There seem to be a number of issues with untracked Royal Mail rates and Amazon. This article summarizes some of the issues. In short, switching to Amazon Buy Shipping AND using tracked services will entirely eliminate the issues that face many sellers. It may even be against policy per some of the recent support responses.
Fraud Prevention
When you purchase a shipping label you can either connect your carrier or use Amazon's Buy Shipping API to purchase labels through Amazon. In both cases you're using your Royal Mail account.
When you purchase the label through Amazon Buy Shipping, this allows Amazon to know exactly where you've shipped the order.
When you purchase the label somewhere else, the only information Amazon can verify independently is that the order was delivered.... somewhere.
Due to an uptick in fraud against Amazon buyers, you may find it difficult to defend against A-Z cases for delivery confirmation only methods like Royal Mail 24. It is possible, but very difficult.
> Hello from Amazon Selling Partner Support,
> We understand your concern regarding the valid tracking rate metrics being affected for order xxxxxxxxxx.
> We checked the order and see that the service used on the order was Royal Mail 48.
> Royal Mail 24/48 and 1st/2nd class services are not fully tracked services and only provide delivery confirmation. For Shipping Options, Selling Partners will be required to used Royal Mail Tracked 24/48 or Special Guaranteed Delivery in order to avoid losing eligibility for low tracking rate.
> Please let us know how we did.
Internal Amazon Issues
Even if you buy labels through Amazon to prevent the above you may also see delivery exceptions in your Amazon dashboard. You might see the tracking number is invalid and this may encourage the seller to file an A-Z claim for a lost package.
> > I thought I was doing correctly in identifying Royal Mail and getting 2nd Class.
> Were these just standard, untracked? If so you need to be sure you confirm shipment manually by choosing Royal Mail from first drop down (Carrier) and Royal Mail 2nd Class from second - NOT just ‘2nd Class’.
> Do not buy RM untracked using Buy Shipping as these are STILL being counted as invalid.
Royal Mail Issues
> I downloaded the VTR (Valid Tracking Rate) report and all the ‘No Valid Tracking’ orders are the ones that RM postman/woman hasn’t scanned at delivery point. So no scan from RM postman/woman counts against your VTR score.
> I think I’ll have to change over to RM Tracked 48 / 24 to fix this as it’s scanned during the route, but it’s more expensive than standard 24/48.