Estimated delivery dates (yes again)

[darth_baggins]

I know this has been done to death and eBay staff just repeat the 'working as intended' mantra but this simply can't be right.

I bought something from a seller I get supplies from more than a week ago and it's still not arrived. I realise delays are inevitable at this time of year but I thought I'd just check the EDD and I'm gobsmacked by the disparity between his and mine.

Ordered on November 27, seller has a 1 day / same day handling time and posts 1st class, yet the EDD for my order is December 5th - 8th.

I compared one of my listing to his.

Seller - as above - same day dispatch before 3:30pm, sent 1st class. EDD is December 12th to 15th, so basically at least a week to arrive.

My listing - five working days handling time and I send 2nd class. EDD is December 8th to 13th. So eBay as usual are telling buyers they may get the item before I even have to post it.

So a seller with same day dispatch and 1st class post gets longer EDD than a seller with 5 day dispatch and 2nd class post.

I know they're supposed to be 'dynamic' but there's just no way that this can be described as 'working as intended'.

[darth_baggins]

Just read this https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/how-we-acted-on-your-feedback-2023

They forgot...

You said

Look eBay, delivery estimates are all over the place. You're telling buyers to expect delivery before I even have to post the order. 1st class and 2nd class estimates are often the same, or sometimes 2nd class is showing as faster than 1st class. Changing my handling time makes no difference, your dynamic delivery estimates are broken.

We said

Nope, working as intended. Jog on.

[theelench]

Not surprised in the slightest that "they forgot".

The Community Team are so embarrassed by the number of Howlers this amazing ebay calculation has thrown up they haven't even bothered to reply to  @pg_kicks  on the 16th to get it sorted ASAP with their usual response of "It's working as designed".

Perhaps @eve williams, as she's blowing ebays trumpet, might like to come on here in her capacity as General Manager of ebay.uk and explain to us how any of this idiocy is "working" in any shape or form??

[the_book_seekers]

How-we-acted-on-your-feedback-2023? 

Selectively. Certainly not taking any notice of us on EDDs.  There has always been thread running on EDDs since it was introduced. ebay finds it almost impossible to admit they've got something wrong. EDDs damages ebay's and seller's reputations. It gives buyers expectations on delivery, at the very least the fact that EDDs are estimates and not fixed needs to be made clearer.

[pg_kicks]

I might aswell ask tomorrow in the weekly Q&A and it'll be passed onto the team and we might hear back before next christmas. Just shows how little they care when 3 ebay employees just ignore what I think is a pretty big issue on their site.

[bluechargedirect]

On reading this I see I was in cloud cuckoo land hoping to get anything other than the insulting twaddle of a response I got to Royal Mail 48 showing faster than Royal Mail 24 this morning. Perhaps 8 hours to come back to me with anything was actually a compliment. Jeez.

[bluechargedirect]

Is it possible that they they are just making such a large percentage of their revenue from ads and clicks that they don't really care if it leads to a sale anymore??

[pg_kicks]

Could be but they dont get any promo fees from me unless I actually sell so its a bit silly of them to have such a poor site. I'd not mind paying the promo if it was on a site that works and sellers/buyers were not finding bugs daily.

[theelench]

Bugs?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I thought a bug was when something didn't work right due to unforeseen circumstances or because some coding didn't work as intended?

Ebay has spent months repeatedly telling us that this is "working as intended",  "as it should" and "as designed".

So either they're lying and it isn't.

Or this is exactly what they intended from the start.

Which is worse?  

That for months we've had to deal with something so fundamentally flawed that it should have been withdrawn as soon as its absurdity became apparent?

Or that ebay should deliberately design something so detrimental to sellers?

Whichever it is, it makes me question the sanity of continuing to do business with a company that's willing to act against my interests and make life difficult for me. 

[darth_baggins]

Thanks to those that brought this up on the weekly community chat. Sorry you wasted your time. The answers from eBay are incredibly obtuse and patronising. It's obvious that they will not take on board any constructive criticism regarding this.

How on earth can they justify an EED being vastly different from a Saturday sale to a Sunday sale, given that the earliest chance to post for both is the same day (Monday)?

How on earth can they say that 2nd class has a quicker EDD than 1st class because 2nd class is performing better, but not according to Royal Mail, according to eBay.

We're clearly wasting our time even mentioning it.

[pg_kicks]

I'd love to know what infromation eBay use, my local depot just told me that they are not having any issues, granted they are busy but nothing serious to mean they will be 10 days late with a parcel and my parcels last year and for this entire month havent been anything outside of Royal Mails guide lines. 

anita@ebay Is there any chance (I'm guessing not as eBay will say its private) you can share this information so we (your customers) can judge which courier will be best to use in the eyes of eBay? Even if you cant share the info just letting me know what (I havent already mentioned) would some how make the EED give such a crazy delivery date? 

I know the official line is to provide an aim but the aim is so far off it wouldnt even hit the dart board.

[best-range]

today's ebay's  EDD's "working as intended"  shows:

the express next day service 30th Dec, as 9 days delivery  service !!! instead of tomorrow's delivery.

& 2 class post economy as the fastest service of them all :

[auto-bits-online]

It would seem that the more that the customer pays for postage the longer it takes . 

