Royal Mail rate of undelivered mail

[Paul Babiak]

Hi, what percentage of your Royal Mail parcels or large letters don’t arrive at its destination. Currently, I’m doing most of my business on eBay (not entirely true because it’s actually FBA but for that, I don’t use RM) and I mostly send large letters with RM. I didn’t do calculations yet but I have the feeling that rate of undelivered mail is around 4-5%. That’s a lot if you ask me. I use Despatch online manager

 

[wayzgoose]

Around 2500 parcels a year, mainly small parcels, about .25-.5% gone missing over the last year.

 

[UrbanRetail]

Ours is about 1 in every 250 and that's mostly small parcels.

 

[LPB 123]

4-5% is very high however you have to factor in scammers when selling on ebay as it's very unlikely RM are losing 4-5% of mail. It's very easy for a buyer to open an INR on ebay when they've received the item and has been sent untracked as they'll almost certainly get a refund. Also depends what category you're selling in as some are worse than others due to the buyer demographic.

The RM 2D labels with delivery confirmation have been rolled out for everyone now, however this is only for parcels and not LL's unfortunately.

 

[SamStones]

I don't have any statistics on it as I've just not tracked it but we get dozens of people saying the item hasn't turned up - we send them the 2D tracking code and say "it was delivered on xyz date" and never hear from them again. Very strange !

 

[deniser]

We used to lose 1 in 1000 with Royal Mail but it is now closer to 1 in 100. The things that go "missing" the most are:
1. untracked items so we track them if the item value is over £40
2. parcels addressed to flats, especially in large blocks, even if there is a concierge in the building
3. parcels addressed to people's work addresses

 

[bharris]

We have almost zero lost parcels with Royal Mail. Last year we had 2 out of about 6000. We found the biggest problem is that customers do not enter their correct address. Since we started to check every address (not as bad as it sounds as many are now repeat customers) the "lost parcel's" have stopped. We quite often have no house numbers, wrong postcodes and names for houses that should actually be a number. If you have a completely automated system which someone else than packs your orders, then this could be your issue.
Obviously your customers might also be lying, Royal Mails 2D barcode now (1 year later than promised) provides free delivery conformation that i believe ebay/PayPal accept as proof of delivery.

 

[Paul Babiak]

Does Royal Mails 2D barcode works for international as well?

 

[Paul Norman]

Across the business we use three main dispatch partners, one of whom is Royal Mail. There parcel loss rate is tiny. As in very tiny indeed - on that measure alone I put them first.

Even the worst of the couriers would struggle to lose that many.

 

[David P]

Does Royal Mails 2D barcode works for international as well?

Unfortunately not as they require a particular scanner. You obviously have options to send things tracked using Royal Mail but the costs will vary massively

 

[14Steve14]

In all the parcels that I sold through my website that I sent using RM, only 2 went missing last year. In the same period I lost about 15 parcels posted with RM but sold through eBay. None of the parcels were ever returned to me as my return address is included on every item posted. As far a as I am aware, none were destroyed by RM for containing banned items, because I dont post anything on that list. I assume that most of the parcels lost from eBay sales were posted to scammers, but its very difficult to prove. All the packaging used is the same regardless of the platform it sold on.

Figure for loses must be very small with RM, but the only people that really know the true figures are RM and they wouldnt really say, and if they did, would anyone trust them.

 

[bharris]

Just found out today that if your using the DMO system the free delivery conformation is live for parcels but not large letters. Hopefully they will add that soon.

Really surprised at the level of lost parcels people are suffering with Royal Mail. I think it might have more to do with your customers than Royal Mail. Over the last 13 years of sending parcels (100+K) I can count the lost parcels sent via RM on a couple of hands.

 

[UrbanRetail]

All of our 'lost' parcels come from eBay customers, but with the new delivery confirmation from Royal Mail hopefully it will be a thing of the past or at least decrease the numbers significantly.

 

[bharris]

Prices are not stable

They increase once a year like courier companies, generally cheaper and far more reliable.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I think it might have more to do with your customers than Royal Mail.

Without question.

It's eBay buyers trying their luck. Most will not even consider themselves dedicated scammers. They will buy an item with the intention of paying for it, but try claiming it was not delivered first. If the seller is savvy enough to question it, they'll give up and move on, but occasionally they'll get lucky with a refund or freebie.

What makes it so common is that the buyer can't really lose. They'll either get a replacement/refund for nothing, or they'll give up and the seller will just be glad that the problem buyer has disappeared.

 

[Vadym Gurevych]

I'd say it depends on the nature of product, and, correspondingly, nature of your typical customer. I have one business we work with, they sell beauty products on eBay - their loss rate is similar to yours, I guess. About 5%. It may be that customers just don't receive items (large letters) or that customers put old addresses on eBay and forget to fix them - don't know.

The only solution is signed for, but it costs so much more than a large letter. Another solution, probably, is franked post, 2D bar codes. This seems to be a thing now, and could result into more reliable delivery.

 

[MarekBober]

The best solution is INPOST integration- shop send order to "parcel point" and there is no lost parcels- each delivery stage is logged and if not delivered than nor received...
Parcelhubs have CCTV and to open a box you have to put a code received by SMS. Simply no lost parcels. Signed Royal Mail is also good solution- and as long as you sell only trough eBay it will be expensive- so you either bear scammers cost or and save on shipment or move form eBay and go for signed RM.