VTR - Again as it needs to be brought to their attention
Good afternoon,
I like many others have just been knocked off a category for having a less than desired VTR … 93.15%
All of our orders are sent via RM 2c or CRL 24/48. Every one of our orders that has the VTR strike has a Royal Mail tracking code attached in the report. Not a single one of these customers have claimed their order didn’t arrive.
I spoke with my Royal Mail rep who said that it wasn’t possible for them to guarantee that 95% of their post gets scanned at the door. Especially if these items fit through a letterbox.
I sent my case to p-pso-vtr-appeals@amazon.co.uk 8 days ago with a plan of action but to be honest it’s very limited as all our orders get the correct 2d tracking code automatically applied.
Make more noise about this as Amazon needs to adjust their VTR expectations to allow for Royal Mails increasingly shoddy service.
Seller_f5DUyJujv4izr
Your Amazon.co.uk selling privileges have been reinstated
Just got reinstated and thought I’d share my experience. I must point out that we use Linnworks to manage all our orders/postage etc. I sent the email a few hours ago and was resolved just now.
I sent an email to: op-pso-vtr-appeals@amazon.co.uk
Where I just answered the following questions inline. I’ll summarise my answers
– What are the root causes that led to a lower than expected Valid Tracking Rate?
Unaware of the policy update in June. (pointed out that all our order had Royal Mail 2d barcodes)
– What actions have you taken to resolve the lower than expected Valid Tracking Rate?
Set up Amazon Shipping Services in Linnworks.
**– What steps have you taken to prevent a lower than expected Valid Tracking Rate going forward?
we have a 0% late dispatch rate and have no plans on changing this.
Also provide the following: – Any evidence or examples that demonstrate that your account has complied with our policy.
Integrated Amazon shipping services into Linnworks
If you’re using Linnworks just set up Amazon shipping services
I am sure that if you’re not using Linnworks you can mention how you plan to only purchase labels within Amazon.
Good luck to you all and I’ll see you for the next policy update!
0 replies
Seller_ZQyopdiwkUHOZ
Royal Mail 2nd Class Letters and Large Letters are invalid for VTR, regardless of whether a number has been entered as they don’t have a delivery confirmation service.
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Are the 2nd class ones letters, large letters or parcels ?
Seller_64Vbb7Klp0C17
So to clarify on this: is Amazon saying you are not basically allowed to sell anything on Amazon using a letter? We have a tracking number to both pay for the item and proove its posted, but Royal Mail cannot scan millions of letters - so is amazon really saying you cannot use this. Things like keyrings or an airfreshener or small books - these can all be sent as a small letter. Surely this is ludicrous. What if you sell a lot of these - its over the 5% threshold not tracked?
Seller_IYmdbNSTsQMNY
We had a similar message and has seller privileges removed. We normally ship out our “small packages” untracked by Royal Mail 1st or 2nd class post.
For the past month or so we kept receiving very confusing emails saying we were below the 95% Valid Tracking Rate. We just hadn’t completed the work of trying to figure out what all this means and how to handle it. We know we need to and I guess the suspension today has made this more urgent.
We normally ship all packages out within 24 hours but none are tracked. We’ve been doing this for over 5 years without any problems.
It’s one thing getting our selling privileges reinstated, which we will attempt to do by connecting the Royal Mail Click and Drop service to our amazon account.
However, it is another thing to see if selling on Amazon is even viable moving forward.
I am trying to get a clear answer to this question but struggling: Do Amazon now require all packages to be tracked? (Royal Mail calls them small packets/parcels below 2kg)
We are finding it incredibly difficult now to carry on selling lower priced items which may only sell for £10 and now we would have to ship it using a tracked service which would cost over £3.
Do Amazon now require all packages to be tracked?
I don’t think we have the volume yet to get our packages delivered via Amazon directly…
It seems quite tough that Amazon can deliver stuff cheaper than Royal Mail and it makes it hard to compete in our market 
Seller_IYmdbNSTsQMNY
In 5 years of selling, we have never had any problems and never even needed to contact anyone at Amazon and didn’t even know this forum existed until today!!!
Where do amazon help sellers or give tutorials on things?
Seller_IYmdbNSTsQMNY
Hello,
I am rather confused by this whole VTR thing and the fact that our selling privileges have been revoked.
Up until Monday this week, we sent all Amazon small packets vis Royal Mail second class.
In Amazon we simply marked items as shipped using Royal Mail 2nd class.
We have been receiving emails about our poor VTR rate (Nothing was ever tracked) but couldn’t understand what we had to do as nothing is tracked and we were selecting the “right”/honest method of shipment on Amazon.
Up until Monday we used our Royal Mail OBA account using the old BPL method of sending with no bar codes or q codes etc.
I finally got Royal Mail to help us to migrate our OBA account over to a Click and Drop account that uses RM’s bar code and q code postage methods which Royal Mail wanted us to use anyway. This has now been done.
Recognising that the using Click and Drop should also give us the tracking service we need to keep Amazon happy I decided to link our Click and Drop account to our Amazon account and this got linked successfully on Mayday 1st Nov.
Yippee, or so I thought. (I was thinking I would now be able to simply select a Royal Mail tracked service such as the 48 hour service and it would automatically populate the Amazon orders and show the orders as going out on a tracked service.
Unfortunately, before we have even been able to use the tracked packages service of Click and Drop, our account was suspended on the 2nd November!!! I guess we were due to be suspended for have a zero VTR rate anyway and the timing of the suspension is just not related to linking to Royal Mail’s Click and Drop.
Anyway, a couple of things:
-
I need to apply to get reinstated and I presume my main argument will be that I will inform them etc that we will now be using Royal Mails Click and Drop tracked service. Hopefully that will get us reinstated.
-
However, going forward I am confused. I thought that using a tracked 48 hour service from Royal Mail for our packages should be an end to our VTR woes and we should automatically now show 100% for our VTR.
BUT am I right in thinking that we can never reach 100% using Royal Mail’s 48 hour tracked Click and Drop service because some postmen don’t always scan a parcel? What the heck!!!
I’ve read some comments that seem to suggest marking items as sent via Stamps/Franking as then you can’t get penalised for poor VTR rate. This seems insane as one is being punished for supplying a valid tracking number.
I also read that someone that was marking orders as sent via Stamps/Franking also received a warning for poor VTR etc.
What a farce.
Please help me to get out of this insane loop.
Thank you.
Seller_cFxTrmHNroB6c
Yep totally agree but Amazon dont care, they will eventually end up taking over all of the sellers and Manufacturers and have the market all to themslves .
They dont care about sellers .
Seller_cFxTrmHNroB6c
I had the same thing yesterday ! we use linnworks as a shippping platform and was told from Amazon that we are populating the dispatch as other and RM-48 crl or LL
which is wrong apparently !!! we should be populating the Franked service !!
Total mess …
Seller_WIndmNYDp7rQF
We connected our RM click and drop account to Amazon but we still get the VTR emails.
For some reason the tracking number is only added after you confirm dispatch, I feel this is an Amazon software issue and not down to the seller, it needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency.
Seller_B7n1YHjjG8AES
are you using your oba account link in to amazon so you can use buy shipping or are you using api conected to your click and drop account please advise
