Hey. So I have plenty of online retail experience, but was just finally going to start doing FBA. Frankly I put it off for a long time because of all the problems people talk about on the forums... But I figured I'd be nuts to not give it a go and see how it worked out, if sales go up by a fraction of what Seller Central claims it'll be worth some small issues here and there... And if it's so bad it's not worth it, I can just quit.

Anyway, I sent my first package into FBA a week or so ago... And the warehouse refused it. I'd read about this issue, but figured it was a "rare" thing probably, because I'd sent tons of USPS packages to Amazon over the years with a different business I used to be involved with, but that was an actual vendor. But now I'm thinking it's not rare if it happened on my very first shipment.

So other sellers, is an almost 100% refusal rate typical for USPS deliveries nowadays? It was a few years back when I was involved in sending USPS stuff to Amazon FCs before, so maybe things have changed...

I know you Amazon employees who read the forums are mostly pretty awesome, you've certainly helped me out before, and also seem to actually have some common sense... Seriously push this issue up the chain of command. It's an absolutely absurd policy to refuse deliveries that are perfectly fine, with all the proper labeling etc, from the biggest carrier in the country. Like seriously. It's such an unbelievably bad business policy it is incomprehensible to any rational human being. It didn't used to be an issue at your FCs before either. It's obviously not some insurmountable issue.

Amazon either needs to say "Look, you can only use UPS. We don't care how much more expensive it is, or how inconvenient, or anything else. We only want UPS for deliveries to our warehouses. Got it?" and that's that... OR you could do the very simple and rational thing and just accept packages when they're delivered like LITERALLY EVERY OTHER WAREHOUSE ON EARTH. One of the two. Everybody here wants things to actually work well, and for us all to make some money. Amazon and our interests are aligned 110% on this issue, so there's no reason for this.

I guess I'm sending UPS next time... But it's not convenient for us. USPS is cheaper for every single item we mail out ourselves, and essentially the same cost for these shipments to Amazon... The difference is our building is literally across the street from the post office (AKA convenient), and the nearest UPS dropoff is dozens of miles away. Hence we don't use them. So please put in the "suggestion box" to either tell people to not use anything other than UPS, or better yet, just accept packages when you receive them from whatever carrier brought them to you!

I understand how bad policies come into existence (left hand doesn't know what the right is doing, somebody just didn't think it through, nobody actually cares, etc), I just don't understand how they stick around. It becomes apparent really quick when things that make no sense are happening, so you'd think SOMEBODY would course correct. Like the warehouse manager at every Amazon FC should tell his employees they're fired if they ever refuse a delivery that is undamaged and properly labeled. Because receiving deliveries is one of two things they're supposed to do! You can't shrug off half your job! But it seems like nobody ever deploys common sense on these things... Amazon isn't alone as a big company that does this sort of thing, but every company should TRY to keep it to a minimum.

This is an issue that hurts your own bottom line by you not getting inventory on time and able to sell it and collect your fees! It of course hurts all your 3rd party sellers or outright vendors too. So please send it up the chain as a suggestion to actually accept packages at your warehouses. I mean accepting packages is HALF of the purpose of a warehouse, the other half being to send them back out again. Failing at doing HALF of the job your facility exists to do is not great. Just saying.