eBay's false estimated delivery dates, now several messages from buyers not happy.

[lincolnshiremarine]

I have been going on about this issue like a broken record.  I have reported it several times and even been on the community chat several times.  Ebay claim the EDD's are working fine.  They are not.

Ebay are giving buyers delivery dates as same day deliveries, next day deliveries.  Even when buyers have  have selected the free, three day delivery, they are including non working days as delivery dates being Saturday and Sundays.

I know that other sellers are being affected by this too, and have reported it too.

However, I am now spending hours replying to buyers whom think their parcel is late based on ebays estimated delivery dates. 

This leaves my business open for negative feedback and the issue of asking ebay to remove it.

The messages I am getting from buyers are:

" Hi not to pleased due to the fact I ordered this part from your company because of the delivery time and it’s not happened! Hopefully this item will turn up soon"

"parcel not arrived yet ??"

Both of those cases where when they purchased over a weekend, and they were dropped of at the parcel shop for collection the same day of purchase. However, this was over the weekend.  Ebay tracking has said to expect the delivery on Monday, which is wrong, as they included weekends as the courier collection and delivery days.

When you look on the couriers webiste the delivery dates are correct and ebays are incorrect.

We have had the same issue with Royal Mail tracked on ebay too.

How many more sellers are now getting messages like this on a daily basis, and what are you telling the buyers.?

I have been selling on ebay for 16 years and we dispatch the items on time, but, this ebay EDD are on another level now.

We look like we are fabricating delivery dates just to obtain a sale, and although we have tried tweaking the postage days etc, it does not help.

marco@ebay

Katie@ebay

Dave@ebay

[best-range]

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@qualitycardsandgifts wrote:

Yet again, orders placed yesterday are showing delivery Tuesday / Wednesday, so Sunday is being classed as a working day.    Orders placed today are showing an EDD of Wednesday / Thursday.  

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Yes, both Saturday & Sunday are counted by ebay as "working days" unfortunately but not by Royal Mail or other couriers, that explains one of the 7 issues I pointed out what's wrong with the EDD in my tech thread.

I assume you dont use tracking, if you did your original EDD's would have changed from 1-2 days delivery to same/next day delivery for 2 class post once you added tracking to your orders.

Sending without tracking number you only suffer the over optimistic EDD's & the wrong weekend's EDD's unlike sellers who are extra punished with 1-2 days shorter EDD's displayed to buyers once they upload tracking.

This must be extremely confusing for buyers to keep getting all those automatic crazy & contradictory ebay messages once seller bought a label & then posted their item :

"arriving today" ..what? seller only dispatched it 5 minutes ago ? did they used a rocket ? a time machine ? I must make sure someone is at home today....etc. then disappointed, item did not arrive in the 5 minutes ebay promised it would since seller posted it & then seller is blamed for false EDD.

Next day ebay's message "running late"... what ? again seller only dispatched it yesterday ,  2 class post was selected, it supposed to be 2-3 days as per original EDD & only 1 day have passed & it's already  "late" ?? how is that possible?

Next Day message: "running late"  what??  it's only been 2 days since dispatch, shall the buyer now open a case?

Day 3 item arrived..... on time as per original Royal Mail EDD....

All those "in between" ebay's messages to buyers, in between dispatch & delivery day are completely wrong & totally unnecessary along with their false EDD's ,  if only they'd stop meddling like this a seller life would be so much less stressful on ebay.

[technthread]

It looks like they count Sunday as a working day on 1st or 2nd class post but when I get an order on a Saturday, the RM Special Delivery EDD will be the Tuesday so they manage to get that one right yet the 2nd class EDD will be Monday-Tuesday. 

It is an anomaly that they never directly justify even when some of you guys take a lot of time to screenshot examples.

I have found as a buyer recently that opening an INR case is a frustratingly slow process when dealing with flaky sellers. Those sellers seem to get the most leeway with EDD's from eBay. I bought something last Saturday, the seller had 2 day dispatch set and advertised the courier as Parcelforce 24. They didn't dispatch it, didn't reply to my message and I couldn't open a case until Friday and then wait that process out which takes me into the back end of next week. Based on their historic speed of dispatch, or lack of, being a shoddy seller is giving them greater EDD protection than the top rated sellers get.

