Shipping Kiosk at USPS

Selling on Amazon FBM
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I just live with a minimum of a 2 day production time on all SKUs.

Question for you on this. Since you’re handmade, what benefit is there to going with a shorter production time? It’s not like people will choose another seller if you don’t promise fast enough delivery. Why not use a longer time and buy yourself the bigger cushion for an on-time USPS scan?

I have an item where I set a longer (5-8 day) delivery time for CA buyers to try and discourage CA sales. It didn’t work. :frowning_face: They kept right on ordering, no matter how much I wanted them not to. :laughing:

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Yes, but a scan has to occur within 48 hours or that buy/on-time can be negated. I read it a long time ago and can’t hunt for it now. But yeah, you’ve got wiggle room.

Search results can be worse with longer prod time, and even those of us in handmade like our items to have a chance to show in general search, when specific enough.

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23

Search results can be worse with longer prod time

That’s an interesting point. Is it based on the production time, specifically, or the total delivery time, ie production+transit?

Yes, but a scan has to occur within 48 hours or that buy/on-time can be negated.

Within 48 hours of what? It’s always been my understanding, based mainly on observation, that as long as there’s a scan by the required ship-by date, it’s considered on time. So you could send a package on Friday that doesn’t have to ship until Monday and as long as it gets scanned by Monday, it should be fine.

But it’s hard for me to judge because USPS does a good job here. I’ve had 8 A to Z’s in the last year and Amazon covered 6 of them. The two I paid were cases where I didn’t use Buy Shipping.

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In my opinion, there’s no advtantage for handmade.

I set my handmade table runners to 7 days production time. They never sold, like 1 a month if that. I adjusted my handmade table runners to 4 days production time, and voila…they sell like 1 a week now. I blame that all on the search feature. Longer production, further down in the search, to page whatever…shorter production time, higher in the search.

I WAS happy when handmade came around because of the PRODUCTION time field. But then figured out that I could also do this with handling time in the marketplace listings. I thought I had read that handling time HAD TO BE SET TO ONE day…not true.

So either way, handling time or production time plus shipping affects searches which affects sales.

Yes, it’s gonna be TOTAL time…so a person in California doing a search for handmade table runners is gonna find my stuff on page 10, where as a person in Georgia is gonna find my stuff on page 2. Not page 1 because I always have 4 days of production time. Those are just examples and not true numbers.

It was Nov and Dec during COVID that tipped the scales for me with INRs. I don’t attract unethical buyers (IMHO) with my table runners. So a 2% return rate is “high”. The INRs were unreal…and small business here? Every penny counts. So there was a lot of discussion in the private area about how to protect ourselves.

I also remember a time when Amazon measured EVERYTHING… Like how long is your response time… I’ve been booted from Walmart for a stupid reason and when you need help to get your account back, it’s downright scary. YES I’m diversified across several platforms, doesn’t mean I wanna lose any of them. The lack of being able to REACH a warm body makes my antenna go up high.

On time shipping rate is important to me… On time delivery rate a bit more out of my hands so I want the INR protection. Heck, even the (stupid) Shipsurance fails once the item is marked as delivered. I want my boss to have my back…INRs do that. So I need to do what I need to protect myself. I make too many mistakes on my own…even when I’m trying to be perfect.

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That 48 hours…

Create label and then it must be scanned within 48 hours to be considered shipped on time.

Not shipped on time, means no INR or A-Z protection.

Too many of those – and you get a pink slip.

I did confirm with my local post office that the kiosk scan doesn’t mean squat. He immediately said “Did you read the fine print?” … so maybe I’ll take time to talk to the Montgomery Post Master – then again, they’re so big, they probably don’t care.

You gotta care…

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Because thousands of Chinese sellers claiming to be handmade with Alibaba crap have flooded FBA with enough units to cover the country with fast FBA availability and have sucked up all the 1st page bandwidth for all jewelry products. Like @aerides says it’s getting harder to stay above the first few pages and impossible to rank with a Handmade seller selling thousands of nose rings per month.