At the start of the week all our listings showed delivery after new year, which lead to our customers being very angry with "i can get it from China quicker"  comments, the closer to the end of the week this changed to them having MORE chance of getting it for Christmas the later they leave it.

Think we will be going on Holiday mode for the Christmas period to avoid the stress.

Merry Christmas.

[bluechargedirect]

Please dont worry i have just spoken with "concierge" and have been assured that the system is working as it should. At certain times Royal Mail 48 is faster than Royal Mail 24 and although Royal Mail wont publicly admit it all their data must show that thye have been prioritising Royal mail 48 over Royal mail 24 for the last few days.

Had to just say goodbye and hang up. They are completely unwilling to acknowledge that there is even the most remote possibility that something is wrong with the immaculate algorithm.

May as well just sack it off unless anyone knows a way to escalate this beyond the foot soldiers??

[bluechargedirect]

Ironically I actuallg got a phone call just before 5pm yesterday to say that it had been adjusted. Completely refused to confirm (admit) anythin was wrong with it but that it had been adjusted and Royal Mail 24 was showing faster than RoyaL mail 48. of course on checking it actually wasn't..

Are they being instructed to talk this absolute twaddle or do they acttuall believe it? I just cant get my head round any of it.

[theelench]

So another plank that is supposed to underpin ebays calculation is shown to be rotten.  One of the five  variables that ebay says it takes into account is the previous record of delivery companies.  More than usual, at this time of year, one delivery company or even one depot in their network could be snowed under due to hugely increased volume or sickness or posties leaving en masse, while one fifty miles away could be having no problems at all.  How on earth does ebay take into account that the results will vary from depot to depot / town to town / city to city.

You won't get any answer to your questions, the Team has been asked on several occasions to explain the point of this policy and how ebay would like sellers to achieve ebays aims.  They have never answered or even hinted at an answer.

Thinking about it, have any of The Team replied to any FDD thread for weeks?

Yes, it's working perfectly as planned and in line with ebays traditional response to bad weather and the Christmas rush  --  Chaos -  Confusion - Mass Defects - Lost Sales and Silence from ebay.

[best-range]

---

@bluechargedirect wrote:

Ironically I actually got a phone call just before 5pm yesterday to say that it had been adjusted. Completely refused to confirm (admit) anything was wrong with it but that it had been adjusted and Royal Mail 24 was showing faster than RoyaL mail 48. of course on checking it actually wasn't..

Are they being instructed to talk this absolute twaddle or do they actual believe it? I just cant get my head round any of it.

---

Today it's not just 1 & 2 class services that are reversed, it's the last day for Special Next Day express services delivery before Xmass showing anything from 7-9 days delivery instead of tomorrow - killing the last minute sales. 

Looking at any seller postage info it shows the slowest service  2 class economy as the fastest & the fastest next day express as the slowest, in complete reverse & the exact opposite to what Royal Mail advertises.

 "working as intended" indeed ..... starting to wonder what their true intention are with this continuous EDD's disaster ?

[anita@ebay]

Hello all,

Please see the latest announcement about the last posting dates for Christmas deliveries recommended by Royal Mail, Evri and Yodel.

@best-range could you please provide an item number for your example, so I can review it.

Thanks,

Anita

[bluechargedirect]

I wonder if they have any concept of how insulting it is to even vaguely suggest we might not know what the last posting dates were this year. 

[best-range]

hi anita@ebay

It's not just a single item, just have a look at any item in my shop or any seller that uses RM services & you can see it, although the EDD's keep changing throughout the day, I have to assume this is what is meant by "dynamic".

So the earlier screenshot was from item number: 294404476429, but since this morning the EDD's have changed again to now showing both 1 & 2 class services (RM24 & RM48) as equal services & the fastest next day delivery express showing as the slowest 6 days service ( I suppose it's better then 9 days).

yet the Express service should show tomorrow's delivery & not in 6 days time : 

You'll see the same EDD's are shown in the category of "Ladies Purses" listings as above.

But to make it more puzzling please compare it to "Men's Wallets" category where you'll see a different EED's even though all my listings, both Men's Wallets & Ladies Purses, have the same services & same day dispatch.

When I asked you about this before your argument was that it has something to do with the "past postcodes delivery historical record for that service in that location" or similar explanation, that does not make any sense & it has nothing to do with that. 

The only difference I see in the EDD's advertised is the difference in listings category, one category is in  Ladies Purses another in Men's Wallets, why the difference in EDD's ?

All my listings should show the same uniform EDD's ( correct or not) if posted to the same postcode using the exact same services, yet depending on listing being Lady Purse or Men's Wallet, they show a difference of few days apart at times.

Please have a look at any poster in this thread at their services to see the same problem, I'm not the only one.

You dont need an item number to see this is a general problem with any listing using Royal Mial, I dont know about other couriers as I dont use them.

Did you see this today's  post about the Special Delivery glitch ???

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Postage/Special-Delivery-Today-Ebay-estimate-is-28th-Dec-Why/m-p/753...

[auto-bits-online]

Hi Anita,

So according to Royal Mail the last guaranteed postage for Christmas is Thursday (Today) if you pay for next day special delivery, but our estimated postage time on our listings states that its possible for our free Royal Mail 48 to be there for Saturday when we have a 1 day dispatch time.

Its giving customers a false level of expectation that is impossible.  Its not working is it.