[roverviews]

Heres a good one for you all. Another to add to the increasing list of EDD evidence.

Buyer purchases item for Global Shipping yesterday morning...

I pack item and apply Royal Mail second class postage label. I add the tracking number and mark as despatched to save time.

Get to post office yesterday, realised I should have picked medium and not small parcel.

Not to worry I will take it back, add it to tomorrows post as Ive run out of time, I can send first class, edit the tracking number, it should arrive at the same time.

This morning I apply the correct medium parcel postage label, click on item to edit the "tracking" number.

I discover that the tracking for yesterdays label, shows the parcel has.., wait for it....  already arrived at the Global Shipping hub!!! It must therefore have duplicated iteself overnight and taken itself to the post office and managed to arrive next day for second class postage. In--credible.

I dont know how I do it!! And theres no problem with the system?

[dch2112011]

And you wonder what the customer's reaction will be !  There is already more suspicion between buyers and sellers across borders without having to try and explain this to a customer complicated by the fact that this part of the journey does not automatically give total reassurance that the item is actually on the way to them in their country.

But on the up side - shouldn't get a mark down for late delivery !

[dch2112011]

 A couple of thoughts

Saturday and Sunday classed as working days - this generally is in line with what the carriers inform ebay -  

eg Royal Mail claim Monday to Saturday for normal post and Sunday for  special delivery guaranteed.  Of course this 7 day working week does not apply to all classes of post and actual performance of RM but as long as they declare 7 day working weeks to ebay or ebay interpret a 7 day working week it will throw some delivery dates into the realms of nonsense.

Extending dispatch times - this can be unsettling for buyers who like and expect purchases to be dispatched as quickly as possible - a long dispatch time can deter buyers or create suspicion which can manifest itself with chasing messages and quick INR cases plus less favourable feedback.

(some sellers extend dispatch times and manually add tracking a couple of days after dispatch - either to try and avoid delivery penalties or to make sure cleared funds have been deposited in their bank by ebay)

Tracking is the only way when selling online - at least  the buyer can follow the delivery and when to expect delivery - without full tracking it attracts dissatisfaction whether justified or not 

[best-range]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

 A couple of thoughts

Saturday and Sunday classed as working days - this generally is in line with what the carriers inform ebay -  

eg Royal Mail claim Monday to Saturday for normal post and Sunday for  special delivery guaranteed.  Of course this 7 day working week does not apply to all classes of post and actual performance of RM but as long as they declare 7 day working weeks to ebay or ebay interpret a 7 day working week it will throw some delivery dates into the realms of nonsense.

Extending dispatch times - this can be unsettling for buyers who like and expect purchases to be dispatched as quickly as possible - a long dispatch time can deter buyers or create suspicion which can manifest itself with chasing messages and quick INR cases plus less favourable feedback.

(some sellers extend dispatch times and manually add tracking a couple of days after dispatch - either to try and avoid delivery penalties or to make sure cleared funds have been deposited in their bank by ebay)

Tracking is the only way when selling online - at least  the buyer can follow the delivery and when to expect delivery - without full tracking it attracts dissatisfaction whether justified or not 

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Please read this thread esp my last post no 161 about the problems that adding tracking creates as once added to orders ebay will shave  2 days off from the original EDD shown to buyer resulting in crazy messages sent to buyers such as "arriving today" or  "same day/ next day delivery" for 2 class post.

Extending times is ignored by ebay once you print the label & add tracking.

It's not a solution it creates further problems because the system is not working as it should.

Most likely it's due to problems with time zones, as the time shown attached with tracking is always in USA pacific time & not UK time zone, usually in the middle of the night or 8 hours before you printed the label, often before the buyer even made a purchase.

I have given plenty of screenshots on many threads of this occurring since January or probably much earlier last year.

There are at least 7 serious issues with the EDD & why they dont work as they should, this is not a single issue of simply "wrong original EDD" as many users think.

