Late Shipping Notification for Seller Fulfilled Prime
Hello Everyone. I’m hoping one of you can help me with this. For the past two weeks we have received a message from the powers that be at Amazon telling us that we have fallen below the 99% on time shipping rate for Prime orders. I do not know where they are getting this information from as when I have checked all orders have been shipped on time or earlier than specified. This is also backed up by the end of day reports printed out on the Amazon site. Does anyone have any advice as we are in danger of losing our Prime selling privileges. Amazon Sales are bad enough at the moment without losing the ability to sell on Prime.
Thanks everyone
Freya
0 replies
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
Sounds like you might have been using a shipping method that isn’t linked to your prime account?
Seller_idCSjD35wINVo
Could this be linked to the fact that 1) there is a problem with many SFP sellers being unable to buy 48 hour shipping via amazon for the past few weeks and 2) that today all our SFP orders have come through as 2nd day (48 hour) deliveries and not one single order was 1 day delivery, which is very unusual. This means they have all come through as 48 hour deliveries but we cannot buy 48 hour delivery via amazon! Our metrics are starting to look odd over this too. I think we might have to turn off SFP because the system is in meltdown and we lose no matter what.
Seller_kHIYvQFgzwVAy
That’s interesting, I used amazon for 7 years and never had been part of the prime service, I had an email about joining but I was sceptical, sales were averaging at 10 / day, but they started to fall. After much hesitation about joining I received an email from Amazons Advisers, stating it was perfect for my business, a great service to be apart of, and I also noticed other sellers in my department following the same path.
So I went in for it, then pretty quickly the penny dropped along with my sales, my sales were less frequent and at random intervals, sales seemed DEAD yet I felt quite happy to see that prime badge, then things got weird.
I suppose you could say that I trusted amazon to look at my business and know whether there is a good deal with using SFP, posted was looking at costing me £8 per item, since each item sold for £9.99 free delivery, this was an absolute disaster, I refused to buy their shipping service, and later cancelled my SFP.
and it took about 3 months and my account has finally started selling like it used to, so perhaps SFP is not for you?
Note** The Amazon Adviser, advised me to increase my selling price to cover the postage (Really sell for a higher price?)
After increasing 0 sales for about 2 weeks before I cancelled it.
Seller_97dkd7z2IR129
We have this issue ALLLLLLLLL the time with Prime.
It is actually that Royal Mail (if you are using Royal Mail) do not scan the items on time, so even if they were delivered on time. I wouldn’t worry too much as this has been going on with ours for a while now. If you’re worried about it then contact amazon prime seller support, they wont be able to take back anything on your metrics but they can reassure you.
Seller_46KgOxuP1NSJc
Thank you everyone for the advice. I have just nabbed the postie who thinks it may be that all staff have not been scanning all the paperwork upon collection. I am going to leave a note for them to ensure ALL paperwork is scanned, not just the top copy as we have two manifests printed off at the end of day. One for rgular click and drop the other for the tracked ‘PRIME’ orders. I think this may be the problem. Fingers crossed.
Seller_FqalN2Equ13mj
Hi,
Whilst we were not suspended, we did have to do a plan of Action.
Here is mine from last year, please feel free to use as a basis for yours:
We understand the importance of meeting customer expectations and we view it as a privilege to be enrolled on the Seller Fulfilled Prime programme and was alarmed to see this case opened.
Upon receiving this case, I downloaded the report and investigated the orders concerned, there are 5 entries involving 4 orders, as one order contains 2 items so is showing twice.
THE ISSUE (Why our Seller Fulfilled Prime on-time shipment rate has fallen below the 99% level?)
The dispatch date for the orders was Friday 17th of August which Amazon is showing as when the labels were created, as expected, however the first scan by Royal mail is showing around mid day on Saturday 18th of August (Highlighted Green on the attachment), thus showing as being dispatched from here late.
We only have pick ups from Royal Mail between Mondays & Fridays and so I can categorically say that these orders were handed over to Royal mail on Friday 17th of August.
We do hand over all the Tracked Mail separately to the delivery driver.
Whilst I can say for certain that the orders left here on the correct day, I can only assume that 1 sack of mail, (all the orders contained the same item range and were probably packed at the same time), was not processed as it should, however all orders were delivered on time.
(What actions are we taking to remedy the situation? & What measures you are putting in place to avoid the re occurrence of this problem?)
We have contacted our Royal mail account manager by email to ask why our mail was not scanned as it should have been but i have not yet had a reply.
We continue to ensure that the tracked SFP mail is handed over first and separately to the driver that collects all our mail.
We have put the tracked SFP mail in a separate area closest to the door so that it is all together and is not mixed up with the other sacks and ready to hand over first before any other mail is handed over.
We will continue to contact our account manager to try and work out why our mail was not scanned the same day we handed it over.
(What is the time frame for the implementation of this POA?)
We have implemented this adjustment straight away.
It is worth noticing that the “actual_delivery_datetime” column on he file was not populated, so whilst I was checking the orders and tracking, I populated the field for each order and tracking shows that all orders were delivered on the expected delivery date of Monday 20th of August.
Regards
Seller_46KgOxuP1NSJc
Hello there Inspirations. Thank you so much for your very helpful message. Whilst we have not yet been asked for a POA I suspect if we have the same occurrence a third time we will be asked for one. Having your ‘template’ to hand will save me so much time I am truly thankful. I have actually had a discussion with my RM account manager today explaining the situation and he has assured me he will kick the sorting office for me. I’m not holding my breath though as he said he has this problem regularly! Hopefully Amazon will be hearing this reasoning a lot and be sympathetic. Who knows I may even be dealing with a human for once and not a bot. I wish Amazon were as easy to contact and have a reasonable conversation with as eBay. Thank you once again. Freya
Seller_fsMdI9H1tzry5
I agree, the issue will be Royal mail not scanning the item on the same day. We had this issue and when we checked the items did not get scanned first time until the next day, even though they had been collected by royal mail on time.
All you can do is show that the first scan is before the next collection so proving it is a royal mail issue and not that you printed off the labels but then did not send straight away. In the case we had the first scan was 8am the next day, but they collect at 2.30pm every day so they had to have left us on time, but delayed by Royal mail