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

[sup51707]

What are the new changes for Seller`s feedback revision? All the protection seems to be with the buyer, which I know is not new. 

However, too many buyers are trying it on. 

[asjc15]

As usual at this time of year, eBay go from one extreme to the other as they start estimating orders will arrive after Christmas days before the last posting dates. Despite them publishing the Royal Mail last posting dates themselves and saying Tracked 48 last posting day is Friday, all my listings with Tracked 48 are now showing as estimated 20-27th. Was planning on shutting up shop for the holidays on Friday but might as well do it today now! 🤣

[bojangled]

@asjc15 well they have sort of got one thing correct this year.
Today’s orders received after cut off advice to despatch on the 24th (2nd class post) but then they ruin it with an EDD of 20th-27th. 
Sigh..

[turbofunnel2009]

Ebay has no moral problems with lying to "their" clients on behalf of the sellers. I mean how difficult must be to calculate dispatch time + given courier lead times (3-5 working days) EXCLUDING SATURDAYS. Because Ebay certainly knows that my courier will deliver the parcel on Saturday when they actually don't work. 
That's also really good that sellers can pay with their selling fees for useless management, useless programmers to "improve selling & buying experience". What an absolute joke.

 

[your.home.consoles.world.ltd]

Unfortunately nothing has changed, the system has been working properly for 2 months and suddenly on the 25th all orders have guaranteed delivery for 26-27 and from the very morning I do nothing other than write politely to not satisfied customers.

Thank You Ebay

[awestelectricals6]

I've been having this issue for a few weeks that I know of. I am getting customers opening claims item not received. The whole issue is a mess. I even went as far as going into my business policies and changed everything and all looked good. Within a couple of days I was getting 2nd class RM post would be delivered next day. Talked to CS a few times only to be told they will send it to the back office where the IT will look at the issue. And you all guessed right no follow up. This is crippling me as I am constantly relating to customers and also call up CS about the issue. Give me a couple more weeks and at this rate I'll be on some sort of meds. I can't cope been trading for over 7 years without these issues why has this all of a sudden happened. From this thread it looks like an ongoing issue that will never get resolved. Please see attached proof pic. 2nd class next day dates match the 1st class dates. Of cause the buyer is not going to pay for next day when they see 2nd class does the same.

[your.home.consoles.world.ltd]

 

Unfortunately, nothing changes, for 3 years we have had an unchanged shipping policy (Monday-Friday, shipment of the purchase by 12 o'clock on the same day, no shipments on Saturdays and Sundays) standard free shipping 2-3 business days.

As you can see in the picture, all orders from Saturday are treated by ebay as next day.
I stopped calling to ebay last year.. Nothing changes here, for them the system always works as it should.

[dch2112011]

The delivery estimates are based on RM delivery aims which for 2nd class is 2 to 3 working days which include Saturday  although by default they should on ebay class Mon to Fri as the default setting.

If your listings lose the premium listing over the weekend then it is likely that the system is working to your settings - if not then it is worth checking two areas to make sure the boxes are ticked 

' From your postage settings page, simply check the boxes beside the days you process orders. Remember eBay only uses the working days you’ve selected when calculating the delivery estimates shown to your buyer.'

You can also choose same day dispatch not offered from the drop down menu  if  Saturday and Sunday are ticked as working days - untick them 

Just as an oddball thing try setting your cut off time to 1pm or 2pm and see if this changes the estimate - something in the back of my mind remembers this as perhaps an issue  - on the other hand this could be a case of bad memory !

To be fair we do not experiance this problem at all - the estimates shown are pretty much spot on - we use click and drop and dispatch same day with cut off time 4pm  and exclude weekends.

Any way I hope you can sort it out because it must be an annoyance

[your.home.consoles.world.ltd]

Thanks for your good intentions, generally the setting has been unchanged for years, once when I was trying to clarify the matter and one of the ebay employees advised a few changes, it didn't help, when I talked to them again another employee said that the problems with the estimated delivery are due to the new wrong settings because he checked from his side and everything works for them as it should, so I just went back to the old settings..
Your post prompted me to check the shipping options again, we have 4 templates at the moment that differ in international shipping, all of them are based on the same scheme, the basis is free shipping with evri 2-3 business days, the rest are premium options ( however sometimes we use them ourselves, it all depends on the type and value of the order )
In any case, there are no new options, no changes made by ebay.

To be honest, setting it up to 12 o'clock coincides well with the courier's pick-up times, moving it to a later time could cause us more problems, unfortunately for the *system* the scan of the package is also important, setting the shipment to 14-16 will miss the collection of the order by the courier, I would have to add the next day of shipping, 3-5 days of shipping looks not very encouraging.

In addition, the Royal Mail Policy does not encourage greater cooperation, (if anyone has ever wanted to recover any loss generated by this company, they know what I am talking about).

[dch2112011]

I was clutching at straws , just thought if you changed the cut off time to see if the estimates changed  - if not change it back - if they do set it for as near after 12 as you can to retain the correct estimates 

Only other thing to check is the listing itself when creating - just make sure that within the listing the info is the same as potentially this could override the weekend setting 

I can imagine it really is frustrating - it needs sorting out for everyone involved in your business including customers and ebay !