[messier44000]

Just a thought.

Why not everyone send their FDD stories to BBC watchdog in time for the next series.

Would be entertaining watching eBay reps being tied up in knots live on TV, in the same 

way Evri were (twice)

But I am guessing they would have "No one available for comment and it working exactly as designed"

[chilloutgames]

I worked for a USA corporation 25 years ago. They introduced a US accounting package for the UK office but it couldn't calculate VAT correctly. It took about 18mths for them to get their heads aound it being different to sales tax before it worked properly. We were turning over £50m so it was quite inconvenient.

[dch2112011]

I appreciate this is causing issues, as a buyer speed of dispatch coupled with tracking allows me as a buyer to check on actual delivery progress via the carrier's website - I always check no matter what ebay publish - you tend to get better information. 

The ebay tracking information tends to mirror the carrier but there can be a time lapse or the ebay information stays behind the carrier - this could simply be an app  breakdown temporarily between the carrier and ebay  - such as when they are updating internal systems. 

This should not be confused with ebay's reassuring message that the delivery is delayed but on it's way  or the changing delivery dates  which do not always match real time delivery information - which begs the question as to what criteria are these based on ?  The ebay tracking comes from the carrier - the dates and message seem to come from ebay 

As stated previously I purchase based on estimated delivery on the listing which tends to be pretty accurate and to be honest I am generally looking for a 2 to 3 day delivery date (excluding weekends)

The way ebay interpret carrier information and sellers dispatch times is not as simple as seller says two days to dispatch plus 2 days to deliver according to carriers published delivery aims. It takes into account historic seller dispatch and delivery data, delay information and delivery aims from carrier, geographic delivery data. category data and probably a lot more factors that are unknown.

Because the after sale delivery information is not always accurate sellers naturally try and self fix the problems which as you point out does not always help - extending dispatch times puts buyers off, it needs no explaining. 

Of course when you print a label that is linked to ebay it updates the delivery estimate based on actual dispatch time.  

[best-range]

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@dch2112011 wrote:

I appreciate this is causing issues, as a buyer speed of dispatch coupled with tracking allows me as a buyer to check on actual delivery progress via the carrier's website - I always check no matter what ebay publish - you tend to get better information. 

Not many buyers take the time to go to courier website, most rely on what ebay tells them, so see some crazy messages  such as "delivery today" yet the seller only bought the postage label 5 minutes ago, they not even arranged the courier to collect, usually the next day.

The ebay tracking information tends to mirror the carrier, 

No it does not , that's the problem, once you mark as dispatched or added tracking, or simply printed ebay label, it will shave 1-2 days from the original EDD every time.

but there can be a time lapse or the ebay information stays behind the carrier - this could simply be an app  breakdown temporarily between the carrier and ebay  - such as when they are updating internal systems - absolutely not, nothing to do with any of that , this issue been going on since last year, everyday.

This should not be confused with ebay's reassuring message that the delivery is delayed,

Ebay messaging is usually ; "arrives today/tomorrow" after the seller only printed the label 5 minutes ago & tracking was added automatically, it's not "reassuring" at all, it's seriously confusing, wrong & totally unnesessary, as reported by many customers. 

but on it's way  or the changing delivery dates  which do not always never match real time delivery information - which begs the question as to what criteria are these based on ?  The ebay tracking comes from the carrier - the dates and message seem to come from ebay 

As stated previously I purchase based on estimated delivery on the listing which tends to be pretty accurate and to be honest I am generally looking for a 2 to 3 day delivery date (excluding weekends)

Yes, the original EDD are accurate enough, as stated before, the problems starts after the item is marked as dispatched, label bought & tracking added.

The way ebay interpret carrier information and sellers dispatch times is not as simple as seller says two days to dispatch plus 2 days to deliver according to carriers published delivery aims. It takes into account historic seller dispatch and delivery data, delay information and delivery aims from carrier, geographic delivery data. category data and probably a lot more factors that are unknown.

