Late Delivery Defects - Royal Mail Delays

[bricklanebargains]

Our late delivery defect rate recently gone above 3% which puts our top rated seller status and premium badge listings at risk. We have a Royal Mail business account and ship orders daily Monday to Friday. We also use Evri and Yodel for low value items. At first, I thought the increase in defects could be due to Evri/Yodel but it isn`t. Most of the defects are from Royal Mail Tracked 48 parcels which were manifested and shipped either on the same day or the next day. One parcel collected by the RM driver on the 30th was delivered on the 7th, another one on the 5th so on. I already sent appeals to Ebay stating the reason as the delays were out of control but got rejected. I also just spoke with an Irish chap from Ebay CS who said they can`t remove the defects since they have no way of verifying delivery companies` collection dates. 

I wonder if anyone else is experiencing this problem. What`s worse is we shipped everything with Royal Mail this past week at great extra cost to us only in order to decrease the defect rate but now I realize it may have the opposite effect.      

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Maybe it's worth looking more closely at the tracking.

Where are the issues happening?

Are they going straight out once collected or sitting somewhere?

I have to say, I send everything (bar a couple of odd size items) out via RM tracked 48, or RM48 LL and rarely have delays or issues.
I do however see issues with standard letter post.

But if you can analyse it and see if there some sort of blockage, then obviously, you will need to speak to RM about it.

[typo_lee]

We send all our stuff standard post as our items are so cheap anyway so the tracking would cost more than the item but like the person says above there is massive delays with standard post I feel. We lost our TRS status ages ago because of late delivery but we can’t offer anything else as our stickers are mainly only around the £6 mark. EBay are now delaying our payouts for 30 days now and I’m pretty sure it could be to do with late delivery standard Royal Mail post 

[technthread]

If they were scanned as collected why can’t eBay verify it? I always thought if you had the scan showing you dispatched on time, eBay might protect you for carrier failure and remove defects automatically.

My issues recently have come from ones where I used a postbox so the first scan wasn’t within the dispatch time and then Royal Mail went on to deliver late. I spoke to an Irish CS agent yesterday about these and he did his best to help me by removing 5 defects out of 8 but said it was a one off and they probably couldn’t do it again.

[bricklanebargains]

We only do RM Tracked48 and International parcels which we put in sacks sealed with respective tags. What seems to have happened is one or two of those sacks collected by the RM driver remained unprocessed for the following 3-4 days. Maybe they were left in the van or lied around in a depot somewhere. Tracking shows that the parcels were accepted either on the same day or the next day, nothing for the next few days and delivery confirmation on the 5th or 6th day from despatch. It`s just so frustrating especially when you spend more on postage than you would just to keep Ebay service metrics healthy.     

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Well at least you know what has happened.

I would definitely be on to RM about it though.  Preferably to the manage at the office, rather than calling them.

At the very least, they should be able to find out what has happened and have a word with the member of staff concerned.

Hopefully going forward, it doesn't happen again then.

[jbrusby]

I've noticed a significant increase in delivery time for 2nd Class large letters and parcels recently, and several have taken over a week from posting which is highly unusual. Wondered if that might be due to the imminent change to alternate day delivery for 2nd, maybe sorting offices are already implementing it. 

I also send quite a lot Tracked 48 now and that seems quite hit and miss too, especially on how long it takes to get the first scan after putting in a parcel postbox. Sometimes it takes 36-48 hours just to get scanned and on the move, then a further 48 hours for delivery, which rather makes a mockery of the name and expectation. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why on earth are you dropping tracked in a parcel postbox?

If your doing (or very close to), 20 parcels a week, you can get a free collection with a business account.

But well worth looking at, instead of the hit and miss with a postbox.

[cbennissupplies]

royal mail buisness account ! have offered royal mail for me to put it where the sun don't shine if they bend over far enough

royal mail down pan, got it bad here as our mail goes to the warrington super mail centre which is basically hell on earth for mail, had parcels go in there and come out 4 days later.

all our post goes to local DO just before 12:00 I know it gets there we take it, reason so it is there for the 13:00 hrs wagon that drops and picks up outward mail. if we are lucky very lucky they might get  first acceptance scan that day but usualy next day, so it can take them 24 hr to scan parcels.

yes ebay do not get it. do ebay send out parcels? NO, do they have to deal with royal mail post daily? NO if royal mail say jump they ask how high. it is easier to ignore the truth than to accept it.

the truth is royal mail is NOT like they use to be. this is "not" the people on the ground but higher up the spreadsheet heros who just want to make the figures look good

[notchrissblood]

I was having similar problems with RM48. Seems the ebay system doesn't log the "posted" date, so if the parcel gets delivered late you get defect even though it was posted on time and the late delivery isn't the sellers fault. I solved the problem by just not uploading any tracking numbers to ebay. Obviously this is worse for the buyer, but seems that's what ebay wants if they insist on using a system that doesn't work fairly.

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Wait until the end of the month when they start to deliver second class letters on alternate days.   With a forecast of 2-3 working days, some letter post could take a week to arrive. 

