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

[johnwash1]

I've grappled with this for years.  Usually I dispatch promptly, but I'd like to keep my options open in case I have to spend a few days in hospital at very short notice.

The only way I've found that works for me is to buy postage elsewhere and not to enter tracking.  I communicate well with my buyers, they know what to expect.

Everyone wants fast delivery in the modern world?  I can imagine that's true in many categories, certainly isn't for a lot of the items I'm listing.  Often, when I message the buyer that I'll be posting the next day, they thank me and say "No rush, do it when it fits for you".

Ebay's intransigence sucks.

[dch2112011]

Just a thought,    "No rush, do it when it fits for you" sounds more like a response to you keeping them in the loop when delays occur ?

If this was an unsolicited message it would be a little bizzare and one that perhaps would not be wise to believe and act on. 

It seems that your customers actually want and appreciate quick dispatch and delivery even in your category !

- you only have to read their feedback comments if you want customer confirmation of the importance and appreciation of quick delivery - you don't have to listen to ebay listen to your customers !  (see below taken from the first few comments on page one) -

Wonder what it would read if you acted on their  "No rush, do it when it fits for you"?

I think you might find their attitude would change and negatively be reflected in your feedback - I think you really know this and act accordingly -

It sounds good when knocking ebay for pointing this out to sellers who are gullible and would believe that buyers don't care when they ship 

 'prompt posting and nice communication. '

'Dispatch and delivery is really quick'

'quick delivery'

'Arrived promptly'

'dispatch time was better than expected'

'Item arrived quickly'

'Arrived in very good time'

'sent quickly'

'fast shipping.'

[johnwash1]

@dch2112011 

"Just a thought, "No rush, do it when it fits for you" sounds more like a response to you keeping them in the loop when delays occur ?"

Thanks for your thought, but it's not like that at all.  That's when I message them, which I do usually within 24 hours of the order, to thank them, say when  I'm packing, offer the chance to buy something else at a discount or even free, and say when I expect my postie to collect it.  Nothing to do with delays, just appreciation that I'm shipping much sooner than they were expecting or even wanted.  Wanted?  Occasionally I even have to hold back something because someone is working abroad for a week and doesn't want the item arriving and sitting on the doorstep.

Just to be clear, I'm saying what works for me, with the kind of items I sell, to the kind of buyers I sell to.  I certainly wouldn't recommend that every seller follows my model.  Someone who sells nuts and bolts probably needs to ship PDQ.  I know when I'm doing DIY and need some size of screw or some shelf brackets, I want them now or yesterday!  I probably get someone to go a mile down the road to Screwfix rather than wait.  (Incidentally, I needed some shelf brackets recently for our new shed.  I looked first on ebay.  Then I found cheaper on Amazon.  How things have changed, eh).

Yes, some of my feedback does indicate unexpectedly fast dispatch.  But that's the point.  They've bought expecting the item to arrive in a week or 10 days.  They're pleasantly surprised that it turned out much better.  So much so that they've remarked on it in feedback.  Under promise and over deliver, it gets happy buyers.

It's not always roses and kittens.  I've had the (very) occasional parcel go astray for 3 weeks with RM (rather less occasional back when I used Evri).  But due to keeping the buyer in the loop while battling RM's CS, they're usually pretty understanding and the dolls they stick pins in are of the CEO, not me.

You mention gullible?  Neither would I recommend that sellers sell if they're gullible.  "A man has to know his limitations".  (One of my favourite Clint Eastwood quotes).  Someone who's starting out should do a bit of research, and sell only very cheap items they can afford to lose.  Many of us cringe with horror when someone comes on the boards and says "I just made my first sale on ebay, my £500 iPhone, and the buyer is now saying it doesn't work.  What should I do?".  And we cringe even harder when we think of all the first timers with the same story who don't even know about these boards and are reliant on the advice that CS will offer them.  😞

[dch2112011]

Yep it's a polite response to your communication, A typical British response ! I really wonder what the customer would really think if you took them up on it and responded ' Thanks it will be convenient for me to post it in three weeks time when I next visit the post office . 

Unfortunately a lot of  private sellers believe dispatching and delivery can be chosen and carried out at their convenience, packing, posting and the customer are a major inconvenience once they have the money.

I don't know how many times I read I only post on a Friday when it is convenient or my customers don't expect me to post quickly it's different for private sellers - yet these customers do care - they want and appreciate good service, they reflect it in feedback in the same way that they reflect late deliveries in feedback and the mbg !

ebay are making a big effort with the changes to force a change in attitude, unfortunately it sweeps the good private sellers  into the same pot.