All this ebay's nonsense should not play any role in the EDD's & none believes it does, I think it's a cover up narrative for the EDD's not working properly from the start & getting worse since January.  Otherwise if it all "worked as intended" none would complain , there would be no threads after threads with 100's of posts about the crazyness of the EDD not working .

Because the after sale delivery information is not always accurate sellers naturally try and self fix the problems which as you point out does not always help - extending dispatch times puts buyers off, it needs no explaining. 

Of course when you print a label that is linked to ebay it updates the delivery estimate based on actual dispatch time.  No it does not, that's the problem, once you print the label it shaves 2 days off from the original EDD shown to buyer telling them item will "arrive same day as dispatch or the next day" for 2 class post instead of the original 2-3 days advertised in earlier EDD.

I dont think you understand the issue in enough depth, not surprising as certainly ebay does not seem to get it even after 100's of posts about it some going back to last year, as this is not a single issue.

If interested have a read here, there are 7 -8 separate issues all affecting the EDD' s  with many screenshot examples to illustarate in great details :

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/EDD-s-shows-same-day-delivery-as-dispatch-day-for-2...

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[best-range]

To illustrate my above post, a typical example, item bought late last night, posted today via 2 class RM48, apparently according to ebay, it will now arrive today/tomorrow, - so same day as dispatched the earliest.

 The original EDD was Saturday/Tuesday but once I added the tracking it shaved 2 days off from the original EDD shown to buyer & now it will arrive TODAY /TOMORROW!

If I dont add tracking I'll get mark for "late dispatch" by ebay, so cannot win!

[dch2112011]

Whilst this obviously upsets you -  you are missing a few obvious points

Tracking mirrors the carrier -  to expand this - the tracking on ebay is linked to the carrier - it is the carrier who give the information - so the tracking narrative is identical to the carrier website - but as I stated the delivery dates and message displayed at the top of the tracking info is from ebay - although they should correct when delivered or even out for delivery. 

How ebay estimate in between  has many factors not just the carriers aimed delivery time according to ebay - wasn't there an announcement a few years ago by ebay following complaints by sellers that the estimates were innacurate on the listing and over time these have been vastly improved - didn't ebay display how the new estimates were being calculated  - it took time  to get it right - could this be a similar excercise ?

There certainly can be a time lapse or a failed update between carrier and ebay - this is common and is not by any means unique to ebay - any system update or breakdown when the two are communicating electronically produces a failure which should rectify when the next update occurs but sometimes it doesn't  and this has been going on since the inception of API's  not just on ebay and not just for a year. 

Ask sellers who use the RM linked  system how many times problems occur between the two (there are enough posts complaining on this forum )- the system between ebay and carrier is basically very similar. I cannot understand why you would think this does not happen ?  This does not mean ebay have not got problems with the system but surely eliminate the parts that are working to hopefully identify  and narrow down which part is not working. 

Sellers most certainly do try and self fix any perceived issue - irrespective of whether it works or not - no different than sellers delaying dispatch when managed payments came in because they claimed not to be able to afford the postal cost or simply wanted money in their bank - all to the detriment of buyers !

Simply stating everything is broken is a bit like having a flat tyre and saying the whole car is broken !

[best-range]

This charade still continues, nothing has changed despite the shipping team "looking into this".

Only just posted an item bought late last night via 2 class service RM48, the EDD should be Wed/Thursday next week.

Instead the original EDD shown to buyer was  Tuesday/Wednesday next week,  so already wrong as much too short,  "typical for ebay", yet after adding the tracking number the EDD have now changed to :

ARRIVES TODAY or BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY !!!

Anyone else sees this on their orders ?

[everyfone-uk]

Guys, Please stop wasting your time on this...its not in ebay's interest to get the EDD correct because if your items are delivered late the only person that suffers is YOU and the customer, ebay has already got their fee. I gave up asking ebay to sort this around 2011 and then i tried again at an ebay roadshow but to no avail( otherwise they would allow us to set our own EDD, which would make the most sense..everything ebay does is to maximise profit...being overly optimistic with delivery dates helps ensures the sale happens because the buyer is more likely to complete the purchase if they think it will arrive quickly...and if it arrives late...ebay dont care because they have got their fee anyway) . You are better off spending your precious time on something that might change. 

