This Friday afternoon, Royal Mail Click & Drop Manifesting is down. Royal Mail are aware of the issue and have engineers working on a fix.
In the mean time, doubtless there are merchants ready to ship the day’s orders that will want to get them out of the door. Emergency Click & Drop manifesting paperwork is available on the Royal Mail website.
“We are currently experiencing technical difficulties affecting manifesting. Our engineers are hopeing to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. In the meantime, if you have any collctions due, or are preparing your mail for drop off, emergency manifest paperwork can be found here: https://clickanddrop.blob.core.windows.net/oba/click-and-drop-emergency-manifest.pdf
We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
– Royal Mail
So far there have been no issues reported with creating shipments so hopefully the only issues you will see today is the Click & Drop manifesting. Whilst it’s a nuisance to have to use manual paper to ship your orders, if nothing elseClick & Drop Manifesting breaks it’s a minor inconvenience but it may be worth allowing a little longer than usual to get your paperwork prepared.
The latest update from Royal Mail at 16:25pm Friday states that engineers are continuing to work on a fix for this issue.
Updated 18:30pm
Royal Mail report that Click & Drop Manifesting is now working as expected and that the incident has been resolved.
The time couldn’t be much worse – just at the time of day that retailers would want to complete their shipments ready for their Royal Mail Collection they’ll have been scrabbling around trying to find the emergency manifest paperwork. Falling over at the busiest time of the day on a Friday when all everyone want to to is close up the warehouse and go home isn’t great to say the least.
30 Responses
I love the barcode on the “Emergency” form
All the sixes.
Maybe it’s the devils work !!!
It wasn’t just Click & Drop it was OBA. I couldn’t do anything with my OBA account.
This issue was on OBA, therefore any application that links to Royal Mail OBA and allows you to manifest would have also had the issue, not just Click & Drop
I just hope the 2d barcodes will work. so far the items I sent on Friday are not showing as delivered. They were sent first class large letter.
Is it me or is it down.
https://business.parcel.royalmail.com/
I get Royal Mail in centre of screen and then goes no further.
Royal Mail put up prices and you get a web site that does not work, post not delivered, parcels damaged. RM are making Hermes look good….and thats when you know thngs are bad.
Iave tos ay that the few parcels I do sent via Hermes have arrived intact and on time. Hope the scan problem gets solved.
@ Ross, yes. I have forever had problems with acceptance scans. They are important as it protects you from a late delivery defect as long as ebay see that you sent it out on time.
RM tracked 24 is fine. no problem. However, Royal Mail tracked 48 is “non priority mail” and does not need to be scanned same day by Royal Mail. Often the package is scanned next day which in itself can give you a late delivery defect if you upload the tracking number as the ebay system will pick up that you have sent it out a day late (although in theory it should still arrive on time canceling the defect). None-the-less very annoying as ebay do not seem to be aware of this. My advice is to check your tracked 48 has received an acceptance scan before uploading.
Dont even start me on Hermes acceptance scans. They are often not updating until after midnight on the estimated dispatch day. When this happens the acceptance scan is not registered on the ebay system and you are again open to a late delivery defect. I am blue in the face trying to educate Hermes that it is vital that the acceptance scan shows before midnight on the estimated date of delivery. The scan may update the following day but its too late by then – even if it is showing the correct day (which it usually does). hermes dont understand and ebay dont seem to be getting it.
If any of our tracking numbers have not received an acceptance scan we dont upload them. Hardly what the customer is looking for.
Royal Mail going down so often is not helping matters. The items I sent out on Friday with the emergency manifest are not showing delivery scans (2d barcodes only). Issues like this can easily send you over the 3 percent allowable defect rate for Top rated status.
RM needs to get their act together and common sense is not very common in Hermes. Recently the drivers have taken charge and are deciding whether I get an acceptance scan on site or not despite management assuring me that I would. A scan at my site (rather then the depot) increases the chances of the acceptance scan updating on the system before midnight.
If you are ver wondering why you are getting late delivery defects when you dispatched the item on time – well there you are…….
Also if you dont use the RM emergency manifest did you know they will/can charge your account a ‘fee”? we have been charged before but you dont get an invoice! It just appears ion your account (I think its about £25). its like a fine for not having a manifest but often you cant print a manifest if the RM system is down.
@ Katie, my mistake Katie. Yes – on the dispatch day. sorry about the error. yes, the acceptance scan needs to show before midnight on the day of dispatch in order for ebay to pick it up. I want to make it clear here that this is a fault of the carrier and not ebay.
Quite agree Jim, the overbearing DSR and other metric hoops to jump through are just ridiculous and it makes you wonder just what idiotic schemes they will dream up next.
Agree with Tyler, not an ideal world. There are a lot of “bad” sellers out there who need to be identified. There needs to be some sort of system in place to monitor.
However, 3 percent for late delivery defects is not a lot to play with. We can generate that in one night if Hermes mess up the acceptance scan.
None of my 2d barcodes are showing as delivered from my second RM emergency manifest on Friday and my Hermes acceptance scans did not show till Saturday afternoon (although they confirmed dispatch on Friday but it needs to SHOW on Friday).
it is difficult for ebay to put together any system if the carriers do not follow through with what they have told ebay.
Do Hermes and RM not realise that there needs to be an acceptance scan showing ON day of dispatch. They can’t just go in and an amend the tracking after the event. That’s common sense is it not. This explains why I have so many defects.
I have made Hermes aware of the problem. Please be aware they ARE scanning the parcels. They dont understand that ebay are looking for this can before midnight.
I am going to stop using Hermes over this. This has almost cost me my TRS badge twice. I was not completely understanding the problem. Unfortunately RM are not much better
Many courier and postal workers don’t give a hoot about what eBay require from sellers- and why should they? What’s in it for them? If they are a few hours late in uploading scans so what? See how ridiculous the whole thing is? Way more things to worry about in life than eBay and their crappy metrics.
Anyone else having issues with it not marking items as dispatched yesterday and today?
Just try uploading a shipment that’s going to Norway on click and drop. Go on I dare you….. 🙂
I fear that carriers – Royal Mail and Hermes alike do not realise that to comply with ebays defect system the tracking needs to show the item is sent on day of dispatch. Otherwise no protection from the item arriving late and the customer is asked the question “did it arrive on time” opening up for late delivery defects galore.
we have had problems with both RM last week when the manifests were down AND Hermes who frequently update their tracking information retrospectively.
its frustrating.
royalmail tracking down for the last 2 days some buyers hemorrhoids are exploding with frustration