Premium shipping - is it achievable?!
Hello all,
I’ve just seen an email from a few days ago telling me that I am no longer eligible to offer premium (formerly expedited) shipping. This is particularly frustrating, partly because now my customers are offered a much slower receiving window, and it also means that those customers who would be willing to pay extra for fast P&P no longer can (which is a few quid less in my pocket, as a number of my items go by 24 hour courier by default!)…
I can see that the only metric letting me down is the valid tracking rate…which is at a shoddily low 44.97%.
My problem is that although every item I send is given a tracking number, not all are validated by Amazon.
I use Royal Mail Click & Drop/OBA for most items, which auto-dispatches and uploads tracking. But not all of these codes show as delivered on the RM website, and others which show on the ‘invalid tracking report’ show as delivered before the delivery window passes. Not sure why that is, but it’s having a big impact.
My second problem is that I use APC overnight…they don’t show up on Amazon’s list of approved couriers, despite being fairly large (from my understanding?). Due to this, I select other courier, and manually add tracking. But none of these tracking numbers register, hence destroying my valid tracking no. rate…
I know a suitable fix for my second point would be to scrap APC and use an ‘approved courier’, but what about the issue I’m having with Royal Mail?
I guess this is just how things are going to stay, with unachievable targets set, penalising sellers who can’t afford to pay for additional tracking services on items which are already making a slim margin 
Whine over for now…
0 replies
Seller_MmnaCNFmBbYQ5
Hi I got the same email last week - my only issue is similar, about 59% sent tracked (this is because a lot are small, cheap items posted in an envelope 1st class) never any issues but not spending additional on tracking as no point. To be honest I was quite happy to accept not sending premium as my items are handmade so creates a bit of a rush BUT my point really being, that despite an email saying I was no longer eligible, I am, I have continued to sell premium shipped all week no different to before…sold another handful today so I’m not sure if email was automated but hasn’t actually come into effect. May be worth checking!
Seller_SlXZyY9vz3zbX
Your Royal Mail tracking has no bearing over Premium Shipping availability - it only does if you are using Royal Mail to send out Premium Shipping orders.
As you are using APC and they are not an approved carrier is your issue. You would have to switch to an approved carrier if you want to offer premium shipping.
You need to download the valid tracking report from your metrics and filter to one day and two day shipping (i.e. premium shipping). Those marked as invalid are doing the damage…
Though be warned even switching to an approved carrier doesn’t come with guarantees. Amazon think their systems are infallible - we use DHL and 1 in 25 tracking numbers are not validated by Amazon (when they are valid) and of course because the metrics are do tight 1 or 2 tracking numbers that fa to be validated by the bots = loss of premium shipping. We have a case open from January 2018 on this issue (!) and months pass without resolution. Every now and again they say that the issue is resolved - I only have to look at the valid tracking report to see that it isn’t… We’ve written to seller support and performance umpteen times to try and get our eligibility restored but every response is non-sensical and each dept refers to the other - neither knows who is responsible. The situation is ridiculous.
In the past it wasn’t so bad as expedited shipping picked up the slack but now they’ve taken that away from 3rd party seller’s.
If buyers want your items quickly they will have to find other channels to purchase them. Amazon seem hell bent on squeezing sellers into FBA or SFP.
Seller_rQvQ81c4j1EhT
I lose premium shipping every few weeks and there is nothing wrong with my metrics, It goes for about 7 days then comes back. I have learnt to live with it.
