Also just be wary that any large refund may put you over the threshold where you should have become VAT registered.

So for example you were doing a 12 month turnover of £80k and got a VAT refund back of £15k then HMRC calculate your turnover to be £95k and you would need to become VAT registered (based on current threshold of £90k)

Hi, I am letting people know that Amazon have changed their policy on Royal mail 2D Bar codes i.e Royal Mail scanned on delivery. Sometime ago I raised this with Amazon that all our packages have "valid tracking" but Royal mail only scan about 80% and was told not to worry as Amazon are aware and will disregard if when needed we provide valid tracking proof. ie we sent them copies of the delivery label. Well that has changed. Last Friday some listings were deactivated and I had to provide the appeal which I did as usual, but this time it was turned down After a long conversation the result was we either change to a different post method (which would add about £1.00 to the cost and on cheap items that is a big percentage) or buy the same service from Amazon!

I am uncertain what the motive behind this is, to be competitive we will need to buy postage from Amazon? What I tried to explain is that as far as the customer is concerned there will be no improvement Royal mail will continue to fail scanning packages. In addition as we use 3rd party software to process all orders, will it be more difficult? Will Amazon then get details of my orders from Ebay and our own website? I think this stinks and anyone using Royal Mail 24 / 48 (CRL) should take note. Short term we will change to Royal Mail Tracked and accept less orders, longer terms we may have to buy shipping from Amazon, but before we do we need to consider the pros and cons

Thank you for letting us know, as i do still use this on the odd occasion!

Just a shoutout to you, depending on your volume, of course, we got Royal Mail Tracked rates cheaper than RM 24/48 CRL, I would give ask to get some rates from your Account manager.

Thanks

You don't have to be VAT registered to use FBA unless you aren't established in the UK.

The revenue calculator is set to the default of a seller being VAT registered so it assumes VAT at 20% of sale price and no VAT on fees. In reality for non-VAT registered seller they can set the VAT rate to 0 but will have to manually add 20% onto the fees.

I have a quite simple question, but apparently it's too difficult for customer service because they haven't been able to answer my question for a week and when they answer it's pointless, e.g. to sell on FBA I have to be VAT registered. I am a sole trader, not VAT registered for 9 years, my income is less than the VAT limit. I understand that the fee is 15.3% DIY, that there is a transport fee, and what about the rest of the fees? I compared the revenue calculator between FBA and my warehouse and I don't know why it says estimate VAT 20%, does it mean that Amazon will automatically collect VAT on the sale? I know that I pay VAT on all fees. Can someone explain fee, VAT etc.?

I think we have to face different issues; one is the bots that change category, and then you have a set of candles under sports - golf etc. The other issues is sellers who create listings without thinking. My favourite has to be those that copy the text of the wholesaler's product page including things like:

"this wholesale product comes in a cartoon of 24 units",

"check our website for other similar products that your customers will love"

"EAN 52098900938942"

"Thinking of visiting our showroom? Drop us a line and you will get a 10% discount"

"assorted colours and sizes in each cartoon"

"This Purchase is 24 Units "

"RRP £24.99"

We always have to be careful where we list our offers as the risk of having returns is very high if there is misleading information, some customers also try it on at the first occasion. I am expecting a A-Z any minute now as a customer complained that she got only one pack when in the listing there is a photo with three packs. The title and description are ok this time, they clearly state it's ONE pack but still.. I told her to return it if not happy but she wanted a refund and keep the item

Thank you Stillhere. I have opened 12 cases with the Help people trying to find out what I am doing wrong. That has not been mentioned once. Millions of people self-publish books. Most sell very few copies. Nor will mine.... so it would be ridiculous to register as a business with its monthly payments when I will probably sell, at most, 10 or 20 copies of my book. What do other people do?

Quote: "I have opened 12 cases with the Help people trying to find out what I am doing wrong. That has not been mentioned once."

Probably because they have not properly read your question, and they would not know what you were trying to list. Sadly Seller Support (SS) are not as knowledgeable as other sellers, and mostly read from scripted replies, AND have been known to give out totally wrong advice.

Before you go any further you need to register with HMRC and wait for your UTR to come in the post,

Its been pulled from several sources and outside links are banned on Amazon anyway.

My advice is to ask your accountant to check.

But - VAT is not applicable to goods exported and Amazon are the deemed supplier for VAT purposes only. So anyone (who is not UK established) selling something at £12 on UK site, then Amazon is the deemed supplier. You actually sell to Amazon at £10 and Amazon sells to customer at £12 and sends £2 to HMRC.

Your sale is £10 (VAT not applicable as an export) for accounting purposes.

The fees on invoice is my understanding of the recent changes Amazon are making on 1st August here you will be invoiced from an office in same country where you are established. And just like any invoice for goods/services Amazon will be adding VAT at the rate your country specifies.

This is certainly the way eBay are doing it and have been doing it for several years. But this is Amazon so they may do it differently but it is my understanding.

I am posting this more to vent than anything.

I must say that I rarely get any A-Z claims so consider myself fortunate in that regard, however, I’ve had two A-Z claims in the past week and on both occasions, the Royal Mail tracking has shown that the orders have been DELIVERED.

Normally when we are unfortunate enough to have an item not arrive, the customer will request a replacement rather than immediately request a refund so it always peeks my suspicion when a customer immediately asks for a refund instead.

The first order even has a photo showing the delivery, together with the GPS map, yet Amazon have refunded the customer out of our funds anyway.

The second order just has the GPS map but still shows as delivered.

Both A-Z claims have been granted and the appeals rejected with the usual ‘we stand by our decision’.

It is wholly unacceptable where there is evidence of delivery that Amazon employees completely ignore the ‘evidence’ and refund the customer anyway, which leaves me wondering, at what point does this become Amazon being complicit in fraud against sellers?

Ok, these orders are relatively low value (one at £11 and one at £23), but when Amazon are constantly screwing sellers over and don’t give a rats backside about their sellers, this is just another nail in the coffin.

Absolutely sick of Amazon treating its sellers like scum.

I have already tried reaching out to the managing director email about these two claims but not holding out any help whatsoever.