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

[lincolnshiremarine]

anita@ebay

marco@ebay

Please can you kindly  let us all know when ebay are going to resolve this, or, perhaps just for one time only stop fobbing us off, and tell us the truth, in that ebay has no in intention of resolving this.

Over the course of three weeks I have had message from buyers saying

" will this arrive today as advertised"

"where is my parcel"

"I would suggest if you cannot deliver on the times advertised on your shop, you change them"

I have also noticed that despite the fact we have our ebay shop on holiday (time away) ebay are still giving false delivery dates on this too.

I have on several occasions provided the global shipping team evidence as requested, and all they do is ask for more evidence and the process repeats.  Now communication appears to have has ceased with them.  I find that poor, as ebay are on us straight away if we do not help our buyers. 

Many other sellers have expressed concern over this and provided information too.

Best wishes  

[dch2112011]

This one is a real puzzler, the problem is the estimates ebay come up with on our listings are pretty accurate which is a direct contrast to what is being proven in this thread.

However when buying the few items we do on ebay we get some rather fluid changes to delivery estimates  ranging from everything spot on to estimated delivery dates changing after delivery,

ie estimate 12th which was not possible delivered on the 13th which was what it should be then after delivery ebay changed the estimated date to the 13th in the follow up messages - which was correct and good for the seller but a rather bizzare way of doing things 

In another the estimated dates changed 4 times during the whole process  both forwards and backwards which again ended with the estimate after delivery changing to the same day as delivered

I have no clue why this happens - I know the system is fluid - constantly changing but trying to relate the changes in real time is difficult - could be when it links to the carriers tracking via the API  ?

I still think the druids are the best bet !

[yorkshire*flower]

Including Sat & Sun has been happening for a long time now, frustrating if you have RM as your selected delivery method but I think this is Ebay way of trying to compete with Amz. I use Evri who do work over the weekend and rarely get any late deliveries (presently at .26%) so I think this is ebays way of forcing you, the seller, the change providers. Of course thats not possible for many sellers but ebay dont care, complaining to Ebay is futile, you are only here to serve them or be penalised.  

[darth_baggins]

Had a rather surly message the other day, no hello, please or thank you, just something along the lines of 'not turned up, should have been here today'. 'Today' was one working day after the order had been posted by 2nd class RM and was only the first day of the EDD.

TBH I'm not even bothering asking eBay anymore. We've been fobbed off with the 'working as intended' for ages. Dave said he was looking at it, months ago, but here we are, still getting rude comments from customers for something out of our control.

[technthread]

Buyers who act like that usually have no selling history themselves with very little understanding of postage options and what it is like to be unreasonably pressured as the seller. A few times in the past I have wanted to reply to buyers like this and tell them to list a few items themselves and see how they get on with the shoe on the other foot. 

[station13thirteen]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

Had a rather surly message the other day, no hello, please or thank you, just something along the lines of 'not turned up, should have been here today'. 'Today' was one working day after the order had been posted by 2nd class RM and was only the first day of the EDD.

TBH I'm not even bothering asking eBay anymore. We've been fobbed off with the 'working as intended' for ages. Dave said he was looking at it, months ago, but here we are, still getting rude comments from customers for something out of our control.

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It amazes us just how rude and ignorant and damn right illiterate some buyers are.  How often we have been tempted to respond in kind to such rude messages, but have so far managed to hold our tongues. As you say, often no introduction, no please or thank you, no name...  just impolite and bad manners.

We now hold off responding to these mannerless individuals until we feel like answering.

We recently had a guy contact us with: 'Where's my parcel I'm going away tomorrow not happy.'

RM 'Tracked' 48, 2nd day since posted. We checked the tracking and it said it had been delivered. So we waited for him to contact us again and say he now had it... he never did. We heard nothing again from him after his rude message. We decided to block him until he learns some manners.

I don't know how the rest of you are finding things, but to us, grammar seems to have died a death and illiteracy seems rife, and not just in messages.  Many names and addresses have no capital letters, and more annoyingly neither do postcodes which makes them easy to misinterpret. When copy and pasting we always change postcodes to upper case to avoid confusion - but it's irritating to always have to waste time doing this. Some people seemingly even have trouble spelling their own names correctly.

[chilloutgames]

The "Track Package" button on eBay is flawed and may provide either:

-out of date tracking information from the carrier stating delivered when it has subsequent tracking showing that delivery has not taken place

or

-firm statement of 'Delivery Today' when delivery has an extremely low probability of delivery e.g. the day after a customer selected second class post on checkout.

The "Track Package" button does have a link to the carrier website at the bottom of the popup window but customers are not looking for that because the eBay tracking is so firmly stated as correct.

The above issues cause significant customer misinformation and unnessessary customer sevice and should be addressed urgently. 

[dch2112011]

Welcome to the modern world of text speak - gone is the English language,  wait until you start getting emoji messages  and try working those out when they display differently on a PC ! They are not being rude it is just the way it has evolved - short blunt messages - often without context  - the change of generations !

[anita@ebay]

Hi @lincolnshiremarine, thanks for posting.

The calculation of the estimated delivery date is dynamic and currently there are no plans to change it.

As for the 'Time away', while the message letting buyers know you're on time away will display within minutes, it takes a few hours to update the estimated delivery date for your listings, so it is best to schedule your time away to start a day before.

If you do get any examples where EDD is not taking into consideration time away, please share an example and I will be happy to send it for a review.

