It would be nice if Amazon would spend some time fixing issues with shipping.... this message is mostly feedback for the Amazon Mods. However, I would encourage other sellers to add their shipping friction points to see if we can motivate Amazon to help us to improve the customer experience. We know for a fact that better customer experiences with shipping / delivery result in higher customer satisfaction and more sales.
#1 Issue is garbage addresses. Address validation via API is cheap and easy. This would go a long way towards getting deliveries to customers quickly. All Addresses need to be CASS certified in the US. If it works for the USPS it will work for other carriers. Probably 5 to 10% of the addresses just do stupid stuff. Sometimes it's cultural..... Main street 510 (that's a non-American format), sometimes it's New Hampshire instead of NH, sometimes it's just stupid.... adding instructions in the wrong line, duplicating the address, scrambling the address, putting instructions the carrier isn't going to follow (The USPS isn't taking your mail around the back and putting it in the 3rd bush).
#2 Issues is irregularities with calculations in Amazon Buy Shipping. Why would it tell me that Priority Mail is slower than Priority Mail Cubic or Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelope? Why can't I disable things that I don't use (like flat rate envelope) because I am shipping products? Priority Mail is Priority Mail... . about 2 to 3 days. No clue why Amazon thinks it will take 6 days.
#3 PO Boxes don't rate properly..... Amazon will often insist that PO Boxes can't go via USPS. SMH. I often have to ship them with other than Amazon shipping.
wish list item:
Let me set a rule to use quicker shipping when the amount is less than X.
Example:
Use cheapest shipping that meets the OTDR, but if there is a faster shipping option for less than $1 use it instead. This comes up between USPS Ground Advantage and UPS Ground Saver.
These issues have caused me to stop using "buy shipping in bulk" and I now go through and manually evaluate each shipment to be sure my customers are getting the best delivery experience.
