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

[theelench]

@vonchief 

@4_bathrooms 

Interesting to see two completely different types of item with completely different postage options and handling times juxtaposed and guess what?

Whatever the Handling Time,

whatever the delivery service

they should both arrive the day after the last day of the Handling Time.

What an amazing coincidence!!!!!

And guess what??

I sell one-off items and send all over the country with two day Handling Time and 2nd class post.  So an Item bought today, posted tomorrow will (ebay says) be delivered between Saturday (9th) and Tuesday (12th).

It looks to me to be the common thread through all the nonsense, one , two or three day dispatch and (one way or another) ebay 'calculates' that the item will always arrive the day after Handling Time ends.

Sometimes the first delivery date will be impossible (Sunday), if you're lucky you will get two or even three days delivery time.  But the buyer will always be anticipating delivery the day after your handling time ends.  

It's not for nothing they're called FDDs  🤣

[bojangled]

marco@ebay 

I know you say 'it's working as designed'. But this is so frustrating. 

How on earth can a 2nd class large letter I posted this morning at 10.30am arrive today? 
When the buyer looks at the EDD it says Friday 8th March - Sunday 10th March. 
RM don't deliver standard Mail on a Sunday, that leaves one window of opportunity- Saturday. 

It's not going to happen is it, so why, why, why tell them it is? 
Please can we have a real, expected date of delivery. 

I'll get another 'tracking indicates late delivery' mark, topping up my Late Delivery Rate, threatening the TRS. 

Jo

(Cross in Dorset)

[station13thirteen]

Same problem for us, eBay are Highlighting FREE 3 DAY Postage when our standard postage is 'economy 3 - 5 day shipping'.  Makes us look bad  when something does not arrive in eBay's 3 day window.

I just wish eBay would for once get something right then just leave things alone, instead of continually meddling. You would think that by now, after all this time they would know what they are doing... but no, still giving us sellers a lot of grief.

I don't care if it's due to eBays bl**dy automated algorithm or any other annoying nonsense... I don't want it!  It gives false expectations and leaves us sellers open to constant late delivery issues and grief from irate buyers who bought an item and expected it within 3 days.

It does make you wonder who on eBay implements all theses annoying things without properly thinking things through, without testing, and without considering the consequences.  Perhaps they have a bunch of has-been ex-politicians working for them.

[theelench]

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@bojangled wrote:

marco@ebay 

It's not going to happen is it, so why, why, why tell them it is? 
Please can we have a real, expected date of delivery.

---

Ebay has had 18 months(?) of trying to get this version of its Late Delivery Metrics to work with anything that even looks like it might be working properly and still haven't got anywhere near it.

Does it really matter how many more times "The Team" tells us "It's working as designed / perfectly"  --  no-one belives them any more and personally I don't believe that ebay has staff competent enough to ever get it working accurately.  If they could, they would have done it by now.

So, NO you cannot have a real expected delivery date and probably never will get one no matter how long the farce continues.

Perhaps the best that can happen is the CEO might wave his magic wand again and POOF!!!! 🌩 the whole nightmare fantasy will disappear in a cloud of smoke.

P.S.  The appropriate incantation for him to mutter would be "Sack that bunch of incompetents right now, they're an embarrassment to any self-respecting tech. company."  

[divine0606]

We've lost so much money over this due ebays unrealitic dates, buyers opening INR's and then we have no choice to close these before the case due date only to find that the item has been delivered a few days later where actually thinking about taking them to court over this so that we can recouperate these loses where occuring on a daily basis its just ridiculous. 

Its quite obvious that these nut cases in ebay land are either thick or oblivious to the damage there doing one to us as sellers and two the buyer its a poor customer experience. 

[litp*records]

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@divine0606 wrote:

We've lost so much money over this due ebays unrealitic dates, buyers opening INR's and then we have no choice to close these before the case due date only to find that the item has been delivered a few days later where actually thinking about taking them to court over this so that we can recouperate these loses where occuring on a daily basis its just ridiculous. 

Its quite obvious that these nut cases in ebay land are either thick or oblivious to the damage there doing one to us as sellers and two the buyer its a poor customer experience. 

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The least sinister explanation is that the EDD algorithm works as designed in the USA where the distance between 2 locations is a lot more significant than in the UK.  Here it just doesn't make any sense, they must assume the UK is so small that something posted in the morning can arrive in the evening.  Maybe that's something USPS do when posted within the same US city/state.  Who knows....??

[messier44000]

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@theelench wrote:

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@bojangled wrote:

marco@ebay 

It's not going to happen is it, so why, why, why tell them it is? 
Please can we have a real, expected date of delivery.

---

"Does it really matter how many more times "The Team" tells us "It's working as designed / perfectly"  --  no-one belives them anymore"

Bet you the chat team also believe it is not working. But they are being paid to tell us otherwise.

I am sure that is Marco went to his post office in the morning to send a parcel and was told the buyer will expect delivery in the afternoon or yesterday, he would say "No problem, that seems like it is working as designed"

[litp*records]

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@messier44000 wrote:

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@theelench wrote:

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@bojangled wrote:

marco@ebay 

It's not going to happen is it, so why, why, why tell them it is? 
Please can we have a real, expected date of delivery.

---

"Does it really matter how many more times "The Team" tells us "It's working as designed / perfectly"  --  no-one belives them anymore"

Bet you the chat team also believe it is not working. But they are being paid to tell us otherwise.

I am sure that is Marco went to his post office in the morning to send a parcel and was told the buyer will expect delivery in the afternoon or yesterday, he would say "No problem, that seems like it is working as designed"

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Do you think people who work for Ebay have actually tried selling anything here?

imo you should have to have at least 5 years selling experience on ebay and at least 100 sales before Ebay even consider hiring you.  Impossible to have any empathy with sellers otherwise.

