PRIME and personalised items
are any of you lovely people on here producing personalised items and sending on out as PRIME?
I have a few questions (i’m happy for you to inbox me if you prefer?)
Although I can use the PRIME badge, I never have! so know very little about it and the information SS give seems to contradict itself all the time.
If I sell an item at say noon, it has to be sent out that day as PRIME and delivered the next day??
If the cutoff time is 2pm (not sure if that can be changed?) it still has to go the same day on PRIME?
Would Royal Mail guaranteed next day be allowed as fully tracked etc for the VTR?
Any other advice you could offer?
7 replies
Seller_esvgLzKXw2YAl
There are only two ways to get the Prime badge, either FBA or SFP.
Obviously with personalised items, there is no way that you could use FBA. So your only option is SFP.
So assuming that you can get an order and get it sent out the same day, with one of the Prime delivery options, it could be done.
The only options you have, assuming your fully signed up, is RM Tracked, DPD or Amazon logistics.
You must also ship over weekends.
I’d strongly suggest that you look at and understand the SFP terms and conditions before you go any further.
Seller_saK5Ah2SaNYjL
We stopped using SFP for personalised items.
Firstly Amazon accepted change of mind returns on them, then with the weekend posting …. No thanks.
We offer premium shipping, if they want it quickly, they can pay for that. It hasn’t affected sales.
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
I believe the cut off for prime is now 4pm so depends on your RM collection time.
You also have to ship 6 days a week
Special delivery cannot be used for SFP, it has to be either Tracked 24, DPD or amazon logistics
Personally, I would never put personalised items on SFP
Seller_vTCC47DVMGUB8
I think it is more important the order is scanned on the same day by your courier rather than the delivery date
Yes… The cut off time can be changed,. but only for later than 2pm (I believe) and may now be later than 2pm
I assume you mean Special Delivery, so the answer is; Yes…
I do not use Prime anymore but I believe there are some issues with Buy Shipping, sometimes the service you want to use is not available, I would not have thought that would be a problem with RM Special, but who knows…
The requirement for using SFP is very strict and it is very easy to lose, I believe the two main requirements are;
- Using Buy Shipping
- Same day courier scan
Have fun…
Seller_r1BWHFE9Q49m3
I dabbled with SFP for personalised items last year and stopped after about a week. It was stressful and horrible.
I had no problem with creating and prepping the personalised items for same-day dispatch, because I usually try to process most of my orders on the same day anyway. The biggest problem was with getting a reliable shipping company. That combined with second biggest problem, which was Amazon’s system didn’t always recognise that I had fulfilled the criteria for SFP. I ended up with a couple of account-health warnings that were incredibly frustrating.
As @Aroha says, I’ve found that it’s better to just offer premium shipping if the customer wants the item quickly.
If you can find a good shipping company that is efficient and predictable, then go for it! (And also please tell us who this mythical beast is 
)
Having said that, I felt like it was definitely worth trying SFP for myself, and I’m 100% certain that customers would love to have personalised products delivered next day, so by all means have a go, but if you do then be very cautious. For example, limit your SFP stock to only one or two items to begin with and see how those orders work out. Then if your workflow (and the shipping service, and Amazon’s system) is working OK, gradually increase the number of items in stock.
Worst-case scenario = setting up personalised SFP items just before Valentine’s Day and getting a load of last-minute orders in on 13 Feb which all get delayed in the post.
Also (and I know I’m making a big generalisation here, but it’s based on experience) people who order personalised gifts last-minute often overlap with the type of person who is outraged when their last-minute gift gets delayed in the post…
Seller_ZPKc4bRe3ezcv
we have sold personalised items on sfp for over 3 years and we’re about to stop, had enough of the hamster wheel and the constant changing hoops to jump through. from next week we’re going back to royal mail 24/48 and if anyone wants a next day they’ll have the option.
every increasing prices, late scans, performance warnings and ever increasing work hours/days have meant we’re coming off it.
as others have said, maybe try it and see if it is for you.
