Italy Addresses - Reason for not arrived?
Just had a really interesting note from an Italian customer - who happens to be an English person living in Italy so without the language barrier managed to get a clearer view. We have been finding that Italian orders are struggling to arrive - much moreso than France or Germany (we don’t get much to Spain or anywhere else).
It turns out that the address we are seeing (on the packing slip) is incomplete. It was missing her street address and something else. The address to me looks fine (not knowing what Italian addresses should look like) so I would have no idea of this.
Could this be the issue as to why goods are not arriving in Italy? I have messaged SS but not expecting much from them - has anybody else noticed that / resolved it?
Thanks xx
9 replies
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
No. We used to send everything untracked to Italy when we started and had lots of issues. Then switched to DHL Global Mail, which provides tracking, problems stopped. IMO down to theft and dodgy buyers.
Seller_7AjlD0wnUlfiw
Hi Tinkertots,
Italian postal addresses appear like this:
Family Name + Given Name (or vice versa)
Street address followed by number, flat, floor etc (flat, floor & Co. are usually optional)
Postal Expedition Code + Municipality/Town/City followed by two-letter abbreviation for the province
Country
So (this is an example, ofc):
Rossi Mario (or Mario Rossi: Italian equivalent for John Smith/Doe)
Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, 10
20090 BUCCINASCO MI
ITALY
However, some addresses may lack street numbers in fact, despite the customers hailing from those had added them as a mandatory field (in order to get the product they purchased shipped to their location) and this sometimes leads to the postmen having to search their recipients door-to-door (and obviously, this takes more time than it should, depending on the customers’ location).
What surprises me (speaking just of buyers’ addresses on AMZ) is how they allow buyers (regardless of nationality) to fill their addresses incompletely or, worse, badly (i.e. buyers without family names or family names written twice or thrice over OR even street addresses written multiple times?). Do they verify the buyer accounts at all?
Anyway, in case of other issues with Italian addresses, use this Wikipedia page as reference (It’s where I took the example written above):
Hope this helps
Seller_TJr1f9I1ncjgY
We have considered not selling to Italy for quite some time. Most orders end up refunded. Postal service there must be diabolical whereas we rarely have any problems with Germany, France etc.
Seller_Ob1uX7wKisJaM
I’m thinking of stopping all sales to italy. Had a few orders before Christmas and most have not arrived resulting in refund claims. Is there a way to generically delete Italy without having to alter all my listings does anybody know?
Seller_pSmOMHxVIzqsN
Not sure what carrier you are using but you would be wise to note the following if using Royal Mail:
Latest update: 21 December 2021
End date: Ongoing
Incident: Customs delaysLatest Update
We have been advised by Poste Italiane that severe delays are still being experienced in processing postal items due to serious IT problems in Italian customs. This is still affecting all postal shipments from outside the EU. Although we are continuing to process and despatch items to Italy at the moment, due to these technical issues being experienced once they arrive they currently face delays of at least several weeks before being processed by customs and delivered by Poste Italiane. We are in constant dialogue with Poste Italiane but they have so far been unable to give us a date when these issues will be resolved. These issues are affecting all Royal Mail international parcel services. Therefore, as of 22nd December, we are changing our advice to strongly recommend you do not post items to Italy until Poste Italiane have made substantial progress in clearing the backlog. We currently anticipate that will be early in the New Year. They have assured us that they have a plan in place, we will be monitoring it very closely, and will update further when we are comfortable that your items will be processed and delivered within normal timescales.
