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

[qualitycardsandgifts]

This is nothing to do with sending items tracked, it is about the buyer being given false expectations of when their item will arrive.    I never said eBay was to blame for the INR, but telling the buyer it will arrive in a day is causing the problems.      As the guy at my local sorting office said "whatever you have heard about Royal Mail's problems, times it by 10 and you will be getting close".  

[greatgiftshampshire]

I have the same issue just spoke to seller support and not really helpful

I sold an item Thursday dispatched next day royal mail 48 hrs ebays estimated delivery Friday - Sunday ?? customer is disapointed as was exspecting it Saturday because ebay estimated that, all my settings are correct just ebays tracking incorrect 

[sagr2519]

Sorry, I misunderstood.

[best-range]

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@sagr2519 wrote:

Why don't you check the tracking number in the courier's website?

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Adding tracking adds more problems to the EDD's, I posted it in another older thread.

I dont know if you noticed but there are now 3 different EDD's sets given to buyers for the same order depending if it's pre-sale or post-sale, or post-dispatch/tracking or what page you're looking at they'll see different EDD's.

The original EDD's shown to the customers pre-sale ( specific for their postode & service selected) keeps shortening a day each time while it's progresses from the pre-sale to post-sale to post-dispatch stage.

Then once you add tracking it will tell you item will be "delivered same day as dispatch day" - at that point you need to use time machine to fulfill ebay promise to our customers. 

Example: for 2 class post/RM48 it progresses from the original pre-sale EDD's stage of 2-3 days ( usually correct) to post sales 1-2 days EDD stage ( wrong) & then once dispatched /tracking added it goes to the crazy stage of showing same day/next day EDD's .

I dont think many sellers are aware of that, do check your EDD's at each of those 3 transaction stages to see how the EDD's keep changing - I think this is what ebay means by "dynamic", I'd call it "error coding".

This is only one issue out of the 7 I identified to do with the fantazy EDD's in this thread, if interested :

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/EDD-s-shows-same-day-delivery-as-dispatch-day-for-2...

[darth_baggins]

I got an irate message yesterday from some who'd bought something and eBay apparently guaranteed he'd receive it by the weekend, then he 'got an emai' saying he wouldn't receive it until the 26th.

But we're all wasting our time because eBay repeatedly say it's all working as intended, while we, their customers are telling them it's clearly not.

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi

I agree ebay are not interested in doing anything about the issue, but I feel we still need to report the issues, to keep up the pressure and have something for our records too.

Best wishes

[lincolnshiremarine]

See the latest reply I had from them, as I was watching the chat today (20/3/24) and see others bringing it up.  

My message:

Good afternoon Marco

Can you understand that many sellers including myself cannot accept the reply you give us all each week stating there is no issue with ebays EDD.  

It appears that this issue is not being escalated to higher powers that be.

It is so obvious to us there is an issue, my question to you, is, how on earth can you not see what we are seeing with regards ebays EDD.

Marco's reply 

"I see where you are coming from, and I totally see your point. We are always reviewing the samples we are provided with to make sure we are not missing anything and double check there are no tech issues. However, the questions or queries you're flagging with us are the same, so the answer would remain the same. We are also passing this on as feedback, so your thoughts on EDDs can be taken into consideration as well, but as I said before, it is working ok at the moment."

Thank you,

Marco

[roverviews]

Surely they can see there is a problem. I would also hope that they are going to cancel all late delivery claims until it is sorted out.
It is not right to promise delivery times that are clearly impossible to acheive

I have had a very polite phone message from a customer, saying their parcel hadnt arrived on Tuesday.

It turns out that is was ordered at 4.42 Saturday afternoon, so, obviously no way it can be posted until Monday. Ebay delivery estimate is shown as Monday or Tuesday, which is completely imposssible, how can it be delivered the same day it is due to be  posted by  second class? with 2 "working" days additional handling time as well?

Due to ridiculous delivery estimates, for many years, Ive add a couple of extra days handling and now it appears that is completely ignored. Ive checked the same listing this evening and it is telling me it will be delivered earliest of Saturday, which is nuts. It definitely says 2 days handling time and second class is at best 2 days, so it should be earliest delivery should be Four working days from when it is posted, not next day!

[roverviews]

Just a quick update..

Ive tried changing the handling times... Just to see how that changes things...

One  listing... second class delivery.

If I buy it now......
with 2 WORKING days handling time, delivery is shown as This Saturday 23rd, it should be Wednesday 27th

with 5  WORKING days handling time, delivery is shown as Next Monday 25th, it should be Saturday 30th

with 10 WORKING days handling time, delivery is shown is Wed 3rd April, it should be Saturday 6th April

I remember now,  why I have cut back on selling on ebay, just too much stress and its all for the want of just doing things right.  Too Difficult it appears to be.. The less you sell, the less can go wrong.

[auto-bits-online]

We are having some serious issues with the delivery times also, its been very stressful and extremely time consuming.

Customers are taking these times as guarantees, sometimes even a day after they place an order looking for the item they selected 2nd class post in purchasing.

We even upgraded all our mail to 1st class at our expense to try and combat this. This has not worked.

