Post is 3 weeks old, but this response from the moderator seems a little concerning:
Mod goes on to say that even if the weight and dimensions entered by seller match that audited by carrier, there may still be surcharges. It seems to me that if you have entered the weight and dimensions correctly, that Buy Shipping should accurately display the actual label cost (meaning no future surcharges). Am I missing something?
We also had posted about this on another thread …
Yes.
First, full disclosure in that I do NOT use Amazon BS.
Amazon can ONLY estimate the cost of the labels because their BS system opens them up to blatant fraud by sellers that use it and enter the wrong weights and measurements. Whether that is by accident or on purpose depends entirely on the sellers involved.
As much as I do NOT trust Amazon, I am quite certain they do not have hidden cameras and scales in the homes/businesses of every seller that prints out labels and attaches them to boxes.
This is no different than what happened YEARS ago when Amazon actually accepted SCAN Forms as proof of shipping. THAT cost them a lot of money – I have seen reports it was in the millions of dollars – when certain, less than ethical, sellers printed out SCAN Forms for 100+ items and only shipped a fraction of that amount. They had proof and Amazon paid out claims.
While my disdain for Amazon makes me think they might actually force sellers to ONLY use BS, my experience dealing with liars and thieves tells me they won’t because it WILL cost them a fortune in claims that would go to sellers that will have disappeared and left Amazon holding the bag.
They are stupid in a lot of ways, but not so much when their bank account(s) is/are in play.
You would hope so, but from the adjustments I am seeing, it doesn’t seem like it. From what the mod posted, it sounds like Amazon’s buy shipping estimates the shipping cost instead of actually sending the package info to USPS through an API call to get an actual quote like most other shipping platforms. Looking at the adjustments on my account, Amazon has been doing a pretty bad job of this since the changes that went into effect on July 12th because I am seeing a lot of adjustments for the rural zip code charge. Not sure if they haven’t gotten all of the rural zip codes added to their algorithm or what the issue is, but I hope they get it corrected soon.
KJ_Amazon has said that the order detail page updates to the USPS adjusted price after the adjustment happens. That is a horrible practice and very confusing.
It would be interesting to know if any of these types of adjustments happen for orders after say August 1, 2026. Amazon should have been able to have all of these “rural” zip codes into the shipping platform by then.
Amazon continues to defend this practice, but cannot explain why if I buy postage directly from a shipper, this never happens, nor how other platforms (or other Amazon shipping methods) can integrate with shippers and come up with accurate numbers when Amazon cannot. It’s not like the data is unavailable; it’s that Amazon chooses not to use it. Since the errors (in our experience) are always in the same direction (in Amazon’s favor), this is either the result of direct malfeasance or (more likely) blind trust in metrics or A/B testing to maximize profits and plausible deniability (“oh, did we overlook something that made us billions and now we’re being slapped on the wrist for it by the feds? our bad”).
One area where this clearly makes them happy is customer fault returns. By the time the adjustments come in, it’s too late to claw the money back from the customer. This is blatantly wrong, but another place where Amazon will say “you agreed to let us touch you anywhere we want when you signed up for this, even if a contract that says we can molest you is not legally binding.”
As far as I can tell, Amazon has yet to publicly acknowledge the USPS-API Data Handshake-Validation Snafu which the OIG highlighted in its 072926 “Report Number 25-130-2-R26” (link, USPSOIG, .pdf).
Sometimes, silence speaks volumes.
From what I have seen, it looks like Amazon does not use USPS’s API to get rates like most other shippers do. Instead, it seems like they use their own algorithm to calculate the shipping cost, and when they get it wrong, you see these shipping adjustments.
One of my main reasons for thinking this is that USPS’s API documentation states that if you are using their Domestic Labels API, the labels would have the Intelligent Mail Package Barcodes (IMpb), which USPS labels purchased from Amazon’s buy shipping are notably missing.
Example of an Amazon label:
USPS label purchased through their API
I am not sure why Amazon is operating this way. You can sign up for your own account with USPS, and Amazon does now allow you to connect it to buy shipping. When using your own account with Amazon’s buy shipping, it does seem to use USPS’s API because the label you get looks like the USPS API example that I posted. Doing that would ensure you are charged the correct rate in the first place, and if you do have any adjustments, you can dispute them directly with USPS.
Am I the only one who has believed from the get-go that these adjustments have nothing whatever to do with the carrier?
There’s nobody to hold Amazon accountable. And of course with retro-adjustments, there’s no proof – the packages are long gone.
The corrections always mean Amazon gets more money – sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Never the other way round.
Since they are not going to be held accountable – why not?
At this point I’m undecided whether I want to use my USPS commercial account vs Amazon Buy Shipping.
Do I want to introduce another layer of accounting to my books?
Do I want to add the inconvenience or processing labels?
Will my A-Z INR loses exceed these adjustments?
Right now the adjustments I’ve received seem legit, and appear to be mostly the fault of Amazon to keep the correct prices up to date.
I do have a considerable amount of INRs that I’m sure would not be covered without Amazon Buy Shipping.
As far as with this Jan to Mar batch of adjustments, we agree. There were some posts about Amazon Buy Shipping labels not going up at that time.
If you connect your USPS account to Amazon Buy Shipping, you will retain the INR protection as if it was an Amazon USPS label.
If you link your USPS account to Amazon, I believe that you still get the Buy Shipping protections since you are still buying through the Buy Shipping interface. I used to have my UPS account linked to Amazon, but Amazon’s prices ended up being better, so I disconnected it. My assumption was that I had the Buy Shipping protections when using my linked account.
Like @Lost_My_Marbles stated, you can connect your USPS account to Amazon’s buy shipping, and doing so would still give you INR protection. Per the help page for linking your USPS account:
If you are already getting your labels through Amazon’s buy shipping, then it wouldn’t change the way you process labels at all.
I think it might simply things having all USPS charges in one place and not having to deal with all the adjustments on Amazon’s end. I use my USPS account to ship all my orders from my other sales channels, and I think I have only had one adjustment in the last six months. The other potential upside is that instead of having the label cost coming from your available Amazon balance, you can have your USPS account charge it to a company card, allowing you to earn points or miles.
We have our FedEx account connected to Amazon’s buy shipping and previously had our USPS account connected as well. I disconnected it because at the time they didn’t have it setup to work through their shipping API, and that prevented me from using my third-party app (Ordoro) to fulfill Amazon orders, which made my workflow a lot harder. Checking the above linked help article, they state that it does work now, so that solves that problem. The other issue we were seeing was that the rates were slightly higher for some reason, but that was before the July 12 rates changes so maybe it changed. I will be reconnecting our account this week and see how it goes.
No, you’re decidedly not the fabled Lone Ranger on that score.
There’s simply been too much evidence that Amazon’s slip-shod provisioning of this or that its support infrastructure’s underpinnings, at this point, for me to gainsay that there has long-seemed to exist NO possibility of making any convincingly-compelling argument to the contrary.
If it quacks like a duck…
Our USPS rates are $0.05 lower on USPS GA less than 1lb than what Amazon is charging.
Methinks I slip-shodded myself with that ¶, which would’ve probably read better had I not failed to include an ‘of’ preposition", and defined the target, like so:
Mea culpa
