Royal Mail’s scanning gaps put eBay sellers’ Top Rated status at risk
Royal Mail’s failure to scan parcels on time puts eBay sellers at risk of losing Top Rated status when their late‑delivery rate exceeds the 3% threshold. For a seller handling 2,000 orders each quarter, eBay allows up to 60 late deliveries before Top Rated status is lost. In August, a handful of parcels handed to Royal Mail on time were never scanned, triggering the late‑delivery flag.
eBay defines a late delivery as a parcel whose delivery scan occurs after the latest estimated delivery date, or when there is no carrier acceptance scan within the seller’s dispatch window.
“There were dozens of them in bright red T-shirts, so when a Royal Mail problem came up in my eBay seller clinic it seemed a good opportunity to get everyone in the same room and sort it out,” David Brackin, contributing editor to ChannelX and founder of StuffUSell said.
eBay’s Top Rated program requires sellers to keep late‑delivery rates below 3% over a three‑month window.
What we know
eBay’s published standard for Top Rated is a late delivery rate of no more than 3% of transactions, measured over the past three months for any account with more than 400 transactions in that period.
An account doing 2,000 orders a quarter has 60 late deliveries to play with, and a single York cage left unscanned might be enough to put you over the line.
It was a handful of parcels, all in the same week in August.
Royal Mail had not scanned them.
When we spoke to our 3PL they said they were seeing the same thing with other clients, including sellers on Amazon and other marketplaces.