You are doing exactly what ebay have been telling sellers for years, you communicate with buyers - yet how many times do you hear the advice on the forum - don't communicate with the seller or buyer use the mbg instead !

You dispatch promptly and keep the customer informed - exactly what ebay preach and design their systems to do.

The only difference is that you have found a way to do exactly what ebay preach but in a way that works for you - believe it or not ebay are very happy you do this, it promotes happy customers who come back to shop on ebay and reduces their costs !

You do not have to use ebay as a shield between seller and customer - we don't when it comes to returns or late deliveries, somebody orders the wrong size - we send the correct size with a return label and bag and ask them to return either one or both items if they don't fit and as soon as the return enters the postal system we refund in full if both are being returned - no case, no ebay, no waiting - all sorted in 24 hours and very very happy customers who return often.

Strangelythey also say no need I am happy to return and order a replacement - BUT they are much happier and loyal when we do what we do - I wonder how many would order again if they actually went through the laborious clunky slow ebay return system or how many would be fed up and have already bought somewhere else whilst getting annoyed with the wait ?

With deliveries if a second class RM48 item is 2 days late we refund immediately and tell the customer to keep the item if it turns up, RM24 the same but one day late - no INR case, no complaint, very happy customers many return. 

Again they often say they are willing to wait a few more days  but they don't have to wait and the resolution is instant, I wonder how many would open an INR when it didn't turn up even though they said they will wait ?

Faulty damaged goods, we refund and replace at our expense - very happy customers, they return and no ebay, no case, no problems,  Why would we want them to open a fault claim when it is an inevitable end result and damaging metrics ?

Never a problem with metrics always well above the average, and between 99.9 and 100 % feedback for years and over 60, 000 feedback a year on ebay.

I suppose we could say customers don't expect quick delivery, quick dispatch, easy returns, a robust delivery policy in the categories we sell in, but for sure they may be surprised at the service but certainly want it, appreciate it and reward us for it. isn't this what  your customers feel about your service - it's not just luck !

[theelench]

Unless the buyer contacts me and asks for a different service to the one I put on my listing I send everything RM 2nd class.  Usually I dispatch the same day as I get the "Buyer has paid" message, next day if the message arrives in my in-box late afternoon or evening. 

I've always bought stamps over-the-counter at my local Post Office to support them and, except when experimenting to try to get an extra days grace with ebay's FDDs, always added the RM reference no. as 'tracking' on the day of dispatch.  I only altered my Dispatch Window from "Next Day" to "Two Days" for the same reason.  I always message my buyers after dispatch to tell them their item was posted at xx:xx time and is on its way.  The reality is that I haven't changed what I do in over a decade of selling on ebay and ebid.

"Everyone wants fast delivery in the modern world?"

Apparently my buyers aren't that fussed either.  Not one on either site has ever left a FB comment to say delivery was 'slow' or 'late', I haven't ever had a Late Delivery Defect.

But, even though I've used a 'slow' service I have plenty of FB saying that delivery was 'fast, prompt, speedy or quick'.  (Perhaps a benefit of under-promising and over- achieving  that ebay has forgotten about?)

My FB is more concerned with the quality of my packaging than the speed of delivery, understandable as they've bought vintage glass.

Strangely, if I look at my recent FB on ebay most buyers mention 'quick delivery', but looking further into the past they don't mention it so often.  Consistently it's my packaging that's foremost in their mind.

On ebid where the buyer can read my 'Next Day' dispatch time and RM's 2-3 day delivery estimate, but the site gives NO EDD, again packaging is consistently mentioned, with delivery time of secondary importance if mentioned at all.

It makes me wonder just how much of "Everyone wants fast delivery" is totally manufactured by ebay/amazon/etsy.  We all know that Buyer Surveys can get the answers the company wants by the way they frame the questions.  We all know that corporations like to Monetise/ control everything they can, because they can then make money from it.  It doesn't matter how ebay dresses it up, that is exactly what ebay is doing with SD.

Luckily we don't work for amazon where Next Day Delivery is said to be so important that when a worker collapses with a heart attack due to the stress, their managers think it's OK to yell at their colleagues trying to help them to "Get back to work", in fear of going below their targets.

Taking control of Private seller's delivery options is ebay taking another step in that direction.

[theelench]

"- believe it or not ebay are very happy that you do this,.."

Are they?

Then why, when I dispatch promptly and keep my buyers informed do ebay lie to them by consistently telling them that their parcel will arrive the day after they paid for the item.  Next day dispatch + 2-3 days for delivery = three days MINIMUM, RM taking its full three day estimate means (by ebay's metric) that my delivery is late!