Thank you,

Anita

[tick-tech]

anita@ebay 

This is becoming repetitive. 'Dynamic' means nothing if the underlying system is broken.

The E.D.D. has been broken ever since it became 'dynamic'.

I understand you can only relay the messages from the 'higher-ups' and this frustration isn'#t aimed at you specifically, but how many times does eBay need to be told something isn't working before it gets fixed?

This E.D.D. system is causing sellers and buyers frustration, eBay's complete lack of willingness to resolve this just screams of: "it is working for eBay's benefit and for eBay's benefit only".

I really have had enough of selling on here when eBay has this attitude towards its paying customers, and they wonder why they are losing sellers.

[tick-tech]

I have a new acronym for this discussion...

False Estimated Delivery Dates Unrealistic Prediction

F.E.D.D.  U.P. 

[johnwash1]

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@tick-tech wrote:

I have a new acronym for this discussion...

False Estimated Delivery Dates Unrealistic Prediction

F.E.D.D.  U.P. 

---

My acronym would start False Unrealistic ...  and end likewise with Unrealistic Prediction.

Why is it so hard to convince ebay that unhappy buyers go away and find suppliers elsewhere?

[the_book_seekers]

That's the bit I don't get. Anything that upsets the buyers is bad and should be stopped.  'It's working as intended' doesn't cut it.

[messier44000]

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@darth_baggins wrote:

TBH I'm not even bothering asking eBay anymore. We've been fobbed off with the 'working as intended' for ages.

Remember that the chat team here will always say what they are being paid to say, and not 

what they actually think themselves.

Off now to pack some website orders, where the order confirmation emails and EDDS 

are filled in by myself and not a dynamic calculation. Never had a where is my item or similar email since day one. And my wesbite was up and running before I knew eBay existed.

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[vintagechinashop]

This most definitely was how we were told but most definitely not how it works. I have had two late delivery appeals refused because I didn't add tracking straight away even though they can clearly see delivered on time 

it's like everything else rules are changed to suit whenever the gods deem it 

[vintagechinashop]

I have had feedback from a buyer whilst positive the wording said that they received the bowls 1 week and a day after purchase and that it was no wonder people buy from Amazon as eBay is so slow  the item was received before the expected date and I had added tracking so at least I didn't get a late delivery mark 

I have pointed out that Amazon have a huge delivery network that eBay sellers don't have ( most of my items aren't available on Amazon so that's why he had to buy from eBay )  But it goes to show how people are conditioned to expect next day delivery these days and eBay are simply not  helping. This particular buyer seems to have high expectations as demonstrated by other feedback he left 

I believe they are deliberately giving false expectations and taking absolutely no notice of when the seller is anticipating delivery based on how quickly a seller can despatch and how quickly their chosen delivery company say it will get there and this is just rubbing people up the wrong way and the seller not eBay are the ones who suffer 

I believe it is always better to give realistic delivery times and that gives the buyer a choice. However that now seems to have been removed by eBay who have decided to throw a coin up into the air and see when it lands 

Working as designed but not working in the real world 

[theelench]

AKA   "Honesty is the best policy."

And this is a policy that isn't honest in any way.  It's been designed by ebay to suit ebay's needs and is based on a so-called calculation that ebay will not demonstrate and in part uses 'other factors' that ebay will not even name, to come to conclusions that are clearly impossible in the real world.

Deluding buyers into thinking their purchase stands any chance of arriving 1 day after posting, when the delivery company says 2 - 3 days, is not honest.

Giving sellers Defects when they have done exactly as they advertise (or sometimes even better), but which doesn't suit ebay, is not honest either. 

[the_book_seekers]

Amazon's delivery isn't all its cracked up to be. Unless you have prime or are purchasing books, the minimum spend for free delivery has recently gone up to £35. It also has fast delivery, normally £4.99, selected as a default even when free delivery is an option. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@the_book_seekers wrote:

It also has fast delivery, normally £4.99, selected as a default even when free delivery is an option. 

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If true that is in breach of Regulation 40 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations:

"There is no express consent (if there would otherwise be) for the purposes of this paragraph if consent is inferred from the consumer not changing a default option (such as a pre-ticked box on a website)."

An enhanced delivery option cannot be pre-selected/the default option if it is a more expensive option than the basic delivery cost.

[swat090346]

I bought a hedge trimmer on Saturday 3/Aug. On the listing it says expexcted delivery 9th - 10th Aug which I was quite satisfied with. Ebay in their wisdom put a note on the listing  free postage in 2-3 days.

WRONG the seller said 9-10th which is a least 6 days.

I then get a message delivery expected Monday 5 to Tuesday 6th Aug

WRONG I did not order until Saturday late so there is no way that it could arrive on Monday.

I get another message that it would be delivered on Tuesday 6th

and I could track the message which I did today, Tuesday

WRONG when I try to track I am told that a label has been printed but the item has not arrived at the carrier so I am spending a lovely summer day waiting for a non existing selivery.

I went on to my Ebay clicked on purchases and there is a message "Running behind original estimate 5-6th.

and there is no mention when the parcel will be delivered

WRONG The original estimate given by the seller was 9th to 10th.  

Now, if I was a customer who did not know about Ebays failings, I would be complaining to the seller about late, delayed delivery. But this would not be the sellers fault, It is Ebays interfering, how is this good for buyer or seller