Amazon Charging Less for Royal Mail Labels, Delivery Issues.
Considerable number of orders shipped recently using Royal Mail 1st Class Large Letter service purchased through Amazon has been found not delivered or significantly delayed upon delivery. This has started occurring ever since the latest tariff hike by Royal Mail, however Amazon is still charging the lower price (£2.30) on shipping labels purchased through Amazon and displays the same on labels. The current going rate with Royal Mail is £2.50 for 1st Class Large Letter online shipping labels. Is anyone else facing the same issue lately? Can someone please advise if this delay in delivery is caused because Amazon is charging a lower price than the actual cost owed to Royal Mail?
0 replies
Seller_NKvDAB4td8map
I have one order so far same situation sent 1st class large at £2.30 and i was wondering if it was because the price was lower than the normal price. I am still waiting for customer to reply to see if the item has turned up yet.
I would hate it if they end up with a fee to pay because of this mess up. I originally thought ok maybe Amazon got a deal from Royal Mail on the price.
Would be so much easier if we could revert back to using stamps!
We need an Amazon Forum Moderator to look into this. Have you raised a support case?
Seller_VBhUOznEzTGL9
I'm experiencing an awful lot of stuff either being delayed considerably, or simply not turning up. I believe that Royal Mail have cottoned on to the fact that if they strike, they lose sympathy with the public. However, they may well be 'working to rule' or simply not bothering with selected items...never before in 15 years of selling have I had to issue so many refunds, and of course no customer ever offers to pay when it does turn up, or ever sends the stuff back, even though I ask them to....
Seller_32MphwRt4pURK
We have noticed the same issue! I never thought about this but makes perfect sense!
Seller_5el4WAbBdKX1z
Loads of our stuff with royal mail as a percentage goes missing a lot more than other carriers.
For us it's an ongoing thing and the price of Tracked 24 is absurd.
Seller_bc2eKvmI8KeLb
Yes a staggering amount of orders are arriving very late if at all.
Seller_pfmAG3Qx211yJ
I think it is more than likely related to the fact that it is an untracked delivery service. Amazon are emailing these customers telling them their item may be lost and they can claim a refund. There are a few threads about this such as
https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/seller-forums/discussions/t/d729d344-5250-42b6-a90f-0de6b0ba66a3?postId=ca839b61-301a-4bdc-bca1-b93cd94463a6
I have noticed an increase in INR emails since October too. But have also had a handful of honest customers reach out to me saying that they have received their order even though Amazon has emailed them saying it is lost and to claim a refund.
Seller_KJmU5xliSK0Bl
I sell on eBay also and the delay is still there, not because of any price change, even tracked 48 has taken 1 week to arrive. I think customers with Amazon cotton on how easy it is to claim lost. They will get their money back on inexpensive items because if I charged for tracking customers wouldn't pay. I recently have to give a customer their money back on a tracked item as it was left behind a plant pot, that was Royal Mail, I had the photo to prove it, but Amazon state that the customer did not get it. Your guess is as good as mine.
Seller_9SnkGr1rLS6kU
I have checked the Royal Mail website - they are charging the same on-line rate as Amazon i.e. £2.30 for 1st class large letter up to 250g.
Meanwhile, I buy nearly all my Royal Mail postage from Amazon. I frequently receive messages from customers, where Amazon has told them that their packages may be delayed or lost. This is easily overcome by sending the customer a screenshot of the RM proof of delivery, plus a scan of the proof of posting and a copy of the delivery label. In addition, they receive the following email: -
Dear sirs
Regarding your enquiry for your order for (item) (order number xxxxx): -
We confirm that your order was delivered at xxxxx.
Please refer to the attached tracking document, Royal Mail proof of delivery xxxxx.
Please note that the message that you have received indicating that your package may be delayed or lost was sent by an automated system from the Amazon website. This system is currently registering a fault, informing customers of missing orders when they have in fact been delivered.
Please read the following carefully, noting the tracking number/barcode for your parcel (bar code xxxxx)
Your order was placed at xxxx.
Your order was despatched xxxxx.
Your order was delivered, on time, at xxxxx to the recipient and address as per your order: -
Xxxxx
Xxxxx
Xxxxx
Please see the attached documents: -
proof of posting xxxxx
Royal Mail proof of delivery xxxxx
All relevant information on the attached documents has been highlighted for clarity.
The Royal Mail has also provided a GPS location of the exact position of your postman and the time when the package barcode was scanned at the point of delivery.
Please note that these coordinates are accurate to within less than one square metre.
Thank you for shopping with us.
Yours faithfully
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We don't get any comeback after that.
Incidentally, the tracking number is just above the QR code on the RM delivery label.
Meanwhile, adding a sticker worded as follows (and printed in red) to packages does significantly increase the number of items succesfully scanned on delivery: -
DEAR POSTIE –
PLEASE ENSURE THIS PACKAGE IS SCANNED ON DELIVERY –
THANKS!
Seller_nex6aLZ9HPynF
Slow clap, well done all for bringing this subject up as this morning Amazon are now charging £2.50 so we all lose out a bit more
Seller_b5LDA3tnfaBEG
Try using the 24LL service, you should get a scan on delivery and a much better service than 1st or 2nd class. I think these will be phased out eventually to make the system run much smoother, not had a problem with Royal Mail we get a good service with them.
Seller_3WOw3WbIXGqSM
I have been buying postage direct via amazon for a while now as per their guidelines for account health, this was a pain as I pay for a franking machine. I post large letters with Royal Mail, after the recent postage rise I noticed I was only being charged £2.30 for a large 1st class letter under 100g. This was cheaper then the general rate of £2.50, I assumed at last amazon had struck a deal with Royal Mail just like my franking machine rates.
Over the last week I have had 7 customers contact me stating they had been charged an additional £5 as there was insufficient postage paid by me. I asked for photos and each clearly has a postage sticker on it, it's large and covers the whole box so it cannot be missed, then on top a yellow sticker claiming I hadn't paid the postage?
I rang Royal Mail and they don't want to know and passed me back to Amazon who are looking into it, although I don't think they know either.
However today I was printing postage labels, nothing I have done has changed and I have seen I am now being charged £2.50??!!! What is going on, are other businesses having this problem? Have amazon got the postage rates wrong? I am so worried I post tens of hundreds of small letters and if they all come back with a fee I don't know how I will pay for it....
Any help, feedback would be great, also be good to know if you have been charged £2.30 and now £2.50.
JiAlex_Amazon
Hello @Seller_PbjYuGrla4bxN
Following up on this thread, In order for me to have a look, could you please provide me the case ID related?
Any assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support channel.
Regards,
JiAlex
Seller_PbjYuGrla4bxN
UPDATE !!!
========
So Royal Mail contacted us stating that they have withheld almost 200 of our recent orders as they identify the Royal Mail 1st Class LL shipping labels (incorrect price: £2.30) we bought from Amazon since the price hike as counterfeits. Royal Mail has now released all these withheld orders after understanding that we have not done anything wrong. But the damage has already been done, we have refunded majority of these 200 orders to avoid our Amazon account getting suspended, and rest of the orders had A to Z claims. From our feedbacks page, I can see that many customer feedback for orders affected by this issue has been removed by Amazon and Amazon clearly states that the delivery issue was not caused by the Seller. I appealed the A to Z claim stating this reason but the appeals were rejected. Amazon admits that it is not the seller's fault, but at the same time they are imposing the financial burden on the seller.
