Online sellers have a lot to deal with when selling on marketplaces. With the online medium of selling, the online selling community seems to be duped more often than the buying community. If it isn’t online consumers, it’s the marketplace or logistics staff. It’s getting hard to be an online seller these days and calculated online selling strategies are in order.
Amazon taking measures to reduce theft from its end?
Recently Amazon emailed its sellers saying:
Dear Seller,
Starting May 27, 2016, the Cash on Delivery (COD) amount will not be displayed on the shipping label in respect of COD orders. The shipping label will carry only the COD tag and will not display the order amount. This change has been implemented to optimise operations and will not impact your orders. You can process your COD orders as usual.
Regards,
Amazon services
Amazon services
This could link to the incident from 22nd May, when Rs. 10 lakh worth high end mobile phones were stolen from an Amazon storehouse, by its employees.
How are Online Sellers Reacting?
We spoke to two online sellers who engage in online retail through amazon.in. Here are their reactions to the change (seller #1 remains anonymous upon request):
Do your products bear the revised label?
Online Seller: Shakti Gandhi
Yes, our products do bear this revised shipping labels.
Online Seller: XYZ
COD is only allowed for Easy Ship, so products HAVE to bear this label.
Does it affect the consumer’s perception of your of the packaging?
Online Seller: Shakti Gandhi
I don’t think it affects anything in this regard.
Online Seller: XYZ
I doubt it, it’s an unnoticeable change.
Do you think the consumer wants to see the price on packaging before handing over his cash?
Online Seller: Shakti Gandhi
Maybe sometime there might be problem between customer n delivery boy…as some customer might say that since cod is not mentioned we won’t pay and it may increase return burden for us (seller).
Online Seller: XYZ
Yes, some consumers may want to see that but if ATS person explains it or shows on his device it shouldn’t be a big issue.
How do you think the new labeling will affect COD specific sales on Amazon?
Online Seller: Shakti Gandhi
As mentioned in point 3, it might increase courier returns for us (it is very less right now).
Online Seller: XYZ
I don’t think COD label will have any effect on COD sales.
Should other marketplaces also remove prices from COD shipping labels?
Online Seller: Shakti Gandhi
I don’t think Removing COD from labels is good decision…it will just create confusion for customers and delivery boy.
Online Seller: XYZ
It’s not upto them entirely, this depends on the logistic companies. This COD amount is mainly used as declared value for insurance and lost purposes, also for courier personnel to be able to collect money as majority still don’t have the digital devices for the same.
It’s a good and complicated thing which Amazon was able to do because it’s strong with technology and it’s leveraging technology heavily to tighten its operations in all areas.
Other companies need other ways to tighten their operations but it needs to be done. One of the ways could be to put more liability on the carriers. Right now carriers have all the leverage as marketplaces have been happily burning. This will have to change.
Leave your comments below about the price omission from Amazon’s shipping labels. We’d like to know what you think.
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