💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 07.09.22 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible. 

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay , dave@ebay  and katie@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, ProTrader, Fulfilment, Parts & Accessories, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. 

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order, and will quote the original question in each answer. 

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat! 

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[charmingdesignsdna]

I am not surprised that you are angry.  This issue has been brought up time and time again and nothing changes. 

So Royal Mail are on strike tomorrow and Friday.  I have an item I need to dispatch by Monday 12th September and EDD for 2nd class is Monday 12th September - Tuesday 13th September.  This is so wrong and there is no way that something posted 2nd class can arrive the same day it is posted.

I feel that Buyers would rather be shown the correct EDD than given false hopes which just are not going to happen.  Buyers have to spend so much time answering messages from buyers "where's my item",  "not got it" etc.

[kat@ebay]

---

@babybitz08 wrote:

Hi, I've just sold an item.  I have to despatch the item by 13th September 11.59pm but the estimated delivery date shown to my buyer is 12th-14th September.  How can this be as I post Royal Mail 2nd class, so an item posted on the 13th won't reach my buyer until the 15th at the earliest.

---

Hi @babybitz08 ,

I understand the estimated delivery date show as earlier dates. eBay calculate the dates based on  factors other than just dispatch and handling. A number of other factors are taken into consideration such as buyer location and past performance.  eBay is not changing how it calculates the delivery dates right now but we do feedback all examples like yours here today to the shipping team.

Thank you,

Kat

[lord_and_lady_m]

I'm just chatting to one now who is saying as long as it arrives by 15th. SO i'm pointing out the option to upgrade to a tracked none royal mail service but thi is all time wasting that should be necessary.

[katie@ebay]

Hi there,

Thank you all for engaging on this weekly chat.

Please make sure to include a question in your post. We also welcome discussion of these topics on our discussion boards where you can tag us if needed.

Ongoing discussion here without questions may be removed.

Thanks,

Katie 

[dave@ebay]

---

@lord_and_lady_m wrote:

Hello

Question about ebays estimated delivery dates:

How is this acceptable by EBAY.  Please do not tell me the algorithm is working, because my 6 year old could write a better algorithm. Either that or ebay are deliberately doing this to cause sellers problems.

I have on some items, same day / 1  day delivery. Because, I know for that item I can despatch that quickly. However I have selected 5 day courier as I  do not know how long it will take to deliver, but prefer a sensible delivery time. Especially when I know there will likely be delays. 30th was a strike day, following a previous strike and a bank holiday, so common sense says 1st onwards is hell. You don't know what service I use beacuse I do not put tracking into ebay for you to be able to guess how long it should take, so I purposefully choose a longer service to cover myself.

So imagine my surprise and ANGER when this customer opens a case on 4th September, saying they've not arrived and only wants a refund. I'm absolutely steaming with anger as I do not expect anyone to be able to open a case before my estimate. Little do I know, ebay has made up it's own  estimate based on a algorithm that can only guess when my items arrive as i don't have tracking. Also i'm now liable beacuse ebay have over promised the buyer and I have apparantly provided a less that expected service. What will happen with this case is the customer will get to keep their product, as it will arrive after the delays. They will claim it didn't arrive knowing it was a low cost item so won't be tracked, and I have to pay. Yet if ebay had show and estimate based on the service I selected and my despatch time, the customer would have made a decision based on something more factual. They wouldn't have purchase the item OR the would have chosen a faster delivery option and paid extra for it as they were in a rush. Ebay, in fact, showed the same date for all the options. So why would any buyer paid for a faster service when they need it urgently when the free service shows just as quick.

YES I AM ANGRY. I'm very upset and now panicking about Christmas. Most of my products are seasonal, with Christmas being the main selling time. If ebay are showing next day delivery on my free postage at Christmas time, when it generally takes a week+ i'll be spending Christmas day refunding everyone because I ruined their Christmas because it never arrived in time.

So ebay, please explain why this is happening, and how it is going to be fixed. Having seen endless threads about this, it is not functioning as it should.

---

Hi @lord_and_lady_m 

I'll need to look into this one to see the details of the transaction. I'll reach out to the cases team to find out more. 

I'll get back to you once I have an update. 

Thanks,

Dave

[charmingdesignsdna]

I appreciate that this isn't down to you particularly, but surely you can see why sellers are very unhappy about estimated delivery dates.  Again, how can something be estimated to be delivered before it needs to be posted.  It just does not make sense.

[tandypandyz]

Thanks. Do you monitor that technical issues thread for mentions of your name just on a Wednesday or throughout the week as well?

[firstgardencity]

A year ago 1 of my items was removed form ebay and I was told not to relist.

I pointed out at the time that 50 other sellers had the same item and 3 of them were actually using my photo in their listing.

