VTR Errors on Cross-Border Orders Under €20 Marked as “Letter” — What Are We Doing Wrong?
Hi all,
We’re having ongoing issues with VTR being impacted despite following Amazon’s own exemptions guidance. According to the policy:
“All cross-border shipments will be included in VTR calculation, unless the order value is below €20 (including shipping, excluding VAT) and a ‘letter’ ship method was used.”
We ship from the UK to Europe, and for several of our recent orders:
1. The order value is well under €20 (see attached screenshot),
2. We correctly marked the ship method as “letter”,
3. We used Royal Mail (standard letter services),
4. The tracking shows as Invalid, as these are non-tracked letter shipments.
Still, these orders are showing up in the affected VTR list and are hurting our account metrics.
Can someone please clarify.
What are we doing wrong?
Does Amazon still not fully recognise Royal Mail “letter” format as exempt, even when value is below €20?
Is this an issue others are experiencing too?
Attached is a screenshot showing the affected orders with values of €11.65, €14.06, and €18.05, all shipped as “letter” with Royal Mail.
Any insight or help would be really appreciated.
VTR Errors on Cross-Border Orders Under €20 Marked as “Letter” — What Are We Doing Wrong?
Hi all,
We’re having ongoing issues with VTR being impacted despite following Amazon’s own exemptions guidance. According to the policy:
“All cross-border shipments will be included in VTR calculation, unless the order value is below €20 (including shipping, excluding VAT) and a ‘letter’ ship method was used.”
We ship from the UK to Europe, and for several of our recent orders:
1. The order value is well under €20 (see attached screenshot),
2. We correctly marked the ship method as “letter”,
3. We used Royal Mail (standard letter services),
4. The tracking shows as Invalid, as these are non-tracked letter shipments.
Still, these orders are showing up in the affected VTR list and are hurting our account metrics.
Can someone please clarify.
What are we doing wrong?
Does Amazon still not fully recognise Royal Mail “letter” format as exempt, even when value is below €20?
Is this an issue others are experiencing too?
Attached is a screenshot showing the affected orders with values of €11.65, €14.06, and €18.05, all shipped as “letter” with Royal Mail.
Any insight or help would be really appreciated.
11 replies
Seller_Vf10jieAEG9f1
We have the same problem, we are just going round in circles with Seller Support.
Are you still using Royal Mail International Standard (i.e. with just one scan) for parcels? We also have a problem with this even though it meets the terms of the VTR policy. Amazon are not picking up the one scan.
Seller_JLsqaOw9gpZwj
Parcels dont even need one scan if sent from GB to EU according to Amazon's own guidance. We have the same problem with letters and parcels under €20 euros.
The rule clearly states 'You must maintain a 95% VTR for the following seller-fulfilled shipments:
Cross-border shipments above €20: Shipments to and from the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Austria, or Sweden that have an order value above €20 (including shipping charges, excluding VAT).
Today received warning emails for all categories for invalid tracking on orders below €20 Euros. Its madness wtih Seller Performance not understanding Amazon's own policies.
Seller_Vf10jieAEG9f1
Yes, we've now had warnings for France and Germany which includes all those below 20 Euro (letters and parcels) and those above 20 Euro that have one valid carrier scan as per VTR requirements.
We just keep going round in circles with Seller Support. Their latest advice from Germany contained a list of carriers that we need to use to be valid for VTR. All of these were German carriers which cannot be accessed from the UK. I have questioned "so to achieve VTR we need to use German carriers and therefore it is impossible for UK sellers to meet VTR requirements?"
We plan to just wait to get suspended, quite frankly sick of playing these nonsense games with Amazon.
Seller_JLsqaOw9gpZwj
Gerry, which carrier are you using for your orders below 20 Euros to France, DE, IT etc?
We are using Royal Mail DW1 & DG4, on friday we started uploading the customs codes (basic barcodes on labels) that are in the same format as tracking numbers. We read that this creates a scanning event upon export from the UK. We use linnworks and spotted in their guidance notes there is a facility to export this in the tracking number field.
Seller Health team confirmed that parcels under 20 Euros dont need to be sent tracked as per policy. Raised a case and was told the example orders shown on our defect report were exempt as didnt appear as fails???!!!! It would appear that not even Amazon seller support know what is happening with VTR fails on orders under 20 Euros.
Have you made any progress?
Seller_Vf10jieAEG9f1
We mainly use DG4. We've been uploading the 2D delivery confirmation barcode but this doesn't work.
Have you any evidence that the customs barcode will work as we might give this a go?
Thx
Seller_JLsqaOw9gpZwj
@Seller_Vf10jieAEG9f1We started doing it 10 days ago as realised that Linnworks offers the facility to share it in the tracking field. Provides one scanning event confirming dispatch from the UK and the destination country only.
Only time will tell, at next VTR review, if this last roll of the dice keeps us afloat or Amazon finally succeed in shutting down our business.
Have seen your other posts. We are in the same boat, nothing works and cannot get any answers from Seller Support who just state drop down, select Letter which as we both know is not possible.
DW1 International Parcels - still cannot get Seller Support to clarify the policy as written either, with the account health team stating all orders under €20 do not require tracking.
Tag me if you get any progress. Following your other thread with the mod trying to help
Seller_Vf10jieAEG9f1
@Seller_JLsqaOw9gpZwj Thanks, will let you know if we hear anything. We have been told by our Premium Seller Support team that the policy wording, FAQs and interpretation could take months to resolve. I'm sure it is Amazon policy to never admit there is a problem/error but reading between the lines they seem to understand that there is indeed something they need to sort out on their side.
As advised we have been uploading the 2D barcode number which does have one tracking event but it isn't working for VTR when it should. Please update this thread/tag if the customs barcode works instead. Thx.
Seller_eKxfC0hfusHiG
What do you mean standard letter service? Service code?
Ezra_Amazon
Hello @Seller_4rSpLXMHIy3hc,
I noticed that the tracking IDs you've provided contain spaces, which may cause our system to flag them as invalid tracking numbers. You have always shared like this?
As per the Help page: Valid tracking rate FAQ
"Note: Don’t copy and paste the tracking ID from the carrier’s website as it can contain zero-width-space characters. Instead, manually enter the tracking ID."
Best, Ezra
