One of the benefits of attending events like Internet Retailing Expo at the NEC in Birmingham is the chance to talk. And in particular it’s fantastic to speak with Tamebay readers and hear your stories. One seller today was complaining about how their Amazon seller performance had been adversely affected because of unavoidable delays in despatching goods to Amazon buyers. Their priority postage option has also already been stripped from listings on Amazon.
Here’s the case in a nutshell. The seller lives north of Glasgow and from Wednesday last week there were no collections made by Royal Mail or other carriers. There simply was no way of shipping despatches. This situation persisted until early this week.
Needless to say, our experienced buyer, made every effort to communicate and advise buyers about the problems and, also needless to say, pretty much every single one completely understood the difficulties. (Although a small number did gripe.) The team has now cleared the backlog and parcels are whizzing on their way. But Amazon is showing the seller no leniency for what it perceives as unforgivable tardiness.
The Royal Mail have been diligent in reporting problems and where there are still collection and delivery difficulties. Other carriers have been doing the same. The information is out there and available to Amazon meaning they have a ready source of information about areas where their self-fulfilling merchants might be experiencing issues. This report comes from today (the 21st March) from the Royal Mail service update page:
We anticipate deliveries and collections will be attempted in all areas today, the only exception to this are the more rural parts of the BA, TA and TQ postcode areas where access is still an issue.
– Royal Mail
The post codes are Bath, Taunton and Torquay and those areas in the west country have been the hardest hit in the latest bout of wintry weather. And it’s worth noting that eBay has been more proactive in communicating with sellers about potential problems. The seller in question said that eBay Concierge had been pretty decent but it could be some weeks before complaints are reported there. So the jury is still out as to whether eBay follows through.
Has your Amazon seller performance been impacted by the bad weather and problems with collections and deliveries? Please do let us know. All grumbles welcome.
6 Responses
Is this isolated to Amazon? Did the other marketplaces take into account the “snow”?
As far as we can see the only ones that have these stupid systems are eBay and Amazon, way to much control over UK biz.
Now eBay have been making us jump through their hoops to get the defects removed, all very time consuming, nothing is being removed automatically so their own announcements have been mis-leading.
Glasgow was a disaster we had so many issues with the snow, and it was all totally out of the merchants hands.
(Although a small number did gripe) we are pandering all to a very small minority, we had a couple of them types.
Wonder if Amazon marked DOWN their own FBA services, or is it just easier to attack the merchants.
never mind north of Glasgow at one point last month every main road into and out of Scotland was blocked by either snow or RTAs at the English border
Yeah Amazon have given me a warning about late dispatches and I have had to write a grovelling email begging not to be suspended. Ridiculous
We have had a warning your account is at risk of being suspended, yet deliveries were dispatched on time. We sent a email asking this to be removed and advised actions were correct yet they said they cant remove then went onto talk about other issues, nothing to do with what I was advised to email them about, they advised me to contact seller performance team which is whom they email was sent to. Not sure the person answering the email understands.