eBay postages labels *QUESTION*

LaurasHeavenlyMelts

Hello this is my first post and im after some help and support from people that have been doing this a while.

My wife start a wax melt business about 7 months ago we moved on to eBay it has taken off, when i buy postage labels off eBay i have just been dropping them in my local post office.

Now i have several questions.

1. Do the post office have to scan them as they stated they don't have to ?

2. If i make a claim with royal mail do i get my eBay email of proof of buying postage labels (or do post office have the scan them to get this?) 

3. Is a thermal printer best or just simple a printer cut and stick. 

Thank you

- Jamie 

soolin

LaurasHeavenlyMelts said:

Hello this is my first post and im after some help and support from people that have been doing this a while.

My wife start a wax melt business about 7 months ago we moved on to eBay it has taken off, when i buy postage labels off eBay i have just been dropping them in my local post office.

Now i have several questions.

1. Do the post office have to scan them as they stated they don't have to ?

2. If i make a claim with royal mail do i get my eBay email of proof of buying postage labels (or do post office have the scan them to get this?) 

3. Is a thermal printer best or just simple a printer cut and stick. 

Thank you

- Jamie 

1) one of my post offices scans them and gives me individual receipts, the other doesn't - for the one that doesn't I take a proof of posting sheet and they stamp that instead . My mail centre also doesn't scan and again for them I use a POP sheet.

2) To make a claim you need proof of posting not proof a label was bought , so you will either need stamped POPs or a till receipt that states it is proof of posting. Remember though that as you are a business you will only be able to claim the original cost of the item if it is lost, not the sale price.

3) I have a Zebra printer and use the Royal Mail supplied labels (assuming you have a business account with RM you can get these labels free and they will also discount the cost of a Zebra printer). However, my PC is temperamental and occasionally will not print the correct size for the Zebra so on those occasions I just use normal A4 and cut and use Sellotape. 

LaurasHeavenlyMelts

soolin said:

LaurasHeavenlyMelts said:

Hello this is my first post and im after some help and support from people that have been doing this a while.

My wife start a wax melt business about 7 months ago we moved on to eBay it has taken off, when i buy postage labels off eBay i have just been dropping them in my local post office.

Now i have several questions.

1. Do the post office have to scan them as they stated they don't have to ?

2. If i make a claim with royal mail do i get my eBay email of proof of buying postage labels (or do post office have the scan them to get this?) 

3. Is a thermal printer best or just simple a printer cut and stick. 

Thank you

- Jamie 

1) one of my post offices scans them and gives me individual receipts, the other doesn't - for the one that doesn't I take a proof of posting sheet and they stamp that instead . My mail centre also doesn't scan and again for them I use a POP sheet.

2) To make a claim you need proof of posting not proof a label was bought , so you will either need stamped POPs or a till receipt that states it is proof of posting. Remember though that as you are a business you will only be able to claim the original cost of the item if it is lost, not the sale price.

3) I have a Zebra printer and use the Royal Mail supplied labels (assuming you have a business account with RM you can get these labels free and they will also discount the cost of a Zebra printer). However, my PC is temperamental and occasionally will not print the correct size for the Zebra so on those occasions I just use normal A4 and cut and use Sellotape. 

Hello, thank you for your reply.

So basically i have over 8 claims from start of dec people claiming they don't have there item we have sent over 300 items this month so my post office and kind of screwed us over now

Do we need a  business account with RM and do you get postage discounted ? 

Also how do i go around getting this business account with RM and the Zebra printer ?

Kind regards  

soolin

LaurasHeavenlyMelts said:

soolin said:

LaurasHeavenlyMelts said:

Hello this is my first post and im after some help and support from people that have been doing this a while.

My wife start a wax melt business about 7 months ago we moved on to eBay it has taken off, when i buy postage labels off eBay i have just been dropping them in my local post office.

Now i have several questions.

1. Do the post office have to scan them as they stated they don't have to ?

2. If i make a claim with royal mail do i get my eBay email of proof of buying postage labels (or do post office have the scan them to get this?) 

3. Is a thermal printer best or just simple a printer cut and stick. 

Thank you

- Jamie 

1) one of my post offices scans them and gives me individual receipts, the other doesn't - for the one that doesn't I take a proof of posting sheet and they stamp that instead . My mail centre also doesn't scan and again for them I use a POP sheet.

