Italy is becoming a real issue. Anyone else?
Hi everyone,
I know Italy has always had a not so brilliant postal system and more items do not arrive, or arrive late for Italy than any other country. However the last week or 2 it’s become pandemic! I sell FBA and FBM so this is regarding FBM sales. I am considering closing down FBM to Italy because I am refunding a lot! And of course at risk of negative feedback from customers getting their items so late or never. Has anyone else noticed a sudden surge in more Italy posting issues than usual? Or is it just an unlucky spate? I wish Amazon could amend the postal times for Italy because they are not realistic and I ship out within 24 hours as per all my orders and it’s not a usual issue in the other countries.
Thanks for your thoughts on this
42 replies
Seller_K8edOfPu9HEmN
Are you sending tracked?
We do and never have a problem.
However we only sell internationally on eBay and the website so we can set our own prices.
If they don’t want to pay our postage prices or they don’t like tracked then they don’t buy and that cuts out the time waster and scam merchant.
And tracked post tends to be a premium air mail service and therefore is usually faster than box standard overland
Seller_ofuGZmJbVoHsW
If I have problems on Amazon, it always happens with Italy!
Seller_GGByEa9ThBuw8
I considered closing down Italy a few months ago as I was foolishly using a standard postage service to keep my prices as low as possible for customers. In the end it wasn’t worth the hassle. However, after reading a similar topic on the forum I decided to give Italy one last chance and now only use a tracked & signed service.
Now that I can follow the parcel’s journey it’s quite laughable at how slow the Italian postal service is. I can post a parcel in West Wales mid afternoon, it travels to London and then arrives in Italy less than 24 hours later the following morning. The parcel then takes about 5 - 7 days to reach its destination in Italy.
Anyway, to answer your question we’ve not noticed anything different with the Italian post lately.
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
We used to send most things to Italy untracked, as they were low value items. But lots of INR claims etc. So we then switched to a cheap tracked service that one of the main couriers provides, putting our italian shipping prices up to cover these extra costs, but of course that then reduced the sales.
But it also increased the return requests, we never used to get any return requests for Italy but once the items were tracked we would get a few a week.
We kinda concluded from this that certain buyers were just choosing to say it hadn’t arrived, knowing we couldn’t prove it, then once we shipped everything tracked, they couldn;t do that so just opened return requests.
Italy is a difficult one, Amazon certainly need to extend the delivery estimates, that would help with teh genuine delays.
Seller_gOzZ4ehojzaW0
I just do not sell to Italy, I did for a while but it seems only 1 in 10 items actually arrives, and the 1 that did took 5 times the expected time.
Its not worth it
Seller_n33KwLeg9XOvi
Yes, the Italians are notorious for INR’s… If you can , send FBA, or charge for premium tracked postage to Italy, or stick your holiday settings on for Italy
Seller_L3E8iknKXqZNV
I sell a lot via ebay to Italy. My 4th largest buyer after uk usa ger
Of those items I send non tracked (value under £25) 1 in 30 go missing. I take this into account by charging £1 on top of the shipping cost so self insure.
Of those I send tracked and signed - those that make it to Italy always arrive in good fast time.
I say “make it to Italy” because royal mail have misrouted tracked mail on more than 1 occasion to the wrong country and carrier - typically GLS - who wont re-route it to the correct destination.
Seller_TksxmRkUaLIR8
Thank you for your replies. I don’t send tracked on the whole because a lot of my items are a small value. So I have a standard shipping rate for all countries. I didn’t know I could set different costs per country so I think I’ll look into increasing shipping cost for Italy and only send tracked or just stop the FBM on Italy.
Thanks
Seller_p5xRrTJAR4CKT
Hi Italy
has always been a pain in the … Mail service is terrible. We have had many A-Z from here for orders completely beyond our control. No support from the caring Amazon. Who automatically find in favour for the A-Z.
We only send our larger products here and use a courier ie DPD Tracked Signed.
Spain is not far behind Italy !!
Regards
