Estimated delivery dates

[theworkshopbench]

I recently paid for first class post which took three days to arrive and caused a great deal of trouble and wasted time. As I investigated my mistake in my understanding of the process, it became clear that the presentation of post details in Ebay ads is unhelpful.

In my view it is a waste of time to include an estimated delivery date with a postage method when the same information is available from the postage supplier. This is duplication of data which could easiliy get out of sync, And it can confuse the issue.

The Post Office advertise that first class actually means anywhere from tomorrow to around fourteen days so to use the phrase "Estimated delivery date <tomorrow>" is in realilty meaningless. The shopper would not be any worse off without knowledge of the delivery date and indeed they could refer to the Post Office site to get specific details if they so wished.

I made a mistake recently and focused on the estimated date shown for first class post. Indeed on investigating, it seems I totally missed the word "estimated". Had there not been any date at all, or had there been a date range as with other web sites, then that mistake could not have happened.

Come on Ebay, get your act together and give meaningful information in ads, not just what you 'think' is meaningful...