2) To make a claim you need proof of posting not proof a label was bought , so you will either need stamped POPs or a till receipt that states it is proof of posting. Remember though that as you are a business you will only be able to claim the original cost of the item if it is lost, not the sale price.

3) I have a Zebra printer and use the Royal Mail supplied labels (assuming you have a business account with RM you can get these labels free and they will also discount the cost of a Zebra printer). However, my PC is temperamental and occasionally will not print the correct size for the Zebra so on those occasions I just use normal A4 and cut and use Sellotape. 

Hello, thank you for your reply.

So basically i have over 8 claims from start of dec people claiming they don't have there item we have sent over 300 items this month so my post office and kind of screwed us over now

Do we need a  business account with RM and do you get postage discounted ? 

Also how do i go around getting this business account with RM and the Zebra printer ?

Kind regards  

Sorry this is a bit quick - I'll respond better later.
You need to trawl through the RM site under business and there is a form on there to arrange a call to discuss a business account. There are lots of different schemes for businesses and they will talk through which is best for your type of sales. Getting to the bit of the site to get a Zebra printer is near impossible - it is so well hidden away- but it is worth doing . As for ordering labels, as soon as you have any sort of business account you get access to all sorts of supplies, delivered free of charge.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

OP 8 out of 300 is a pretty high rate of loss, are these large letters or parcels? 

Many eBay shoppers present their address poorly so 

1aalbertst
West Midlands

has more chance of getting to the right place presented as

1 A
Albert Street
BIRMINGHAM 

It's worth checking every address on the postcode checker below and presenting as Royal Mail show:

https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode

Also make sure your parcels are well sealed so with jiffy bags I put tape across the back flap so it can't be opened, with boxes I put tape around the sides so if the box is crushed it has less chance of splitting and everything falling out. 

If your parcels are really, really small you may wish to think about bigger packaging as tiny parcels can easily get misplaced or stuck at the bottom of the postal sacks. 

Your other issue is some buyers will not be telling the truth, with time you'll learn the signs but without tracking you won't be able to do much.

Claiming from Royal Mail may be a waste of time, I'm assuming the cost of the product is low so isn't much to write off, the postage lost can feel a bit painful but ideally you want to add a few pence to each order (or just suffer the loss as an expense)  and focus on selling more rather than filling in paperwork to get a small amount of money back from Royal Mail.

If you are using eBay's promotional tools to give discounts you should be able to balance the discounts so that larger orders can be sent as a parcel giving you delivery confirmation, although again it's a balance between cost and loss if larger orders can still fit as a large letter.

If you get a business account you can use Click and Drop which will keep a record of everything (although this won't give proof of posting for making claims) and again personally I wouldn't bother with keeping endless reams of certificates of posting simply to claim for lost parcels. 

Spoonie_Turtle

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Claiming from Royal Mail may be a waste of time, I'm assuming the cost of the product is low so isn't much to write off, the postage lost can feel a bit painful but ideally you want to add a few pence to each order (or just suffer the loss as an expense)  and focus on selling more rather than filling in paperwork to get a small amount of money back from Royal Mail. 

The online form is actually quite simple, takes just a couple of minutes if you have the information to hand.  From a business point of view the time probably adds up, but so does the postage so for some people keeping those records may be worth it.

Thrugelmir

Go to a Post Office that will scan them. Recording the item as being dispatched and tracking delivery is key. There's no shortage of unscrupulous individuals who'll happily attempt to obtain the items for free. 

soolin

Thrugelmir said:

Go to a Post Office that will scan them. Recording the item as being dispatched and tracking delivery is key. There's no shortage of unscrupulous individuals who'll happily attempt to obtain the items for free. 

The issue here isn’t scanning though, small parcels will show delivery confirmation whether Post Office scans them or not and show nothing up until that point.  Large letters do not routinely show as delivered so scanning makes no difference. What the post office scan is for is to enable a claim to be made if item is lost, not to catch out scammers.

OP there are some business accounts that offer full tracking at a cost and even some that have delivery confirmation on large letters. The one I used had standard delivery confirmation on parcels , I paid £3 the same as with ebay labels but had to pay a bit extra for transport costs (or something like that, it was added to my monthly bill and was just a couple of pounds) . My large letters also had delivery confirmation and I was charged for an average rate and each large letter cost me around £1.06 , but on that scheme I wasn’t able to make any claim for loss on my large letters at all.