We wrote at the the tail end of last year that UPS were going to introduce a daily collection charge. At the time we’d heard that for some account customers it would kick in from February, but it appears to already have been implemented for some of their users.
We know that not every seller will use UPS, but Tamebay reader Justin informed us today that it’s likely to impact many users of Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA).
With the Partnered Carrier Programme, Amazon sellers in the UK can benefit from competitive transportation rates negotiated by Amazon with UPS covering shipment of small packages from a UK address to an Amazon Fulfilment Centre in the UK. Justin has been paying £4.20 per box and been hit by an unannounced additional £4 collection charge.
If you generally ship small consignments via UPS to FBA, you may be better waiting until you’ve got several boxes to send in one consignment. The alternative is to use a different courier at rates you negotiate yourself.
11 Responses
There is a workaround to the collection charge.
Amazon sellers need to copy the tracking id into the optional field in step one of booking a web collection.
PITA however. Especially when you have dozens of tracking numbers and Amazon splits the shipment into various boxes bound for various FC’s
Seems to have slowed down our usual UPS driver as he has more paperwork to do at the door and has asked us to give him a list of tracking ids for his paperwork.
Big issue is that comms weren’t given to Amazon or Amazon failed to communicate with its FBA sellers – caused a lot of confusion so far this year
What about if you drop off at a drop point – surely theres no charge then ..? Or is there? I’d be interested to know as Im just about to organise my first FBA shipment and there seem to be plenty of other ways to trip up without an new blind “policy” change.
Could this be a way for Amazon to slow down the influx of parcels from FBA sellers that it’s struggled to handle lately?
We have an account directly with UPS….we used to use them for our business and FBA shipments, the collection surcharge addition has made it cheaper to send through our other account which we hheld with Parcelforce….
UPS!….£4.00 for a collection!…..did you not know that the UK parcels business is VERY competitive?
For six boxes the collection charge for us was £2.00 so not sure why it seems to change between £2 and £4. UPS do seem to like their extra charges, I think they charge £0.50 for any residential delivery as well.
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All these couriers are quick to put prices up, but with fuel at an all time (last 6 years) low, is it not a bit greedy and unneccersary….
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Tesco direct are at it now, £2 deliver charge for click & collect orders under £30….
New money racking idea……………..!!