12 months later the same product is being sold on eBay using my photos despite the fact the eBay have told me eBay operate a level playing field and that the other items will be removed.

You can imagine how frustrating it is!

[kat@ebay]

---

@tandypandyz wrote:

Thanks. Do you monitor that technical issues thread for mentions of your name just on a Wednesday or throughout the week as well?

---

Hi @tandypandyz ,

We monitor all the boards Monday to Friday.

Thank you,

Kat

[babybitz08]

Hi Kat,

Thanks for responding to my question.  Please could you explain the factors taken into consideration that enable items to arrive before they are despatched.

In the example I provided  (despatch 13th September, delivery 12th-14th September) the buyer lives over 200 miles from me.  I send all my items untracked and post on the date specified so there is no past performance to suggest my items should arrive any earlier than 2 days after the date despatched.

[itemdropped]

We are still waiting to be contacted by Concierge, which was the main reason we upgraded to Anchor and the extra cost. Initially we were told it would be around two weeks but it's been nearly 6 now.
the affected account is itemdropped.

[dave@ebay]

---

@lord_and_lady_m wrote:

I already qualify for personalisation, however I'm on the low cost rate 15% +5p so then do not qualify. SO if come of Low cost back the normal home and garden rate, not an excluded category, do i therefore get personalised variable rate of 8% and the new 10p fixed rate for UNDER £10 in the home category?

---

Normally if there's two active promotions, the system will default to whichever is a better for the seller. As these are both promos for the same reason I want to make sure this will happen here. I'll reach out to the Promo Team to confirm. I'll let you know as soon as I have a definitive answer.

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@ukhaberdashery wrote:

Royal Mail are striking again on the 8th and 9th but ebay has nothing on their frontpage to let buyers know this. I guess they are also not altering delivery timescales that use RM as the delivery company. so any items we pack tomorrow wont even be collected till Monday and there will be the inevitible backlog which will mean even more delay. Any item posted tomorrow will most probably be there next Friday and not Monday or Tuesday like ebay are saying to buyers.

Why does ebay not do something more proactive with this situation rather than leave the sellers to deal with the angry customers who are led to believe by ebay that there items would be there on unrealistic dates.

---

Hi @ukhaberdashery ,

We have posted announcements on these strikes and did these back in August before the first strike occurred. https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Seller-protections-for-Royal-Mail-industrial-action/ba.... These also include a dedicated landing page for buyers/sellers on the strikes and protections in place by eBay.

eBay is working to adapt to this ever changing situation. The royal mail strikes are being mentioned quite alot in the media so alot of buyers are aware of them. While the estimated delivery dates are not changing at the moment we are keeping an eye on the situation and should any more changes arise we will keep our members updated.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@lord_and_lady_m wrote:

I tried but I got told off by an ebay mod for posting the item number as you asked. Go figure!

---

We've messaged the moderation team about this. This wont affect your account. 

I have the item number here, Ill DM you as I have a couple of other questions. 

Thanks,

Dave

[dave@ebay]

---

@itemdropped wrote:

We are still waiting to be contacted by Concierge, which was the main reason we upgraded to Anchor and the extra cost. Initially we were told it would be around two weeks but it's been nearly 6 now.
the affected account is itemdropped.

---

Hi @itemdropped 

I don't have any visibility on the invites to Concierge but Ill reach out to them and have it looked into. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@firstgardencity wrote:

A year ago 1 of my items was removed form ebay and I was told not to relist.

I pointed out at the time that 50 other sellers had the same item and 3 of them were actually using my photo in their listing.

12 months later the same product is being sold on eBay using my photos despite the fact the eBay have told me eBay operate a level playing field and that the other items will be removed.

You can imagine how frustrating it is!

---

Hi @firstgardencity ,

I can understand the frustration seeing as your listing was removed at the time. If your item was removed under a specific policy and these sellers now selling the same items are breaching that policy I would advise to report these listings.  eBay does its best to remove listings against policy as much as possible but due to high volumes of listings going live at any given hour it may not always get to all of them.

Please see steps to report the listings here

Thank you,

Kat

[kat@ebay]

---

@babybitz08 wrote:

Hi Kat,

Thanks for responding to my question.  Please could you explain the factors taken into consideration that enable items to arrive before they are despatched.

In the example I provided  (despatch 13th September, delivery 12th-14th September) the buyer lives over 200 miles from me.  I send all my items untracked and post on the date specified so there is no past performance to suggest my items should arrive any earlier than 2 days after the date despatched.

---

Hi @babybitz08 ,

The factors included in the calculation include dispatch and handling, buyer location, item location,past delivery performance and carrier performance. 

We do understand the experience of sellers with examples of earlier estimated dates and its being monitored and fed back to the shipping team.

Thank you,

Kat