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

[tick-tech]

Yep, had exactly the same issue today which has lead me to look into the numerous EDD complaints on the forum.

Buyer buys an item at 11:20pm on Friday 23rd Feb. Our cut-off time for same day dispatch is 2pm. As expected eBay say we need to dispatch the item on Monday 26th Feb, which is fine, and we do so.

I receive a message today (Tuesday) from a very unhappy buyer saying they were expecting their order on Sunday/Monday. 

I'm confused by this so look into it, and can see that eBay are indeed saying to buyers they will receive their order before we've even sent it. On a Sunday as well, which Royal Mail don't even deliver on for their 48/2nd Class service!...

[tick-tech]

I've been semi-aware of the very optimistic E.D.Ds eBay has been giving to customers, but they were always *just* about managable until recently. 

I thought the 'other place' had unrealistic expectations of their sellers shipping things quickly, but they've never suggested we will deliver it the day before we ship it!

I see that eBay have, on multiple occasions, suggested that the system is working as intended, which clearly isn't the case. Unless this is by design, so all sellers fall into the 'Below Standard' tier and have to pay higher fees. That's just my tin-foil hat theory anyway.

[tick-tech]

Until this gets sorted (*if* it gets sorted), I'm now just going to send a message to all buyers as follows...

Dear Customer.

Many thanks for your purchase of the above item.

I just wanted to send you a quick message to give you a realistic estimated delivery date. Your order will be dispatched today and should be with you 2-4 business days after you receive this message.

You may have noticed; eBay are providing very optimistic (and unachievable) delivery dates for some Royal Mail 48 (2nd Class) deliveries at the moment.

This is an automated system and is entirely outside of our control.

In some cases, eBay are promising delivery on the same date we dispatch the item, (which will be the day you place your order, or the next working day after that). This is obviously not possible, and I can only apologise for this confusing information.

eBay have been told about this issue, but are currently unwilling to accept that their system is giving unrealistic ETAs, as can be seen on this seller forum: https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Estimated-delivery-dates-yes-again/m-p/7525506... , you can see this issue has been going on for a while!

I can only apologise for any conflicting information you may have seen regarding your estimated delivery date. Hopefully receiving the item in 2-4 business days is OK with you, but if there’s any problems with this and you would like to cancel your order, please let me know as soon as possible.

Many thanks again for your purchase.

Kind Regards.

Other sellers, please feel free to copy/paste this to your own customers. At least it will give them realistic expectations of when they might receive their order.

[stecomedia]

I would prefer to have a template ready for replies and deal with it once a buyer asks where their item is.

Alternatively, write it into the item descriptions instead. 

We all know there are a % of buyers who we really don't want to open a can of worms with. It will also tempt buyers who want a freebie to put an INR claim in early as the EDD has been pointed out to them. 

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi tick-tech

Thank you so much for that information.

I am pulling my hair out with this EDD now.  My wife has even said ebay is causing more stress by the day.  

Best wishes

[tick-tech]

That's a fair suggestion, although most buyers are still the honest sort, and I feel being upfront with all of them is better than asking for forgiveness from the angry few. That's just me though. My opinion on this may change soon! 🙂 

[lincolnshiremarine]

I think your theory below is spot on, and I do not think ebay will resolve this issue. 

"I see that eBay have, on multiple occasions, suggested that the system is working as intended, which clearly isn't the case. Unless this is by design, so all sellers fall into the 'Below Standard' tier and have to pay higher fees. That's just my tin-foil hat theory anyway"

However, I will keep reporting this issue and hope that others do too. This will effect ebay sellers, and is very time consuming having to explain to buyers the issue. 

It is not the buyers fault, they are frustrated the parcel has not arrived on ebays false delivery dates. 

I will say, some are not so pleasant with their messages though.

  As said I have been a seller for 16 years on here, and never known the lack of ebay customer service so bad.

I suppose I have a choice, I can leave, but, this has never been an issue before and I see it is happening to lots of sellers.

Best wishes

[stecomedia]

It is so infuriating isn't it.

I don't understand why eBay encourage us to offer many postage options to buyers to qualify for a top rated seller

badge and then undermine it completely.

I can appreciate why buyers that get shown the same EDD on 2nd class, 1st class, tracked 24 and special delivery never pay for upgraded delivery. 

