Is Royal Mail 48 Tracked a 1 - 2 working day delivery or a 2 - 3 working day delivery service?

[kool4it]

I've just been on the phone with eBay Customer Services and I have to say it is awful.

I asked the operator about how we get the Concierge Team (we've been with the Concierge for may years) to contact me and she said her nor her team had ever heard of the Concierge Team, so not a good start.

My main question was regarding one of our items compared to a competitor’s listing. We both sell the same item, I gave her the eBay Item numbers and the question is, why does my listing show a delivery time using Royal Mail 48 Tracked of 2 - 3 working days and the competitors listing using Royal Mail 48 Tracked is 1 – 2 working days, this is INCORRECT even on Royal Mail’s site, Royal Mail 48 Tracked is a 2 – 3 working day delivery service, not 1 – 2 working days, so how have they done this, she then went onto say, she had no idea, so I suggested she put me through to the Technical team as this is an error on the listing, she then typed the problem and tried to transfer me but instead cut me off, so after 15 minutes of completely unhelpful info, we still have no answers...............please help!

[jonatjonatjonat]

Without knowing the two Item numbers - hard to suggest. Handling time would be a guess.

[4_bathrooms]

It is due to eBay's "estimated delivery dates".

The seller enters their handling time and shipping service which eBay then completely ignores and makes up an EDD based on god-only-knows what. There have been several threads about the topic including this one which was started over a year ago.

You really should be careful what you wish for. Your competitor is likely fed up of dealing with INR claims arising from when their buyers didn't receive their items by the sometimes impossible to meet EDDs they were given by eBay.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Amazon do similar. One of the weird convoluted logics is that if you as a buyer are near the seller (based I assume on the postcode of your account - the assumption seems to be that the parcel is likely to get there quicker.

I assume this logic is based on what they (amazon and ebay) do in the UK - where due to size, I assume there is some sort of routing logic if you ship an order to a customer in the same state.

This obviously doesn't necessarily work in the UK where its possible irregardless of whether you live in say Stoke and so does your buyer - its possible the parcel is still routed via Birmingham.

[porte2425]

As @4_bathrooms pointed out, this is an ongoing issue, and can have pros and cons associated with it.

And, as @jonatjonatjonat pointed out, there can also be a quirk, where if you look at your own listing then it will show you different (shorter) delivery estimates than it would for others, as you are geographically close to the seller (i.e. yourself).

[4_bathrooms]

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@jonatjonatjonat wrote:

Amazon do similar. One of the weird convoluted logics is that if you as a buyer are near the seller (based I assume on the postcode of your account - the assumption seems to be that the parcel is likely to get there quicker.

I assume this logic is based on what they (amazon and ebay) do in the UK - where due to size, I assume there is some sort of routing logic if you ship an order to a customer in the same state.

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In Amazon's case they have a national distribution network so anything purchased from Amazon (the retailer) or an FBA merchant will most likely be despatched from a local Amazon distribution centre. For whatever reason Amazon hold non-FBA sellers to a similar standard as FBA sellers; eBay simply copied Amazon's EDD model even so far as using the same nomenclature.   

[nutrafituk]

Royal Mail 48 Tracked service is 2-3 days with 98% target for quality of service.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Not referring to FBA sorry should have been clear. Referring to FBM and their Shipping Setting Automation. Though I see your point - Amazon might thing that Royal Mail function the same as Amazons distribution network!

[technthread]

Having a good track record with deliveries locks an account into this EDD trap. The only way out seems to be to pile up defects so the system recalculates. 

I have just come back after a break and listed a few items with a 1 day dispatch time and other courier 3-5 days. It is gone 5pm on a Monday and the EDD’s are showing as Weds-Thurs. I wouldn’t mind if I was posting the same day like I was before but that won’t be happening.