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I hated giving this the thumbs up, but is so true. That and I have been doing some “investigation” as in active investigation into the unknown tricks and manipulation, AKA black hat tactics, by some sellers.

Though that is for a private forum, not here.

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This! I know I sound like a broken record but Amazon makes money on buy shipping, so I see buy shipping INR protection, insurance for us peons. Especially when Amazon enables buyers to game the system at 3p seller’s expense.

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But not only to they enable, they ENABLE, let me unpack that.

Tonight I just got oft a 10 page chat with Amazon and a 20 minute phone call with someone in a far off world.

The problem we have is we are in a temporary apartment complex, our delivery instructions are simple, deliver to our building, the open door, all the details of where the door is. Both on the label and on the TBA instructions.

Nope, 50% of the time the deliver to the “club house” a HOT MESS, and stuff gets stolen.

All I wanted was to talk with the Manager of the TBA company, to tell them the issue, to tell them why they need to follow our instructions and not deliver to the Club House.

Amazon Representatives refused to allow them to call me. I gave both my home number and work number. Said they don’t need to call me tonight, it is 9pm EDT, they can call tomoroww. “That is not going to happen sir.”

Ok, have someone call me (same reasonable rules) all I want to do is help. “That is not going to happen sir.”

Ok, so you want me to file an INR, that only harms the seller, for every item you deliver to the Club House, that only hurts the seller, that is not fair.

“Yes sir, that is what you should do.”
:man_facepalming: :person_facepalming: :woman_facepalming:

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I read thru the policy again and it’s no longer there, but this is what I go by from the old (5 year?) version…lol…

  1. Ship required by 4/3
  2. I ship 4/2
  3. As long as it is scanned within 48 hours of my action - 2- then the shipment is legit, even if that late scan is now 4/4. If it’s not, and 3 days go by, and the USPS doesn’t do the first scan until 4/5, amazon doesn’t believe I shipped on time, and protections go out the window, and it’s no longer considered shipped on time for ODR stuff.

I could be wrong, but it’s almost never an issue for me as my outbound hub is very good and my carrier is a doll.

Also, I like a 1 day production time on ready-to-ship stuff which is a lot for me. An order at 11:59pm Pacific means I have to ship “today” when I wake up on the East coast.

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That’s a true UGH! I’d be researching to call them around Amazon…sorry, but not sorry.

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See…and when handmade sellers first started and had low volume, all of this was very important because you/we/I didn’t have other orders to balance it all out. when 1 order out of 10 goes haywire, that’s a huge impact. 1 out of 100, is totally different. So in handmade we talked a lot about some of these details.

I too remember so many different perforance measures – some still there, some gone, and some new ones.

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Not shipped on time, means no INR or A-Z protection.

I’m not disputing that, nor am I suggesting that you should actually ship late. I’m only suggesting that you might be doing unnecessary work by standing in line and your packages would still not be late, even if you didn’t. Just trying to save you some time and trouble, that’s all. :grin:

Too many of those – and you get a pink slip.

By pink slip, you mean you get in trouble with Amazon because your Late Shipment rate metric is too high?

My late shipment rate is always zero except when I buy the shipping label after the ship-by date has passed. I’ve had many instances where a ship-by date is ‘today’ and I buy the label today but don’t physically ship it until tomorrow. It does not incur a late shipment ding.

Now, if one of those packages did happen to wind up with an A to Z or INR, I’d probably lose, but as I mentioned earlier, the statistical probability of that happening is so small, I don’t worry about it.

I’m a numbers person, so I look at it like this -
How often do your packages get an INR or A to Z where you need that timely scan? 1 in every 10? 1 in 100? 1 in 500? Lets say 1 in 100 packages, for the sake of discussion.

Then, how many of your packages fail to get their first acceptance scan the same night you ship? (assuming you don’t wait in line for one) If we use a high number, like 1 in 20, that means that out of every 100 packages, 5 are missing timely acceptance scans, and 1 has a delivery issue.

So what are the odds that the one that turns into an INR/A to Z is also one of the 5 that failed to get a timely scan? Because that’s the only scenario where Buy Shipping protection wouldn’t cover you. If your problem package is one of the 95 that got a timely scan - then you’re covered by Buy Shipping and didn’t need to wait in line for a manual scan.

