eBay Warns of Postal Delivery Delays in the UK

eBay issued an advisory to sellers on Thursday about UK postal delivery delays and said it would update protections offered to sellers as a result. “In response to limited Royal Mail deliveries to some areas, we’ve extended our buyer-facing delivery estimates” for certain postcodes, which it proceeded to list.

The Guardian newspaper reported on the country’s postal woes on Tuesday, writing, “Royal Mail has published a list of 28 areas across the UK that no longer receive regular post because many staff have contracted coronavirus or are self-isolating.”

eBay UK said it was actively monitoring the situation and would make any changes as required and outlined the following “Seller Protection support measures”:

“Late Delivery rates will be automatically adjusted and we’ll automatically remove Late Delivery counts and any related Negative or Neutral feedback received for Royal Mail shipments to and from the postcodes above between 4 January and the 31 January 2021.

“Item not received (INR) counts in Service Metrics and any related Negative or Neutral feedback will be automatically removed if you uploaded valid tracking before the delivery was scanned for Royal Mail shipments to and from the postcodes above between 4 January and the 31 January 2021.

“We’ll be processing Defect removals and any related Negative or Neutral feedback as quickly as possible. Please be aware that it may take us a little time to remove this information from sellers’ accounts.

“Please note, even though we may protect individual service metrics from affecting sellers’ standard ratings, if delivery performance drops below an acceptable level or if we observe unusual activity on accounts, we may have to remove account privileges while we investigate the matter.”

In an advisory on the Royal Mail website, the company said every single parcel and letter was important, but: “Despite our best efforts and significant investment in extra resource, some customers may experience slightly longer delivery timescales than our usual service standards. This is due to the exceptionally high volumes of mail posted during this further lockdown period, alongside necessary coronavirus-related measures we have put in place in local mail centres and delivery offices to keep our people and customers safe. In such cases, we always work hard to get back to providing our usual level of service as quickly as we can.”

Above a list of areas impacted, Royal Mail stated: “Due to resourcing issues and associated self-isolation, deliveries in the following areas are likely to be disrupted this week. We’re sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. Please be assured we’re working hard to deliver as comprehensive a service as possible.”

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She’s a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.