I'm sure your returns and refunds policy is great and a credit to how you and your employees(?) run your full -time business, that appears to have a high turnover, plenty of stock and decent cash-flow.

But it has no baring or relevance to private sellers like myself.  My sales on ebay for the last four full years were 20+, 13, 13 and 4.

What well run business can easily achieve is just not always possible for an, at best, part-time seller juggling ebay with the rest of their life.   Should ebay be even trying to get the same standards out of amateurs as full-time professional retailers?  Should buyers who buy from them expect such high standards, or should they expect less but be surprised and happy when they do achieve better? Perhaps ebay should do what sensible businesses do all the time.  Under promise and over achieve  --  THAT produces happy customers as well, if it's allowed to.

[dch2112011]

Believe it or not we started as private sellers on ebay and although it has developed into a business, we have personal experiance and knowledge of the difficulties facing private sellers as well as businesses -

Some areas apply equally to both business and personal sellers albeit at a different scale.

Dispatch and delivery is one of them. 

A well organised business will have invested heavily in this key area whereas a genuine private seller will often make do with the resources to hand.

However the customer  expects prompt delivery, good packaging and communication of the delivery process from any seller at any level offering online delivery and really has little genuine interest in any sellers problems whether it is an employee off sick, or a seller not being able to find the time to get to the postbox. 

In recent years customer's expectations have risen to virtually expecting anything they order online to be with them the next day or the following day and over the coming years that expectation will become the same day as high street shops morph into online enterprises.

That is not to say customers will not accept a longer delivery but they would prefer a quick service and often if there is a choice of suppliers - one stating delivery in 7 days and one with next day delivery - generally next day delivery wins even if the cost is slightly more.

Genuine sellers of personal possesions do get a little more leeway 2 to 3 days because the items tend to be unique but that does not mean personal sellers should not try and achieve good delivery standards and that is what ebay are trying to achieve with the changes and the EDD

Shopping online is the absolute norm for most people these days and expectations are rising almost daily, you cannot sit back even as a personal seller and repeat what your Grandma used to say when I was a kid they used to deliver the bread on a push bike - it might be quaint and nice but the population has massively increased, both sexes work full time, the roads are busier and no youngster wants to deliver bread on a pushbike and consumers want choice and want it now !

[johnwash1]

@dch2112011   @theelench 

Reading those recent posts with differing attitudes they discuss vintage glass, clothing, and retro electronics.  It's almost as if there is no "one size fits all"!

All three of us have happy buyers.  Great.  And it seems like my items are more like vintage glass (and alas, sell as slowly!).

[dch2112011]

You deserve to sell a lot more reading your customers comments, however as a genuine personal seller  a lot of your items are not mainstream - but then isn't what you are doing exactly what selling unwanted personal items is all about.

The downside of selling personal items that are for want of a better word 'niche' is getting visability , ebay works on numbers - the higher the numbers the more the visability.  

Something that can work really well is if you follow facebook pages / groups of people with similar interests who might be interested in some of your items and you have optimised for google - then every so often your ebay listing will be picked up and flashed to every members feed who is subscribed or following the facebook pages / groups - it is flashed for a very short time but can have instant results 

[a45heaven]

@dch2112011 

facebook pages / groups of people with similar interests who might be interested in some of your items

100% agree with you - sell despite ebay.

Focusing your items directly to those interested parties on a regular basis does work.

It always astonishes me, in that ebay can limit your exposure, then offer you a wider promoted market for a fee !!!!!!!

I have little faith in the views / watcher numbers shown - there have been many discussions on this subject in the past, without no firm resolution -  i mentioned the other week that the 'Viewed' number  goes down as auctions come to an end, how can that work?  

That shows the original working partnership twixt ebay and the Sellers is a distant memory.

[theelench]

I agree, there probably is no one size that fits all.  My buyers have been and still are overwhelmingly happy with next day dispatch and 2-3 day delivery, otherwise wouldn't they be consistently leaving me FB to say they loved my packaging but delivery was slow?  

The point that I didn't make clearly enough was the difference between the two sites.  On the other site, where I sell more, most of my FB praises my packaging.  If mentioned at all and as a secondary consideration, my FB indicates that buyers are at least happy with the delivery time, or remark on my "quick, prompt or speedy delivery".  All achieved with next day dispatch and 2nd class mail.  Does that indicate that they are unhappy?

