SPS parcel damage: 3 photo subjects your shop needs

Your Slovak customer sends a picture of a broken product and says SPS delivered it. That gives your shop a problem to resolve, but it does not yet give you a complete carrier claim. You need to identify the shipment, preserve evidence of how it was packed and find the party through whom transport was purchased. Keep those tasks connected while giving the customer a clear answer about what happens next.

Which photos explain more than a close-up of the break? #

SPS’s damage-report form asks for photos of the parcel label, the filling and the damaged area of the goods. These show different parts of the same event: shipment identity, protection and the reported loss. Ask for readable views, rather than demanding a particular number of files. One photograph may show several subjects; several close-ups of the same crack may still leave the label or packing material undocumented.

Ask the buyer to keep the carton, internal packaging and damaged item available while you obtain the provider’s instructions. Do not have them discard the evidence after emailing a photograph, or send the parcel somewhere else before you know whether an inspection is needed. Describe the request in ordinary language and give them a route to reply. A customer should not need to understand your supplier account or carrier terminology to help document what arrived.

Record what was visible when the parcel was received and what became apparent after opening. Keep the buyer’s account distinct from your own conclusions. A crushed corner and an intact outer carton lead to different questions about packing and handling; neither photograph alone establishes exactly where damage occurred. Your record should make it possible for the provider to investigate without your staff inventing a cause to complete a required text box.

Should you report damage or ask where the parcel is? #

SPS explicitly says its damage form is not the route for checking delivery, changing an address or phone number, requesting a collection PIN or reporting an empty box. It directs those cases to its Where is my parcel form. Select the route that describes the problem. If the buyer reports an empty locker rather than damaged goods in their possession, asking only for product-damage photographs sends the case in the wrong direction.

Keep customs questions in their own category too. A parcel held for documents has not necessarily been lost, and a demand for import charges is not evidence of damage. The UK-to-Slovakia customs-clearance guide explains that handoff. Ask for the actual request behind a tracking message before deciding which process to start. Opening several unrelated cases can make the same shipment harder to identify.

Who owns the claim when your label came from a UK provider? #

Start from your purchase record. Identify the business that sold you the shipping service, the service name and the contract or account under which the label was created. A last-mile operator’s name on tracking does not establish that your UK shop holds a direct contract with that operator. Ask the booking provider whether you should report evidence locally, submit the compensation request through its own portal or do both under a coordinated process.

Assign one person in your shop to maintain the claim record. They should hold the provider reference, any SPS report number, the original order reference and the customer conversation. If the recipient reports directly to SPS, ask for the resulting confirmation so the shop can reconcile it with the booking-provider case. Do not assume that two reference numbers mean two separate compensation entitlements or that a local report has automatically reached the business that sold your label.

SPS’s form says it sends an email containing a claim number after submission. Save that confirmation and note what was submitted. If your team has no acknowledgement, check whether the form completed before telling the customer that the operator has accepted the claim. An acknowledgement proves receipt of a report; it does not prove that liability has been admitted, that the evidence is sufficient or that any particular amount will be paid.

Is the 30-day invoice rule a deadline for damaged goods? #

No. SPS’s general terms effective from 1 September 2026 give a separate billing rule in section 8.4: the sender can object to invoice information, such as shipment weight or additional handling, through the web forms within 30 calendar days after receiving the invoice. Section 9.1 says the claims process is governed by a separate claims document that forms part of the terms. Do not apply the invoice rule as the reporting deadline for physical parcel damage.

Report damage promptly and obtain the applicable claims conditions for the actual service and contract. Search results can surface older SPS documents and merchant instructions expressed as 48 hours. That is not a reason to wait, and it is not proof of the current deadline for your booking. Ask the booking provider which reporting, evidence and submission dates apply, then put those dates into the case record with the source of the instruction.

If an invoice problem and physical damage affect the same order, keep two issue descriptions. The damage case needs condition, packing and value evidence. The billing case needs the disputed invoice line and the facts behind the charged service or measurements. Link the records so finance and support can see the relationship, but do not close one merely because the other has been acknowledged. They ask the operator to decide different questions.

Can your customer wait until the carrier pays you? #

Treat the customer remedy and your recovery from the transport provider as separate decisions. The EU’s Your Europe delivery guidance says the trader is responsible for damage between dispatch and receipt and describes repair, replacement or refund routes for faulty goods. For a UK business selling into Slovakia, establish the consumer rules applicable to the sale; a carrier investigation should not be used as a substitute for assessing those obligations.

Tell the buyer what you are doing for their order and when you will next update them. Avoid promising that the carrier will pay a specific amount before it has assessed the case. If you arrange a replacement, identify it as a replacement order and keep its new shipment reference separate from the original parcel. Retain the original evidence even after the customer has received a workable product, because the transport case may still need it.

Which replacement costs should your shop keep visible? #

Use AirPost’s shared constants, checked on 19 October 2026, for an illustrative replacement-dispatch component. The recommended parcel sender fee is €3.00 and the platform component is €0.85, giving €3.85 before carrier transport, replacement goods, packaging or import charges. This is a planning calculation using the recommended fee, not a promise about the actual sender’s rate or the carrier’s compensation.

If the original and a separately booked replacement both use those assumptions, the combined handling-and-platform component is €7.70. Record the replacement label and stock cost separately using your real documents. A claim for the goods does not automatically reimburse every cost your shop incurs in solving the customer’s problem. Also count the platform component once when it is already present in a displayed AirPost shipping quote.

With AirPost’s peer-to-peer fulfilment network, you can agree stock and order-packing work with a verified sender. The shop’s goods remain its property; the sender accepts orders, prints labels, packs and drops parcels at a parcel point. Give that person a packing recipe and a clear instruction for recording damaged stock or a requested replacement. This describes the packing relationship, without assuming SPS is available on every route or that AirPost replaces a carrier’s claims process.

For repeat Slovak sales, the local-stock guide explains another dispatch arrangement. Whether packing happens in Britain or Slovakia, keep the evidence attached to the shipment that actually suffered the reported damage. A later change of sender or carrier can improve your next dispatch routine, but it does not establish what happened to the original parcel or transfer that old claim to a new provider.