Delayed Royal Mail deliveries due to Coronavirus
Hi, I have come across two major problems, can anyone help with the best practise to go forward with please? I use Royal Mail for my letters and parcels and at the moment they are taking up to and more than 7 days to deliver which is understandable. I have received several requests from customers saying they have not received their order and they want a refund. I have explained why the delay but the customers have now cancelled the orders and want a refund. All of my parcels have a tracking number as we have a Royal Mail Account but the large letters are not recorded through Royal Mail so I have no proof of delivery. I have been told that it is common practice for customers to say they have not received an order when they know it is a large letter, where do I stand on this as about a third of my orders are large letter? Also can I refuse to cancel until a reasonable time has passed in the current situation.? I have contacted Amazon about the delay in the delivery times and they say they are working on putting something out about the delay?
53 replies
Seller_bdSdLjti4IugQ
The first thing I would do is ask the customer to confirm the order number and product ordered. I’ve found all too often recently people are selecting the wrong product and messaging the wrong seller.
Seller_qHzcAWcsPVCfg
Change your Amazon Dispatch times - add 5 to 8 days perhaps. Auto send emails about the Royal Mail delays?
Currently a large number of our standard Royal Mail LL are taking 8 to 15 days to arrive ! ! ! !
Seller_f5cnodyVjLD4S
For sellers or Buyers? If buyers I sincerely hope it is better than their last effort.
In which they basically tell customers that their order is late and that they can contact the seller for a refund, even though the item in question has already been delivered. 
Seller_YE40LRis5d3lq
Yep large letters are delayed. I am selling around 20 DVD’s / CD’s per day. Most around £9.99. Recorded delivery is too expensive so all my mail is 1st class. After the ridiculous Amazon fee, postage and unit cost profit is not worth the hassle. I’ve been selling on here for 10 years and its never changed, always been a pain…Any new releases…where we sell 2000 units inside a week/ 2 weeks I sell elsewhere 7 direct fans to the online shop where we are charged £0.85 on a £16.99 items saving the hassle and £1000’s of pounds in fees.
Seller_YE40LRis5d3lq
From Facebook RM employee…This is one photo of one mail centre in the UK. There are many mail centres, and at the moment they all look like this. The backlog of packets is dire. I thought Christmas was manic, but the current period is far worse. If you’ve ordered stuff, and wondered why it hasn’t arrived, it’s probably in this lot!
Seller_WIYfzYEQNfBrt
What is extremely annoying, Amazon have now put on there App, if your item is more then 2 days late, you can request a full refund
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
The only delays I am aware of is Hermes. The seller sent a returns label selecting the wrong weight. ie 2kg when the actual weight is over 15kg (Forth order on another platform where the seller has not paid the correct postage costs for return).
Seller_LkPpSgD323PU5
The problem here is not all areas are back logged. Some regions are slower than others but most of my items are getting to customers within the time frame and about 20% are a day or two after. RM24 is really not bothering with right now, i took all my fast deliveries off a couple of weeks ago as i could see this could be a problem.
So everything im sending out is snail mail and if the customer complains (ive only had one so far) i am telling them it is because of staff shortages and volumes of mail to wait at least two more days after the last delivery date showing on the order.
Majority of customers will understand that, you will always find one or two that might not like it.
Seller_5viLDkyBhAZPD
If you use Royal Mail Click & Drop rather than a PPI account you will get tracking on large letter as well as parcels. We constantly have customers trying the “I did not get it” routine and when we send them the RM screenshot showing they do have it we never hear from them again. I just wish this could be reported to Amazon and more importantly they would act on it.
Seller_AosJD54bRJJWc
There are obviously severe delays. I wish amazon would add a note at checkout stating there may be delays due to covid19 or something along those lines. Or maybe just extend the general delivery window by a few more days.
It’s not so bad if you send 10 orders a day etc as if it’s a 20% delay then it’s only 2 emails a day. But if yours sending hundreds a day it becomes extremely stressful and time consuming.
