All my products are sent with 2nd Class stamps. I have been using Royal Mail as the carrier and 2nd class as the shipping with no tracking number. My VTR is now 0% and showing a warning (!)

Looks like from 19th May, since all my products are in the same category, I will be banned.

#9

This is exactly the answer I’m looking for, too. I even tested marking orders off manually through Amazon (we normally use a third party system), and used the RM carrier and Royal Mail 2nd Class as the service, and our VTR has actually got lower, so RM > RM 2nd Class service doesn’t seem to register that as standard, untracked 2nd Class. It looks like the only way to not get hit with this, is to use “other” > “Royal Mail” > “Royal Mail 2nd Class”. This may not be correct, as there is a delay with the reports so I’m not able to see yet, but I honestly can’t see another option to use.

#10

I’m not sure if this will help, as we’ve only started doing it this week, but we’re manually marking off orders on Amazon, and not using our third party system anymore, but instead of selected Royal Mail as the carrier and 2nd Class as the service, we’re selecting “other” carrier, then typing “Royal Mail”, and then typing Royal Mail 2nd Class as the service. I’m unable to see if this is helping right now, as there’s a delay with the reports, but if you have been using the drop down boxes to enter the fields, maybe try what I said and see if your VTR rises at all. It would be great if you could keep me updated!

#11

The trouble with experimenting to see what works is the data results don’t come in for a couple of weeks.

#12

Exactly. This is why I’m not sure myself on if doing it this way will work. It’s bloody silly that they put that question in the FAQ’s, but then don’t say how you should mark those orders off. I’ve been marking all our orders manually, and selecting RM carrier, and RM 2nd Class service, and our metrics are going down, so that can’t be the correct option to select, unless there system is broken. I’m just gonna have to wait a couple of weeks to pinpoint the problem.

#13

Beggars belief! The ONE Q 90% of us all want answered, STILL not CLEARLY answered. #sigh

#14

90%? It’s at least 95% - that magical figure

#15

Your metric may be going down, but is your “Number of non-exempted shipments:” going down?
That’s the main one.

Your exempt shipments can go down, but because of the way VTR is calculated, your VTR can also fluctuate up AND down at the moment as we work through the timescales for when things were changed/reporting periods/etc.

#16

Hello Jessica

Thank you for this clarification.

I send everything 2nd class at the Post Office with them applying their postage labels - as far as I can tell untracked by Amazon’s definition

Over the past week my VTR data page has updated from ca 50 non-exempted shipments to 1 (and 0 validly tracked) and all Delivered.

That order {Moderator Edit (Jessica) order ID removed} has a latest delivery date within the current scanning window (i.e. 19th March) and is, like most of the others a Large Letter posted at the Post office without tracking and should, I think, be exempted, but appears on the Non-Exempted Shipments report

As a result my VTR is 0%, when perhaps it should be N/A

Is there anything I can do to correct this anomalous item?

Thank you

Brian

#17

Thanks for responding Jessica, but what you have quoted we all know and have read many, many times, but that still does not accurately answer the very specific questions about HOW to manually enter the confirm shipment boxes for untracked methods so that they are seen as exempt for VTR calculations.

Also, we need an answer or solution for non-tracked postage labels bought via ‘Buy Shipping’ . These are currently being counted as invalid and included in the VTR calculation, hence VTR is at 0%, yet the exact same non-tracked postage bought off site, either C&D or at a PO, and shipment manually confirmed are exempt and not negatively impacting VTR.

If Amazon can recognise manually confirmed shipments of non-tracked items sent 1st/2ndclass as being exempt, then why can the same services purchased via Buy Shipping not be recognised as exempt also ?
There appears to be an integrated link missing from ‘Buy Shipping’ to register as exempt.
Why would Amazon encourage us to use their own ‘Buy Shipping’ but then not link it correctly and register as invalid ?

#18

Thank you Jessica but what do we select / enter in the drop down menu to show that we have used stamps with no tracking to avoid a detrimental effect to our VTR rate? Many thanks

#19

Try entering Royal Mail and then Royal Mail 2nd Class. I think this may correct your problem. These are the automatic insertions made by my C&D account using the service BPL, I think this should work manually for stamped mail too. Keeping fingers crossed none of these have transgressed so far on my account, whereas Royal Mail and then 2nd Class has got Nero’s thumbs down from Amazon. No guarantee but hey who would you rather believe? Me, a person you have never met in your life or Amazon UK? At least you are telling the truth which is always a good starting point in a plan of action.

#20

That isn’t true in my experience. I was buying it through click and drop and it was also counted as invalid.