But on ebay where the site prompts and nudges them judge sellers by the speed of delivery, it has become their primary concern  --  even for an old vase, hardly something that needs to be delivered the day after purchase.  So how much of this urgent desire for next day delivery actually comes from buyers and how much is created by ebay's telling them that the quality of the seller rests on it?

IMO a dubious assertion when ebay / amazon etc. are so obviously looking for anything to make a profit on.  Then another reason for tackling the Late Delivery 'problem' appears.  It's just an excuse to take control, monetise and make a profit from a 'problem' that they pushed buyers into commenting on after they decided it was something that they could make money on. 

[dch2112011]

You can't rely on ebay to sell for you unless you really are top of the tree and ebay have taken the item on to promote for a percentage , basically that works by submitting an item to ebay with a minimum volume - from memory I think it is 500 items, then if they believe it will sell quickly agreeing a sales price and a hefty percentage fee - then ebay promote generating the sales.

For business sellers obtaining position 1 or 2 works but it is fiercely competetive  so optimising for the less popular search terms is easier but proportionately the sales are less - but it is linked to views and sales - particularly sales - it is a numbers game, 

To keep visibile with cherished items on a private account is vastly more complex and needs a lot of thought  getting the listing desirable for google, facebook and bing where it will be picked up and flashed on peoples feed and search pages - it then directs the viewer directly to your ebay listing.

My only thought is whether ebay will place a little more importance on some of the private sellers listings now that they have a firm financial interest - the ebay income will firmly be sales driven both from buyer fees and shipping, their interest will be getting more private account sales 

My guess is that buyers will find more relevant private sellers items flashing up based on search, views and purchase history, it is likely to be pretty instantaneous every time they interact with ebay.

If only they removed the businesses selling new multiple items from the private accounts so that the genuine personal sellers would be the beneficiaries. Who knows ?

Personally I believe genuine personal sellers attract a different type of buyer.

If they have a good experiance - they tend to browse and impulse purchase and this drifts to business sellers, they then begin to shop for store items. Rarely do buyers logging on to buy a new towel browse and drift - they log on buy then log off  

[dch2112011]

If you dispatch next day with a 2 to 3 day service and communicate with your buyers that is pretty good - it could be better but most buyers would accept it for a cherished used item but you are not on ebay's radar, you are performing.

You are being swept up with the ebay changes which are aimed at a significantly high proportion of personal sellers who take too long to dispatch - if at all ! and send items with underpaid or slow delivery  driving buyers away with an awful experiance.

As more and more sellers online give next day delivery it becomes expected, anticipated, desired - it is buyer driven, the top of the chain Amazon, manufacturers, even take away food, groceries, flowers, clothes and Argos  can be same day - it is quickly becoming part of everyday life, this creates expectation which spills over to the more sedate selling sectors.

[theelench]

So I'm performing to ebay's expectations am I??

I ask again, if that's so and I'm not on their radar why do they persist in lying to my buyers telling them to expect delivery even quicker than my already 'acceptable' performance.  When in point of fact ebays FDD of day after purchase or the day after is plainly impossible under my 'acceptable' next day dispatch + RMs TWO to three day delivery estimate. 

Next day dispatch + two days still = 3 days.  Should RM take 3 days to deliver according to ebay it's a late delivery and I'm dispatching slowly.  

Where do you get "a significantly high proportion of private sellers who take too long to dispatch" from?  In over a decade of buying on ebay I've never had a problem with slow delivery with either business or private sellers, but then I don't give in to ebays attempts to blacken a sellers reputation by agreeing to mark a delivery as late if it doesn't arrive in two days.  

[dch2112011]

I can't comment on your EDD problems but having checked a few mainly to satisfy my own curiosity to help understand the problem that seems to be of pandemic proportion.

The EDD's I checked from a few of the poster's complaining were  accurate  with the exception of two posters who seem to have Saturdays being counted as an ebay working day for 2nd class post

One of the two Saturday problem posters confirmed that Monday to Friday the EDD's were correct and the problem was isolated to the weekend settings which may help explain why Ist and second class delivery can show the same dates on occasion. 

Of course the EDD can read delivery before the latest date for dispatch which seems a major area of concern due to the misunderstanding that the number of days sellers choose for dispatch time is a spread of time from day 1 to the total number of days chosen to dispatch within.

This explains why the smaller the spread the more realistic the dates in the EDD appear. 

If your EDD's are all showing next day from day of order and you have made the correct settings then oviously something is wrong, it should be possible to raise this with ebay and if they are telling you the system is working correctly then you should be able to get to the correct team who can talk through the settings your end and either pinpoint what should be changed or raise the issue with the back team to rectify who should be able to keep you informed until the problem is resolved.