[whole-green]

wrong post

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[best-range]

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@everyfone-uk wrote:

Guys, Please stop wasting your time on this...its not in ebay's interest to get the EDD correct because if your items are delivered late the only person that suffers is YOU and the customer, ebay has already got their fee. I gave up asking ebay to sort this around 2011 and then i tried again at an ebay roadshow but to no avail( otherwise they would allow us to set our own EDD, which would make the most sense..everything ebay does is to maximise profit...being overly optimistic with delivery dates helps ensures the sale happens because the buyer is more likely to complete the purchase if they think it will arrive quickly...and if it arrives late...ebay dont care because they have got their fee anyway) . You are better off spending your precious time on something that might change. 

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I feel strongly as some other posters here that the more people keep reporting issues the sooner something will be done but you might be right & nothing will change & we're just wasting valuable time.

Many of us has been contacted by the shipping team to discuss this now so something has changed.

I suggested to the shipping team that before we discuss anything they need to read all the EDD threads on the boards to have some bases for discussion & understand all the issues as apparently they were "not aware" of all those issues.

I hope they're still reading these threads that's why I think it's important to keep adding to them all the examples until something fundamentally changes.  I try to stay hopeful & believe this is not done on purpose to harm sellers but it's a matter of IT incompetence or carelessness when adding new features to the tracking page this year & can be fixed once the shipping team become "aware" of it.

The problem with EDD have gone worse since January 2024 since they "improved" the Track Page & introduced all those crazy messages to buyers, this is the most broken part of the EDD system that was not there before Jan.2024.  

If only they could fix that & remove all those wrong & misleading messages I could live with their short EDD's that we had to suffer for years.

There are serious 7 different issues with the EDD, some very old & some very new, it's not just a matter of the single issue of "being overly optimistic with delivery dates" , as many sellers wrongly assume this is the only one, I wish it was that simple.

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi

We have reported the Global shipping issue as well.  We have the same problem, we print the label off via ebay to drop off at the collection point, only for ebay delivery page to state "arrived a hub" even though I am looking at the parcel in my office as still to be dropped off.

Best wishes 

[theelench]

I also got an invitation to talk with a member of the Shipping Team because I had left "some great feed back" on the issue.

Perhaps I shouldn't have but I declined.  Personally I think that, if The Team read my FB, my problem becomes self explanatory and obvious.

RM has never claimed that 2nd class post is a "Next Day" delivery service, nor has it ever claimed that delivery can be pinned down to one day.  It has always said 2 - 3 days delivery.  If ebay gives me a two day delivery window, one being impossible, the second being possible but unlikely, then ignores the third - declaring it to be a "late" delivery - there is something wrong.  What is there to discuss ?

What I've found truly shocking about the reports back from yours and others' discussions with the Shipping Team is the level of "Unawareness" they claim of any issues at all.  This also came over strongly in reports  here on talks sellers had on the recent "Leicester Road Show" thread. 

If this level of detachment at "Ebay Towers" from what buyers and sellers are experiencing on a daily basis can be believed, it explains (to me) one big reason why ebay has lost its way (and so many of its buyers and sellers).

To me it's like a bus company's HQ planning its bus routes and service frequency without a map of the city and no idea of passenger numbers.  Running any large company in that way is surely a recipe for disaster.

I doubt that one-off chats with team members or even whole day Road Shows will do the trick.  IMO the various  Technical Teams need to be made aware that they're not operating in a bubble.  They should  be aware of and sensitive to the problems and management should be making sure that they are.

Reading the boards, or at least a summary, should be compulsory with Team Leaders regularly asking their teams "What are we doing about this ?" 

[dch2112011]

It may or may not be relevant but Royal Mail claim RM48 Tracked is a 1 to 2 day service ?

[chilloutgames]

****************Many thanks for fixing the tracking issue so that when the item is posted the tracking screen now shows the same expected delivery as the expected delivery on the order *******************