The odds of one package having both issues is very small, statistically, but of course, it will depend on your specific numbers of INR/A to Z’s and postal missed scans.

I adjusted my handmade table runners to 4 days production time, and voila…they sell like 1 a week now.

You created an overall shorter delivery time too, and that may be what triggered the sales rather than the specific production time.

That is -

  • 2 day production + 5 day transit shows the buyer delivery in 7 days.
  • 4 day production + 3 days transit shows the buyer the same 7 days. But 4 day production gives you 2 extra days for USPS to make an on-time scan.

This is why I suggested a longer production time (not longer overall delivery time) might benefit you if your post office doesn’t always scan right away. Using 4 days would add 2 more days for them to get around to scanning it and still have it be on time for Amazon.

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I agree it should be a rare problem, but it all depends on your local PO and/or hub. If mine sucked, I might be making trips. I’m not, because my carrier is awesome, and the hub is well run.

What do you mean “when” like it’s past tense lol… My FBM volume remains in the “one strike is bad” territory, as FBA is 80% for me. I’ve considered doing zero FBM, but my higher priced items, and less common sizes, sell well enough this way. And of course a few extra orders when I run out of FBA stock, enough that I can’t just wave it away.

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Where it shows up in the searches is a combination of both. Folks who live closer to me are gonna see my item ranked higher. same day shipping, same day arrival obviously is at the top of list.

I set my production time based on what I really need. Then I set the shipping time to the furthest out given the choices (I think) so I can use first class confirmed delivery. I’m happy with the level of sales that I get that way and I’m never caught paying more for shipping that the darn doily they bought. First class confirmed delivery is builty in to my prices. Nothing else really is.

IF I want to increase sales, I know to ship the same day and ship it faster. Nope, don’t want to do that.

Kiosks don’t provide that initial scan like the clerk wanted me to believe. Just like scan sheets don’t do that either. And I want to be fully protected against INRs.

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Just wanted to chime in on this, we don’t do it often, but it does happen. You are correct. 100% correct. I can think of 5 times in twice as many years that we have printed that label, but shipped the (looking left, looking right ehemm) the next day.

In the holiday, this year, without our old postmaster, they have messed up quite a few times. Where the package sat overnight, and did not move for one or two days. And we printed the label on time.

He never would have let that happen.

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37

We’ve been using the kiosk in several different branches in Tucson for a couple of years.

The one where we have our POB is very good about taking parcels out of the blue receptacle beside the kiosk-multiple times during the weekend and scanning them in. The main hub, where the counter is open to 7 p.m during the week; not so much. Maybe 65% for the latter, 90% for the former. Dependent if one uses the kiosk during business hours; falls on a FEDERAL holiday weekend or if the person who is responsible for scanning parcels from the receptacle happens to be off-ill or vacation(Yes, that’s what we were told!).

For the first couple of months of usage, I checked/rechecked all the kiosk tracking #'s to see if scanned correctly. That got old quick. Since hate to babysit our parcels, now assume kiosk parcels are scanned in-and we haven’t had a buyer complaint or A-Z lost due to scanning error.

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@wadeorcas:

The kiosk we use most often now has a sign:
DOES NOT CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE by USPS unless PLACED in the MAIL BIN and SCANNED by a POST OFFICE EMPLOYEE. Guess scammers are trying to take advantage there, too!

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We have that sign, too. This is what I don’t get: if the scan doesn’t constitute proof of anything, what is the point of scanning at the kiosk?

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For the seller who knows it works most of the time, (and it really does), it’s one step better than leaving them on the counter:

A kiosk scan still tells your customer that you did more than print a label - the layman says “good it’s on the way to me”
And then they go in the bin, not on the counter/table/area or whatever

There’s a whole lot of usage beyond winning the amazon metrics. It won’t help those much, but it’s still better than a drop off.

Best: Get you a carrier who doesn’t mind anything, and scans your sheet or your packages with a smile and a chat, no matter what! Be their best friend.

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