[therma-tec]

This has started to affect our sales now, every order we have received shows delivery date to the buyer  is the same as our dispatch date or next day delivery. We have 48 hr courier set as standard free post so it's just basic maths that the earliest anything could possibly be delivered is 2 days after the dispatch date.

We have had buyers cancel orders because of this, Item not received cases opened and we are expecting a LOT of late delivery defects / negative feedback very soon. 

The fact that we are losing money with cancelled orders and having to use a faster shipping service at our expense to 'try' and get our customers orders to them on or before the stupid EDD's is getting a little annoying!

If we complain enough I fear they would just suspend our accounts rather than admit they have totally screwed up.

[theelench]

Just my personal opinion, but I wouldn't worry too much about complaining or having your account suspended.  Thousands of sellers have been complaining since the madness began.

I've asked the Community Team, several times, what is the point of misleading buyers and as they are reviewing specific cases of impossible FDDs, to show their workings to demonstrate how they conclude that the un-achievable is "working perfectly". 

They haven't answered my questions, so I draw my own conclusions and I'd say your account is perfectly safe for the simple reason that you're doing exactly as ebay wants.  Reducing your profit to pay for up-graded postage means ebay still get their fees.  You suffer, ebay doesn't and if at some point you have to increase your postage cost to buyers, ebay will charge you fees on the increase.  Win/Win for ebay and as you are expecting Late Deliver Defects to increase, they are looking forward to increasing your fees even further when you fall below standard.

This has nothing to do with buyer satisfaction and everything to do with ebay taking more in fees from decreasing sales. (IMO)  

[roverviews]

Surely from a business point of view it is in their interest to not screw up, reputation is everything.

Add to that, the fact that the "system"  is clearly ignoring information that sellers are giving in good faith about their expectations of delivery times and they ought to know. Misrepresenting sellers and misleading buyers.

I would have thought Ebays' lawyers ought to be looking into this and whether the system is already skating very close to the legal edge of trading conduct.

[theelench]

Not so long ago there were some interesting posts about the life-cycle of businesses and what happens when a business reaches the point where it becomes a spent force.  Either it must invest heavily to try to re-invent itself or it gives-up and goes into "Monetised Managed Decline" (MMD), minimising investment and maximising making money short-term to take out of the business ('Take the money and run' attitude') .  I hope my summary hasn't mangled their comments too much.

In that situation ebay isn't interested in its long-term reputation or that of its sellers or any effects on their businesses its policy has.  All that counts is how much and how quickly money can be made and taken out of the business before it fails.  It has no obligations to its sellers, they are just a sponge to be squeezed dry.

[litp*records]

Careful about using a faster service, as then Ebay will start telling buyers the EDD is the very same day they order!

The only way to beat the algorithm is by moving slower, not faster.  Change your dispatch time to 5 days to avoid the short-term pain whilst you adjust.

Looking forward to Easter as no doubt Ebay will consider Good Friday and Easter Monday as working days/delivery days.   

Time for Time Away mode...

[litp*records]

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@roverviews wrote:

Surely from a business point of view it is in their interest to not screw up, reputation is everything.

Add to that, the fact that the "system"  is clearly ignoring information that sellers are giving in good faith about their expectations of delivery times and they ought to know. Misrepresenting sellers and misleading buyers.

I would have thought Ebays' lawyers ought to be looking into this and whether the system is already skating very close to the legal edge of trading conduct.

---

It sure is bad for business, Ebay has lost 40 million active buyers (and counting) since 2018.  From a peak of 180m (if I remember correctly - the stats are all publically available).  If buyers don't get orders when promised (by Ebay) they abandon the website and go elsewhere.

[sagr2519]

Even if we ignore your 'should be' dates, it's clear that something's wrong if adding 5 working days to the handling time adds 7 working days (9 days) to the EDD.

[bojangled]

Buyer pays Tuesday afternoon after my cut off, 2nd class LL despatched Wednesday 20th. 
EDD shown as 21st/22nd, buyer opened INR at quarter to 1 this morning.
So frustrating when it's advertised as a 2-3 working day delivery.

(I'm usually quite a positive person but struggling with the foibles of eBay atm. Must be full moon.)

[vintagechinashop]

I have a 5 day despatch on my listings however I normally post within 3 days. I've noticed that as soon as you mark as despatched eBay tells the buyer to expect delivery within 3 days of posting.  I have had messages 5 days after a sale, in mind I had 5 days handling time, asking me where the item is. 
it's impossible to manage also the date shown to sellers of when the buyer is told to expect the item is different so it makes the whole thing a farce. Basically eBay are trying to force sellers not only to use a faster service but to fail miserably on delivery dates and therefore fail on service metrics which could see a reduction in your seller rating. As we all know eBay hoodwink buyers who merely wish to ask for an expected delivery date to be forced into opening a inr case which in my experience most people are unaware they are doing   Goalposts are moving all the time 

[ebeegeebees2006]

Just another quick update. I have received a response from eBay in relation to this issue. The customer service rep stated that there is a glitch and they have passed it to the technical department. So many different people within eBay saying different things.