[tick-tech]

"I can appreciate why buyers that get shown the same EDD on 2nd class, 1st class, tracked 24 and special delivery never pay for upgraded delivery. "

Yes, exactly this. 

It should be on eBay to encourage buyers to pick a more expensive delivery option, so they can get more of their sweet, sweet fees. 

I would say out of every 100 orders, only one will pick an upgraded delivery service (and ours are actually just cost price surcharges, not heavily marked up).

Surely making the cheap / free delivery option a realistic 2-4 days ETA would encourage buyers to spend another few pounds for the next day option. eBay get more money, the customer gets their item quicker, we get a happier customer because they got the item when they expected it.

[stecomedia]

I think this is eBay's way of telling sellers to send everything an equivalent of 1st class / tracked 24 and to dispatch the same day.

Whatever they say, the EDD's make no sense with economy delivery services. 

[petstation1989]

I find it's at it worst at the back end of the week. I sell things on Thursday night and it gives buyers delivery dates of Saturday or even sunday for royal mail second class.

Ebay protect your late delivery metric if you use tracking which I do but they offer nothing to protect you from the service metrics when the customer has opened a case.

I really wish ebay would not count cases against the service metrics when the order has been posted on time with tracking in the same way as the late delivery metric does.

[ebeegeebees2006]

Had a customer buy an item last night. They messaged me today to ask if the item had been sent as eBay were showing delivery tomorrow. I have a two day despatch time and send by Royal Mail second class post. My despatch by day and the delivery day shown to the buyer are the same. Not great.

[*knight-rider*]

I`ve noticed this on every single order over the last few weeks and have started to ignore them, i`ve even been told a few times that an item would be arriving today, sunday, which of course royal mail don`t do.

Problem is, i can see how this is annoying to sellers, because not everyone was born with common sense, that tells you second class stuff doesn`t arrive in one day and royal mail don`t deliver on a sunday, so theirs clearly an issue and needs dealing with, unless anyones got a bucket of common sense they can send out 😀

[ebeegeebees2006]

I thought this might help to show the problem simply, in black and white. I've written to eBay today to see if there is a glitch with estimated delivery times. I don't see how they can deny this as the proof is evident. I'll report back when I receive a reply.

[torquetech-ebike]

"Working as intended" will be ebay's reply; The intention being to try and compete with Amazon Prime on the cheap, without any of the infrastructure, investment or aditional buyer fees to facillitate it.

[litp*records]

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@torquetech-ebike wrote:

"Working as intended" will be ebay's reply; The intention being to try and compete with Amazon Prime on the cheap, without any of the infrastructure, investment or aditional buyer fees to facillitate it.

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We are the infrastructure.  We are Ebay's fulfilment center. 

Compare to another site beginning with V.  You have 5 days to post, no ifs no buts.  5 days is ample, but it's never reduced to 2 days or 1 day or same day.  Don't post in 5 days order gets cancelled. Seems fair and no messing around.

[exponential_developments]

Last Sunday i was outside cutting wood, and a Royal mail transit van pulled up to deliver a shoe box size parcel to one house up the road, he couldn't find it and asked for directions....one van, one driver, for one parcel, in one village in the middle of nowhere, must have cost a bit to deliver.........Weird.

[messier44000]

The chat team have openly admitted that EDDs can be the same as the day it was posted.

Working exactly as intended - nothing to see here - move on 

[best-range]

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@ebeegeebees2006 wrote:

I thought this might help to show the problem simply, in black and white. I've written to eBay today to see if there is a glitch with estimated delivery times. I don't see how they can deny this as the proof is evident. I'll report back when I receive a reply.

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I did it in black & red for weeks on end, adding many examples & screenshots to show the problem, but ebay reps only repeat the same; "nothing wrong, no issues, working as intended":

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

The wrong EDD's advertised on listings might be connected with the wrong time zone attached once you add tracking which is PDT - Pacific Day Time - a USA/Canada/Mexico time zone instead of the UK GMT.

The PDT time zone is clearly shown with every transaction & also you can see it in the "tax invoice details" .

I got exhausted to peruse this further as there seems to be no rational human to engage with, it's like banging your head against brick wall, a total waste of time.

All the anwsers received from the "ebay's reps" always are robotic, cut & paste & not genuine,  like your taking with AI & not a person , a mindless words salad & they never address any specific issues rised.

Hope others will have more luck !