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PLEASE MAKE TELEPHONE NUMBER REQUIRED ON ORDERS
Hey you at Brick Owl headquarters,
When I ship an order with Potsnl to a buyer outside the EU I ***have*** to enter a telephone number, otherwise I can't create a shipping label from Postnl. So please make it MANDATORY for ALL buyers to enter a valid phone number.
If this can't be implemented I have to cancel all orders from outside the EU because I simply can't generate a shipping label without a phone number.
Thank you for listening and acting.
When I ship an order with Potsnl to a buyer outside the EU I ***have*** to enter a telephone number, otherwise I can't create a shipping label from Postnl. So please make it MANDATORY for ALL buyers to enter a valid phone number.
If this can't be implemented I have to cancel all orders from outside the EU because I simply can't generate a shipping label without a phone number.
Thank you for listening and acting.
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If you're using an API or some other way to access PostNL's services, you need to speak to whoever is in control of that to ask them to change it.
BO cannot provide you with another party's personal information without their express permission. Name and address is one thing, as there is a justifiable reason for BO to seek permission to share this with you, but the same is not true of a telephone number because the global industry body (the UPU) does not require the sender of a parcel to provide the recipient's telephone number.
I'm not quite sure it should be mandatory, as there are options where it isn't needed. But I do agree it should be a customer data field that can be supplied by the buyer. When it is supplied, it will be shared with the vendor. Maybe it can be supplied, but I'm quite sure BO doesn't share it with the seller.
What I do would like: share the actual email address of the buyer and seller. All ecommerce websites and marketplaces I use (and I use a lot of them, my wife says ...) demand to supply a personal email address. None of them use their own email domain, like BrickOwl does. I understand the reasons (keep all communication visible for BO administrators, privacy, avoid orders "under the radar"). However, none of those reasons seem strong enough. Even on a privacy level, you could argue communications between buyer and seller are not intended to be shared with the facilitating marketplace (BrickOwl). But you are forced to do so, because there is no way to get in touch with the other party directly (except when payment was done with PayPal, where the email address will be visible). I get the name and full address details of a buyer (how personal can you get), but the email address is hidden. Doesn't anybody find this a bit odd? Please note I'm not really complaining about this, I just find it strange to not share it between both parties.
I'm sure BO is (1) ensuring all comms are properly captured between buyer and seller, as they must all go through this platform; and (2) assuring privacy and compliance with UK laws, at least that is my guess. They are also really good at EU law compliance from what i have seen in the forums (US seller here). There's probably a good reason for this, I would guess.
Still, I do not know ANY ecommerce website/marketplace that doesn't share email address of buyer and seller in the (secured) details of the transaction. Surely, all those other platforms are not in breach with UK or EU legislation?
I stress once again: I did learn to live with it and this is not a complaint. But I don't know any other platform that shares home addresses but refuses to share email addresses.
The hidden email address is a policy of BO for reasons stated multiple times. I think back to the early days of Ebay and having access to a person's email address resulted in a lot of issues. Off-site sales, feedback hostaging, abuse, stalking, spamming, hacking.... Ebay restricted communication to their own messaging system for very good reason.
I think people have to appreciate that although BO is subject to UK laws primarily, in order to legally operate (solicit) in other countries they have to abide by the rules of those countries. The EU has restrictive privacy rules, some countries will have none but most will be somewhere in the middle. It is easier to operate a 'bare minimum' model rather than attempt to constantly evaluate that what you're doing doesn't fall foul of any country's legislation, especially as laws are subject to change without notice. The bare minimum in the case of a third-party marketplace is a name and an address.
Some larger companies - Ebay, Amazon, PayPal, Stripe, etc. - have different terms and requirements dependent on the territory of the user, but they can afford to do that. It allows them to be restrictive (or open depending on your interpretation) in ways that would not be legal everywhere, but still where possible. A good example is PayPal's terms regarding passing on the PayPal fees. In some countries they outright forbid it, in others they allow it 'so long as the law allows' (or similar wording).
However, every buyer has an e-mail address (the @m.brickowl.com one) and that works fine with PostNL. This morning created a label for the USA without out a phone number, but with e-mail just fine.
For the consumer site none of theme are needed.
Sorry, but you're not well informed. Your screenshot says nothing.
You have to have a business account in order to prepare packages with Postnl and I'm sure you don't have one - because you're not in the Netherlands.
What @Baskrie says is true: either a phone or an email suffices. But it's really preferred to have a phone number because this is printed on the package label right next to the address and this is very valuable when the driver can't find the address.
On every e-commerce site in the world a phone number is required, just not on Brick Owl.
Hodie, Please stop belittling me on the forum or sharing opinions that are provable untrue when you don't know what you're talking about. Thanks.
I'm very tempted to make some remarks about how Brick Owl was before Brexit and how it is now. If anyone is interested, please let me know.
@Lawrence @Hodie: shouldn't it be better when a seller doesn't have to annoy the buyer with those questions? I'm talking about positive buyers experience.
FYI I buy things online from dozens of retailers and marketplaces across the EU (and the UK), and not one of them has my telephone number. Not a single one.
FYI I'm not belittling you, just correcting what you said. You admit that a phone number isn't necessary but the entire reason for your suggestion is that you claimed it was. Brick Owl gives you an email address that you can give to PostNL - I know it works because I do it when I use PostNL.
You don't need to 'annoy the buyer', you're just choosing to.
You're absolutely correct, I wasn't making qualitative statements in the absence of data - you said it so politely, which I really appreciate in the forum dialogue! Have an awesome day! :-)
@Leftoverbricks, objectively, for what it's worth, I see zero evidence of @Hoddie belittling you at all. None. I know text is a poor method of communication compared to seeing someone's face and gleaning intent, but truly, I do not think for one second that was his or her intent and I see no evidence of that all in their words. I hope this helps! :-)
I think making it a universal requirement for buyers to provide a telephone number would be a mistake. I would not place another order on BO but I suppose I could be the exception.
But if some sellers require a telephone number perhaps a per-store setting might please everyone. I'd support that and will upvote on that basis.
The alternative is to keep checking the tracking number daily and then finally waiting the whole day for the courier to arrive. And then, according to the Murphy's law, I'll be in the shower when he rings.
@Hoddie : I was at work today (after months of home office!) when a courier called my cell he was there to deliver a parcel, requesting what to do with it ("neighbors", "in front of my house", ...). I'll be honest: this was actually the first time in about 4 years a logistic company actually called me to request what to do with the parcel, but they did and it felt like good customer service.
There is no reason to demand this change. You must be willing to adapt to policies that contradict each other.