actually shipping the item

[frgy17]

why don't the sellers ship the item ordered after they mark it shipped? Iv'e sometimes had to wait for a week or longer before the sellers actually mail the item!

[Anonymous]

I've been a proponent of an added status, "label printed", or the equivalent. Shipped is misleading.

[fab_finds4u]

You're supposed to ship on the shipping date on the label. Most PO's won't accept a label a week old.

Some sellers make the label as soon as they get an order and they predate the shipping date on the label to the day they ship on. As soon as the label is made the tracking number is automatically uploaded. 

[mudshark61369]

@frgy17,

When a seller prints a shipping label through ebay, or uploads a tracking number, the item is automatically  marked as shipped.  To see if has been received by the shipper, you have to check the number itself.

  "sometimes had to wait for a week or longer before the sellers actually mail the item".

The  three most common reasons why you may have to wait that long for tracking to show a package was received by the shipping agency are:

A)   The seller is located in a foreign country or drop ships from one, that uses a domestic partner shipping agency for the international  part of the delivery.  When that label is created it automatically generates a domestic label as well, which is the one uploaded to ebay.  The domestic label has the "label created awaiting receipt of package" message until the package clears customs and is received by the domestic agency.

B)  You may have bought from a new seller or one who has not sold in over a year.  Those sellers have a 21 day hold placed on their first few payments. Many do not know about the hold,  on their account the payment is marked as Pending. So they wait to ship until the payment status shows Completed.

C)  A seller is located in an area that does not have the Pick up option,  has localized  weather / power issues, or family responsibilities that do not allow them to ship as promptly as thy usually do.

Checking the feedback profiles of each seller you intend to buy from may help you avoid those problems. 

If they have several neutral or negative comments about slow shipping or receiving items from overseas, that is an "A" seller.

Check for feedback as a seller, If they have none or no feedback for over a year, you've run into a "B" seller.

If they do not have any or very few slow/late shipping issues, that is a "C" seller.