[your.home.consoles.world.ltd]

Today is still Monday.

[arc3110]

This is exactly the issue, you cannot get the correct team to resolve it, they are not interested.

Like many others have posted, ebay are well aware of the issue but continue to gaslight their customers. They have been provided with clear evidence, in my case face-to-face with the shipping team, that the correct settings are being used yet the errors still exist. Moreover promised follow up’s never occur, but apparently the chase up's do get passed to relevant team , although this probably true, the relevant team being the bin, there can be no other explanation.

Reading these boards of which there are hundreds of posts I know of at least another 2 sellers that have bought this up again face -to-face at later events yet years later we are still talking about the same thing. We are not posting or raising the issue for the fun of it, we are doing because it doesn’t work correctly, has a negative on selling as a whole and needs to be addressed. So what does it take to fix it?

The whole farce of a system benefits no one but ebay, hence why nothing is done, and if you are in any doubt how a buyer understands it take a look at this recent post, message #28 from iss504

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Negative-effect-on-Sellers-Late-Delivery-Ratin...

[theelench]

That all sounds very reasonable and might work on an individual basis, but the problems should have been fixed for all sellers by a complete overhaul of ebays so called 'dynamic' calculation which is obviously still spewing out the same nonsense after years of evidence that they are in-accurate.

Until that is done I'll continue to believe the evidence of my own eyes.

That this is a problem created by ebay, solely so they can achieve control of delivery options for all sellers and monetise that control for their own profit.  Regardless of how those in-accuracies make 'the ebay experience' of both buying and selling worse, reduces buyer satisfaction and reduces sales.

[johnwash1]

---

@dch2112011 wrote:

You deserve to sell a lot more reading your customers comments, however as a genuine personal seller  a lot of your items are not mainstream - but then isn't what you are doing exactly what selling unwanted personal items is all about.

The downside of selling personal items that are for want of a better word 'niche' is getting visability , ebay works on numbers - the higher the numbers the more the visability.  

Something that can work really well is if you follow facebook pages / groups of people with similar interests who might be interested in some of your items and you have optimised for google - then every so often your ebay listing will be picked up and flashed to every members feed who is subscribed or following the facebook pages / groups - it is flashed for a very short time but can have instant results 

---

I've never expected to be deluged with orders.  Most of my stuff is of interest to only a few people in the UK, sometimes even the world.  It can take years before some items catch an enthusiast's attention/need.  Though having said that, in the too distant past I've sent out a dozen items in a week, now I'm lucky if it's 2 or 3.

I realise you're trying to be helpful (thanks), but social media is a cesspool I don't want to get into.  And if I did conquer my revulsion I gather from friends that I'd then have other market places that work very well for them.  So I doubt I'd be using FB to promote ebay.

You wrote in another post:

"If your EDD's are all showing next day from day of order and you have made the correct settings then oviously something is wrong, it should be possible to raise this with ebay and if they are telling you the system is working correctly then you should be able to get to the correct team who can talk through the settings your end and either pinpoint what should be changed or raise the issue with the back team to rectify who should be able to keep you informed until the problem is resolved."

Oh dear.  Oh dearie dearie me!  You've just utterly shot your credibility.  You're regularly in these forums.  You can't possibly be unaware that people have not just been complaining about false EDDs for years, trying to contact relevant teams, being consistently fobbed off and ignored, they have even been pushing this issue hard at face to face meetings.  How can you put forward such a possibility?  Only an alien landing on the planet and encountering ebay for the first time could think that.  Time to climb back into your UFO?  😉

[dch2112011]

It always works for me - when problems arise - even some horrors  getting through to the back room on a one to one basis soon solves any system problems - getting to converse with the individuals who can make the changes is sometimes difficult if your route is via CS front desk.

Longest wait has been approx 30 days when payments stopped and got stuck in a loop - it took several ebay specialists and Adyen - before we got to a whizz kid in ebay's back office who managed to correct the system with Adyen  - it took a few days and lots of  phone calls back and forth, before he ironed out the bugs - then payments flowed again instantly - so  my experiance of ebay solving problems has been very good - ebay management kept in the loop and kept in contact daily with everyone until all up and working as it should - 

We have even received limited compensation from ebay when system bugs have affected listings and potentially sales 

So if you find this alien to you  and you believe we lack credibility  maybe just maybe you should look towards yourself and ask yourself what approach do you need to adopt and what information do you need to provide to get the message to the correct teams within ebay's structure to get the help you clearly feel you are not getting ! 

Anyway off to my spaceship courtesy of ebay !