What happens if Amazon are saying my goods are not received?
We, or any other trucker/forwarder will be able to confirm if your delivery has been completed to Amazon FBA centres successfully.
However, Amazon can often take weeks to physically ‘check-in’ your goods and in the meantime, that delay can create huge concerns and lots of work/stress for everyone involved.
Westbound would generally use Palletline to deliver, as they are the only UK approved pallet network operator. (We repeat; we’re using Amazon’s own preferred supplier here). They have better open delivery slots making for a faster route into FBA centres.
The issues are, that when a delivery discrepancy arises, Seller Central will request for a signed POD with an Amazon stamp, yet since December 2020, Amazon themselves informed Palletline they can no longer provide stamped POD’s and will not be chased for them in order to settle seller disputes. So, on one hand, Amazon asks for it, but on the other, they’re saying they will not, and do not provide them anymore. At least whilst they are so overrun with cargo and suffer a lack of space and staff. This may go on for quite some time.
Update as of November 2021: Some FBA centres have begun to supply stamped POD’s again but, the extremely busy ones (which can change from week to week) still do not.
It is this information you need to relay to Seller Central perhaps, with the fact their own ‘Inbound Carrier Manager’ sent this info to Palletline.
Please be mindful, we do get standard POD’s to prove we have delivered, (that is not in question) but if Amazon is advising us they will not stamp their own preferred carriers POD’s, then we cannot provide a stamped POD if it doesn’t exist. It will be a basic signed one.
99.99% of the time, the goods will appear as received within a few days so this notice is for those who may be affected with a 2-3 weeks of agonising darkness by what seems like ‘missing goods’. What happens behind the scenes is that Amazon is so full, they receive larger inventory into holding bays ‘un-checked’, and when stock clears from the racking systems, goods from the holding bays (often received weeks earlier) will then be checked-in and added to the relevant sellers inventory for selling as usual.
During this time, other than to reconfirm the above we cannot do anymore and would suggest enquiries are diverted to Amazon rather than Westbound or, indeed other truckers or Forwarders that you’re using.