[heart-for-heart]

I've been consistently complaining about the dynamic tracking since it started, two years or more ago. Tried selling at xmas to see how things went and if the algorithm had improved but it hasn't and so long as ebay think it's working correctly it's not likely to.
I won't list all the solutions and workarounds that ebay reps, at all levels, have suggested, suffice to say I've tried them all and nothing works. 
EDDs often preceed dispatch by dates! Whatever remedial action one takes it ends the same, excessive buyer messaging; customer disappointment; increase in INR cases.  High INR cases affect service metrics so ebay add a few extra days to delivery estimates. In theory that would be good, less messaging, unhappy customers and INR cases , however it seriously impacts sales and thus ranking resulting in a lot less sales if you sell in a competitive area.
This combined with ebay tracking for postage labels created for letter category NEVER showing as delivered is distressing and expensive. 
Selling low priced items sent in 'letter' category isn't viable is the conclusion for the tracking issue but no way round the EDD nightmare. It's been mentioned at meetings so they know at all levels that it's a problem but as it's sellers that front the cost it's not viable for them to 'fix' it. We need more software engineers!
Also been selling for over 16 years and on all platforms so plenty of experience across the board and with different business models.
Buyers don't want lectures on dynamic tracking and likwe several posters have said you can't blame them.

[johnwash1]

What's always worked for me, since realising the EED problem will never be fixed, is long dispatch times in my settings, plus buying postage off site, e.g. from RM.  I don't enter tracking and I don't mark as dispatched until the last possible day indicated.

Daft that I have to do that, but...

[turbofunnel2009]

eBay shows the buyer that they will receive their order even BEFORE I could dispatch it. See my screenshot above.

Do they know about this? 100%. Will they fix it? Very unlikely...

This is how eBay keeps the pressure on sellers—negative feedback goes to the sellers, not eBay. They have nothing to lose here, and you can’t do a thing about it. Call them, complain, and all you’ll get is a heartwarming 'sorry'.

[awestelectricals6]

Had another little chat with CS(25 mins). I tried my hardest to explain that my second class Item are shown to be delivered the next day, and that this was not possible. He tried to explain it all depends on the postcode it's been delivered to. Not to be cheaky he must of thought I was going to take the poor excuse to get me off the phone. I had to explain that 1st class may get there next day as RM try to deliver 1st class within 1-2 days. But I had to explain that Royal Mail 2nd Class would be 2-3 working days. And that the whole system is a mess. And still after 25 mins chat he was right and I was wrong :-(. He just started saying change your dispatch times. Why would I do that when I offer Next Day Special with Royal Mail. All I can say is this will never get fixed as they can't see an issue, no matter how clear you spell this issue out. All I want is to be very clear and open about estimated delivery dates to my customers. BUT eBay are not interested and the seller has to put up with customers opening claim and we have to explain the delievery issue is eBay displaying incorrect EDD. 

[jlh0702]

WE are too

450 orders a week we are posting with a high percentage of buyers asking where is my item.

Spending hours on the platform trying to protect our ratings.

This needs to be sorted.

[turbofunnel2009]

Ebay totally disregards you dispatch times! Regardless what you set.  Here is another screenshot from me today. I changed dispatch time to 2 working days (a week ago)... Ebay doesnt bother... see my screenshot again. Apparently buyer receives my order before I dispatched. 

 

[dch2112011]

Ebay will use the average dispatch time for you - so if just changed from same day to 2 days  it will if the data shows you dispatching 99.9% of items same day over a set period start the EDD based on same day dispatch which is your 'norm'    

In the example you posted as a snapshot ordered 6th March -- earliest delivery date based on your factual statistics 8th March

The latest estimated date is based on your  latest dispatch date of 9th March  so latest EDD becomes 11th March

Your declared LATEST dispatch date is 9th March  (2  working days) ebay display this as BY 10th March.

This is why when members extend their dispatch time  that the EDD shows the earliest date before the expiry of dispatch time  - for some bizzare reason members try to beat the system by using say 5 working days for dispatch but in reality dispatch earlier to try and beat the system  BUT the system picks up on both the actual average dispatch time and the sellers estimated dispatch time to calculate the range of EDD earliest to latest.

There are other factors in ebay's automated calculations linked to carrier supported information - but let's not make it too complicated !

[turbofunnel2009]

What you say makes sense, but it is absurd. Can't my circumstances ever change just because I was doing well before? Can we not be low on staff, sick, overloaded, or change our behavior because of eBay's historic records?

Are you real? If so, here’s my question… what are these settings for if they actually do absolutely nothing because of eBay's historic record—meaning eBay decides instead of the seller?

The fact is, eBay shows completely false EDDs (Estimated Delivery Dates) to buyers. If I dispatch a parcel on the 10th, the buyer leaves negative feedback because eBay promised them (buyers completely ignore the word 'estimated' here) a delivery date of March 8th. They simply claim I did not dispatch their parcel on time, and that’s why they didn’t receive it on the 8th as eBay promised.

eBay cannot even calculate when my buyers actually receive their orders from my statistics because they do not have this information. I haven’t added tracking to my orders for over a year! So, what carrier information is eBay using then?

So, in the end, the blame falls entirely on me, the seller, simply because I followed the settings I configured.

You talk about beating the system… Here’s my question for you—why are we forced to try to 'beat the system'? Why are sellers forced to cheat, lie, and constantly fight against eBay's broken system? Maybe eBay's management shouldn't be forcing sellers into this position and should instead let the system work as it should.

[awestelectricals6]

Well said, Why give us setting to use and overide them. Buisness needs change and as a seller I'd rather be honest with my buyers than eBay giving false hopes. 

[your.home.consoles.world.ltd]

The suggested delivery time should be determined by the seller, as he is responsible for the whole process, ebay may suggest faster delivery based on the delivery history ( as an incentive but never as a guarantee )