[tick-tech]

I've just noticed that one of our orders from last night (13/03/24), due to be shipped via Royal Mail 48 today, actually has a realistic EDD of 16th to 18th of March.

It's only one order like this, the rest are still the ridiculously optimistic EDD of "tomorrow", strangely the one with the realistic EDD is actually the nearest one to us geographically. 

Maybe this is just because the customer's local delivery office might be reporting problems and the eBay system is taking that into account? Whatever the reason, there does seem to be some sort of dynamic adjustments happening, albeit hopelessly inaccurate in most instances!

[ukhealthhouse]

Our inbox is full of this every day, it's getting really tiresome. Buyers are buying on a Friday night and asking where there item is Monday & Tuesday mornings. 

It looks to us like they include weekends in their estimates. Saturday is also a skeleton service in the majoirty of the country, unlike it used to be. 

Has eBay looked at this at all anyone? I've read the thread and it seems our concerns are being dismissed. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@ukhealthhouse wrote:

Has eBay looked at this at all anyone? 

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eBay's canned response has continually been that the estimates are "working as intended".

[best-range]

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@ukhealthhouse wrote:

Our inbox is full of this every day, it's getting really tiresome. Buyers are buying on a Friday night and asking where there item is Monday & Tuesday mornings. 

It looks to us like they include weekends in their estimates. Saturday is also a skeleton service in the majoirty of the country, unlike it used to be. 

Has eBay looked at this at all anyone? I've read the thread and it seems our concerns are being dismissed. 

---

I've been reporting a variety of issues with EDD's since January, others have been reported this since last year yet all ebay's reps always say it's "working as designed", "no issues", etc.

It's like banging your head against the wall.

I wasted so much time giving evidence & screenshots illustrating all of the issues I reported, as there are at least 7 separate issues & not just a single one with the wrong dates, yet none of them were addressed :

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

If you go into boards search you'll find so many threads about EDD's, all mostly ignored by ebay.

[lincolnshiremarine]

Hi

Many have raised this issue with the Community Team on Wednesdays at 2pm, myself included.

They come back and state the following

" We have reviewed multiple cases of EDD at the moment, and we haven't found any issues. I understand where you are coming from, but this is working as expected. EDDs are dynamic, so based on different factor such as service type or shipping address, you might get slightly different dates for each order. If you wish to know more about EDD, you can review our Help Pages on EDD here"

I believe another seller pg_kicks spoke to several people at the ebay roadshow and they are not aware of the issue. 

This means that the ebay team are not passing on the issues to managemen, or maybe they are??

We have even asked whom we can speak to that has some power only to be told it is just the ebay community team, it appears we cannot get pass them.

On wednesday I raised the following issue:

Good afternoon

Can you please look into this issue:

Item was brought today via ebay global shipping programme, I printed off the postage label ready to drop off at the shop.

However, the ebay tracking states it has arrived at the Global shipping hub.  Well,  I am looking at the parcel now, so it is clearly not at the hub.  

Every item we send overseas is telling the buyers it has arrived at the UK GSP centre the day of dispatch, when clearly this is wrong.

Please do not tell me the EDD is working, as I am  sick of being fobbed off.  I have reported this issue several times with reply.

They came back and said everything was fine.

I know a few comments have been that ebay are not going to do anything about it as they win either way, however they will see alot of sellers leaving as it is causing too much stress.

I encourage you to complain. 

Best wishes

[ukhealthhouse]

I've been on chat today about it. Highlighted a listing, that if bought now on 48 ebay are claiming it will arrive Saturday. Impossible. The chat member sees the issue, but can't do anything. He went on to say he will raise the issue. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@chilloutgames wrote:

eBay are not including cut-off time in their calculations.

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They're not including cut-off times, handling times, the stated service's expected delivery window...the estimate shown to buyers is more often than not complete fiction. If it was just the cut-off time that was being ignored it wouldn't be so bad; a seller could simply add an extra day or whatever they needed on to their handling time to account for it. I've previously tried extending my handling time which only resulted in a brief respite; after a while the earliest EDD shown to buyers ended up being within the stated handling time... 

[technthread]

It's funny how EDD's on GSP always seem to be realistic when it is eBay who will foot the bill for an early INR case isn't it. Ship outside of GSP and the EDD's can be wild. 

[lincolnshiremarine]

When you speak to the customer service team they seem to agree there is an issue.  However, the same issues still keeps happening.

We cannot seem to get pass the community team, all we get is the normal, it is working blah blah blah.  

I really hope that this has been raised by sellers at the roadshows.  

Not only to we have buyers sending messages asking where the item is, we are open to feedback that ebay seem to have an issue removing now.  

I have been a seller on here for 16 years and never known it so bad with the way we are being treated. yes I have a choice I can leave, but never had issues before.

Best wishes 

Best wishes 

[lincolnshiremarine]

We have an issue with ebays GSP,  as soon as I print the shipping label off, it states the parcel has arrived at the UK global shipping centre, despite the parcel sat on my desk waiting for me to drop the parcel off to be collected.  However, I agree at present the EDD for GSP are more realistic.

Best wishes

[chilloutgames]

Agreed there are many issues...

The cut-off time bug affects all sellers, is simple for anyone to grasp and it is easy to replicate. It should be an easy IT fix so my vote is to push this one bug first. Then, deal with the next layer of the onion.

[litp*records]

If it's working as intended as we are repeatedly told, then one can only assume is that the intention is to incur more late delivery strikes on sellers' service metrics causing them to be charged higher fees.  Or having to increase postage prices to factor in a faster delivery method, which again Ebay takes a cut of.