[santlache_sales]

Our late delivery defect rate recently gone above 3% which puts our top rated seller status and premium badge listings at risk.

That is extactly why eBay introduced it, to be able to punish sellers and not pay discounts.

The buyer should really be asked, "Did Royal Mail Deliver on time ?"

eBay have as much control over Royal Mail deilvery times as we do, which is none whatsoever, yet eBay have taken it upon themselves to use this as a stick to hit their sellers with, no other reason, and even though people have been complaining about the figures being skewed since it started, ebay have still carried on regardless.

That is because this isn't about customer service, but is just a way for eBay to not pay discounts.

I post either same day or next day, yet I have a 1.06% late delivery rate - Laughable !

[santlache_sales]

Maybe it's worth looking more closely at the tracking.

Where are the issues happening?

Are they going straight out once collected or sitting somewhere?

Why ?

What can we do about it, apart from waste time trying to manage Royal Mail's incomptence.

I have had one decent sale in two weeks, posted it last Monday Special Delivery so should have been with the customer on Tuesday, yet the tracking is still showing at the post office I posted it at, it hasn't moved yet the PO in question showed me their print-out sheet which showed it had been collected from them.

It still hasn't moved or been delivered.

That's Royal Mail for you and eBay use them for their skewed figues.....we have no chance.

[santlache_sales]

Wait until the end of the month when they start to deliver second class letters on alternate days. With a forecast of 2-3 working days, some letter post could take a week to arrive.

That is already the case, we never see a postie every day anymore, maybe 2/3 times a week if lucky.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Damn, talk about mister negative!

Firstly, as an online business seller, you are responsible for the item getting to the customer on time.

You are the one who chooses how to send it to said customer.

If the service that you have chosen to use is not performing in the way that you want it to be, then YOU need to change to a different service.

None of this is about Ebay not paying discounts.   

It is entirely about you getting your items to the customer in the time frame that you have promised.

If it's taking longer etc, then change the promise that you are making to the customer, to a more realistic timeframe.

You do not have to use Royal Mail!  It is entirely your choice to do so.  Your not being forced to.

[santlache_sales]

Firstly, as an online business seller, you are responsible for the item getting to the customer on time.

Secondly, as soon as the package/parcel is handed over to Royal Mail, the seller has no control whatsoever over when the item will arrive, and neither do eBay, yet it is those parameters eBay are using tomark everyone down.

Thirdly, people have been complaining about these 'delivery times' since ebay started using them, which puts the onus on the seller to deliver on time when again we have no control whatsoever how long it takes Royal Mail.

"You don't have to use Royal Mail"

No they aren't great, but have you seen the utter shambles that is EVRI ?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Refer to firstly.

Your secondly is utterly pointless as it is still YOUR responsibility that the item is delivered on time.

No matter what you say, this does not change.

If your referring to the displayed times on listings, then you can do something about it.

Change your dispatch time.  Extend it, if you are not meeting it.

And lastly, you only have one other choice to use, out of all the couriers that are available to you?
Very strange.

Or does it say somewhere that if you don't use Royal Mail, you have to use Evri?

The strange thing is, I send 99% of my parcels via RM and have maintained premium level for years now.

Yet your struggling to.  Maybe it's time to ask yourself why that might be and stop blaming others.

[typo_lee]

It’s getting quite well known how badly Royal Mail are performing and if your sending standard 2nd class post like us (as tracked costs more than most of the stickers we sell) then I believe Royal Mail are currently only delivering 2nd class mail on certain days already. This WILL hit late delivery rates no question. But for sellers like us who simply can’t afford to send tracked because of the cost then we are stuck. EBay would be far better implementing a system that simply relies on feedback to gauge customers satisfaction for delivery rather than all these stupid metrics. 

[technthread]

What does RM48 cost these days?

I don’t want simple delivery but if eBay could find a way of integrating RM24 and RM48 (not sure if that’s possible tbh I don’t know much about it) then I’d be ok with it. For various reasons some sellers don’t want a Royal Mail business account. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Whilst I understand that RM haven't been performing particularly well, they are still delivering 92.2% within of second class within 3 days.  So yes, there are issues there, but they will only affect just shy of 8% of this mail in total.

But if your not sending tracked, then the only performance penalty your going to get for late deliveries, is from customers, as Ebay has no way of monitoring this, other than the date you mark posted.  There is no tracking!

So what you are asking for, is already in place.

If you are still getting missed/late mail, then you need to extend your delivery window.

The planned changes overall shouldn't make that big a change.

The promised delivery is still 3 days, with a proviso that no more than an extra 3 days can pass.

So the vast majority of your mail will still be delivered on time.

The below is from OFCOM's website.

Measuring performance

Under our rules, Royal Mail is required to meet specific delivery performance targets across the whole financial year, excluding the Christmas period.[1] Among other targets, Royal Mail must:

• deliver 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection; and
• deliver 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days of collection.

Royal Mail has today acknowledged that it did not meet the above performance targets in 2024/25, as it:

• delivered 76.5% of first class mail within one working day of collection; and
• delivered 92.2% of second class mail within three working days of collection.