Unable to Generate Royal Mail Label – eBay Simple Delivery

[circuitbazaar]

I have sold two items using Buy It Now and opted into eBay Simple Delivery for both transactions.

When I click on “Get prepaid label” via the website, I receive the following message:

“Please be aware that Royal Mail is experiencing issues at the moment. We apologise for any inconvenience and if affected, ask that you try again later.

With Simple Delivery, we got you covered: if delivery is late, eBay ensures your seller score and feedback stay protected. Please do not attempt to ship your parcel using an alternative label.”

I have also attempted to generate the label using the Android mobile app, but it displays

“No service available”. "Something is wrong. Please try again later."

I have been trying intermittently for several hours without success.

Could you please confirm whether this is a known issue and provide an update on when it is likely to be resolved? Also, will this fix automatically once the issue is resolved, or does any manual intervention need to take place on my orders in the meantime?

Thank you.

[circuitbazaar]

Another screenshot form the app

[circuitbazaar]

and last screenshot form the app

[jooxworks]

Seems to be a known issue, after a quick Google search it seems pretty widespread, I'm having the same issues today. Hopefully it is resolved soon.

[circuitbazaar]

Yes, I saw that too. It looks like there was a similar issue at the end of January where support were asking for item IDs so they could manually push the postage labels through. In some cases they were also providing a code so sellers could post the items themselves and then receive a refund.

Thankfully, the technical gods are on my side today and it’s now working for me! Hopefully yours is sorted soon as well.

[kat@ebay]

Hi @circuitbazaar ,

Thank you for reaching out.

Royal Mail did experience an issue today with generating labels.  This should now be resolved and I can see from your last post it its working for you now.

Thank you,

Kat

[jumbos-bazzar]

The Royal Mail labels for tracked 48 generated this evening seem to be old tracking numbers that show as delivered last September! Are you aware of this issue, it’s also seems the Royal Mail site directly is dishing out these old tracking numbers, or was earlier when I used it. 

[kat@ebay]

Hi @jumbos-bazzar ,

Thank  you for your reply.

Can you provide some order examples where the label is an older tracking number and I can have this reported to the shipping team.

Thank you,

Kat

[circuitbazaar]

Hi Kat,

I’ve experienced the same issue mentioned by @jumbos-bazzar.

One of my items (117055062264) sold last night using Simple Delivery to an international buyer. However, the Royal Mail tracking number provided (...6661GB) shows, on the Royal Mail tracking site, as a parcel that was delivered back in September.

A second item (117019800800) sold later the same evening. In this case, Simple Delivery was not applied and the buyer was able to select and pay for Royal Mail Second Class postage. As it was not processed through Simple Delivery, I had to purchase and pay for the postage myself.

Thanks

Rob

[kat@ebay]

Hi @circuitbazaar ,

Thank you for the example. I've reported it with our shipping team. There have been instances before of Royal Mail recycling tracking numbers. Usually once they scan the packages it updates with new delivery information.

Thank you,

Kat

[neovass0]

   Sorry to bump this thread, but does anyone know if this tracking number glitch has been sorted at Royal Mail's end ? Buyers in forums have been thinking they have been scammed because new purchases are showing as immediately delivered when the label is printed, presumably because old tracking numbers are being recycled. I had a friend call ebay today regarding this and was told to send his three orders out anyway, but he hasn't because obviously the tracking won't change. Just reading elsewhere, some sellers are saying the same tracking number is on multiple orders, for different people.  

   Just asking because one item to send out, but scared to print the label, lol

[kat@ebay]

Hi All,

Providing an update that the Royal Mail confirmed the issue on the 24th where older tracking numbers were generated. This has since been resolved and those labels will be accepted and new tracking updated.

Thank you,

Kat

[jixer]

The issue with the old tracking numbers has not yet been resolved. 

I have two items that were handed over to Royal Mail yesterday (25th) at 08:00am. Their tracking information has still not been updated today (the 26th) at 13:46 (it just says 'Label Generated') and there has been no 'Courier Scan' update added or progress update. The other two items that I handed over at the same time yesterday have proper tracking and you can view their journey through Royal Mail. So, the two with the duff tracking information will have been scanned too, but their information was not actually updated. To all intents and purposes it looks like I haven't sent them!

Also, I believe this issue is spreading. I have just checked one of my other items that was successfully handed over to Royal Mail earlier this week, which was successfully scanned and then successfully tracked. But now its tracking information has reverted to a parcel delivered last August 2025! So something quite major is clearly going on here.

[kat@ebay]

HI @jixer ,

Thank you for your reply.

The tracking may be taking longer to update as this is only in the control of the Royal Mail. If you have order examples where the tracking is showing older delivery information from 2025 please share them and we can get them reported.

Thank you,

Kat

[jixer]

Hi Kat,

I've rechecked my orders and all are now showing the correct tracking except these two. They were handed over yesterday morning but still are only showing as 'label created' and, if you look up their tracking number on the Royal Mail website, it says they were delivered in August 2025 (!). Their item numbers are:

Item number: 257371856127

and

Item number: 257371854048

Thanks for your help.

[kat@ebay]

Thank you @jixer 

There has been some intermittent tracking update delays with the Royal Mail which can be due to higher than expected volumes. Thank you for the examples I'll get them added to the report. 

Thank you,

Kat

[jixer]

Hi Kat,

Just in case you're not aware, there are still oddities happening. With one of my orders the tracking was initially OK (it said that it had been handed over to Royal Mail and the tracking notification had changed to 'courier scan').  It's still saying that on the eBay site. However, if you now go to the Royal Mail website and enter its tracking number, it too is now saying it was delivered in August last year. The item number is:

Item number: 257371868632

So I don't think Royal Mail has got a complete handle on this yet?

Thanks for your help.

[circuitbazaar]

My item has now been delivered.

However, after it was accepted, there were no further tracking updates at all, not even confirmation of the acceptance scan appearing on the tracking page. Normally, Royal Mail updates the tracking as the parcel progresses through their network, but in this case nothing changed until the final delivery scan was added.

The tracking page also still shows old scan information from last year under the same tracking number.

[kat@ebay]

Hi @jixer  & @circuitbazaar ,

Thanks for the update on the tracking. I'll add this to the report with our shipping team as they are liaising with the Royal Mail.

Thank you,

Kat

[jixer]

Hi Kat,

Just to update you. The delivery confirmations are still not working consistently to correct the wrong tracking information (for the items that Royal Mail gave old tracking numbers to).

Please look at: Item number: 257371854048

The item was delivered but both the eBay tracking information and the Royal Mail tracking information are still wrong (with the Royal Mail tracking information still saying it was actually delivered last September 2025). The Royal Mail did scan the item on delivery but that scan failed to correct the wrong tracking information. I only know this because my customer was kind enough to tell me the item was delivered (and then leave positive feedback for me). Obviously, for a lot of sellers, they are still not going to have proof of delivery, as the Royal Mail scans are obviously not always correcting the wrong tracking information, despite the hope that they would. 

Thanks for your help with this.