eBay

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

We were closed on 12/24 and 12/25 for the holiday. To prepare for that, and make sure we didn't risk any late shipment strikes, on Monday morning I changed our handling time to 2 business days, so that all orders from that point forward would have a ship date of 12/26 at the earliest.

We use business policies and only have 1 policy set up for shipping that applies to all of our listings. All orders that came in after the change on Monday were showing the appropriate handling time applied, so I believed everything was set up correctly and we wouldn't have any late shipments.

Today I came in to find that 2 orders are listed as Shipping Overdue - Ship by Dec. 24 . All other orders from that time correctly show 12/26 as the ship by date. The time stamps on these 2 orders were 5:11 PM PST and 9:50 PM PST on 12/23. I had changed the business policy earlier that morning and both of those listings show in the revision history that "Shipping Terms" were revised at 7:50 AM PST on 12/23, so they should not have been required to ship on 12/24.

I called CS and they confirmed they could see the listings had a 2 business day handling time at the time of purchase and that should have made the ship date 12/26. They have noted our account and said if we see those counted against us as late shipments to call back and they will try to remove them.

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up to carefully check to make sure your handling times are being honored and you aren't getting unfair late shipment dings.

golfingaddict · ‎12-26-2019

Good luck getting them to remove the late shipments.

I had the exact same thing happen last spring. (even had screen shots with sold email showing the correct handling time, 5 days despite them saying it was late after missing the one day ship time they fabricated) Almost to the word and with all the promised to remove.

I fought it for months because it was never removed.

Nothing ever happened. I'll hang onto it until after April. It still bugs me every time I see it.

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

@golfingaddict wrote:
Good luck getting them to remove the late shipments.

I had the exact same thing happen last spring. (even had screen shots with sold email showing the correct handling time, 5 days despite them saying it was late after missing the one day ship time they fabricated) Almost to the word and with all the promised to remove.

I fought it for months because it was never removed.

Nothing ever happened. I'll hang onto it until after April. It still bugs me every time I see it.

Thanks @golfingaddict . I have screenshots too, but I know that may not help. Luckily our metrics and volume are enough where 2 orders won't kill us if it goes that way.

buzzapparel · ‎12-26-2019

Same exact issue with the same exact date.

mr_lincoln · ‎12-26-2019

@autopiacarcare I've read a number of threads about "Business Policies" and folks having issues with them. That is where I would suspect the breakdown occurred.

Regards,
Mr. Lincoln - Community Mentor

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

@mr_lincoln wrote:
@autopiacarcare I've read a number of threads about "Business Policies" and folks having issues with them. That is where I would suspect the breakdown occurred.

Thanks @mr_lincoln . I've never had any issues with Business Policies before, but will definitely check out those other threads.

Funny thing is we also got this message from eBay yesterday. I understand that it is an automatically generated message but if that 70% figure was actually accurate, I guess I should be grateful that we only had 2 "late" orders. It should have been 100% at that time.

mtgraves7984 · ‎12-26-2019

@autopiacarcare

I find those OSFA messages from eBay a bit annoying. It's like one hand is slapping you with a ruler and the other hand is flagging you in. (Or maybe it's a timing thing... IDK) Either way, I hardly ever buy ONLY because one seller has a 1-day shorter lead time. Keep up your good work!

pink.fish.rule · ‎12-26-2019

Oh so not happy with actually estimating delivery times on our "historical shipping time" rather than our STATED handling time they now expect us to change it?

What part of we have the handling times we do for a REASON do they not understand?

Butt out ebay.

mr_lincoln · ‎12-26-2019

@autopiacarcare wrote:
@mr_lincoln wrote:
@autopiacarcare I've read a number of threads about "Business Policies" and folks having issues with them. That is where I would suspect the breakdown occurred.
Thanks @mr_lincoln . I've never had any issues with Business Policies before, but will definitely check out those other threads.

Funny thing is we also got this message from eBay yesterday. I understand that it is an automatically generated message but if that 70% figure was actually accurate, I guess I should be grateful that we only had 2 "late" orders. It should have been 100% at that time.

They like to "hedge" wherever then can, huh?!? I seem to recall on a Weekly Chat something about eBay looking at the ACTUAL time Sellers take to ship opposed to their stated Handling time ... forget the exact context but it might have been about the "Estimated delivery" showing on listings ... meaning, if you state 2 days but typically ship in 1 day your deliveries might reflect a shorter Delivery time frame on your listings ... its sort of like "fuzzy logic" in computer speak ...

Regards,
Mr. Lincoln - Community Mentor

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

@mtgraves7984 wrote:
@autopiacarcare

I find those OSFA messages from eBay a bit annoying. It's like one hand is slapping you with a ruler and the other hand is flagging you in. (Or maybe it's a timing thing... IDK) Either way, I hardly ever buy ONLY because one seller has a 1-day shorter lead time. Keep up your good work!

Thanks for the encouragement @mtgraves7984 - 99.9% of the time we have it set at 1 day handling and currently we're meeting that at 99.67% on time with tons of positive feedback about how fast we are. I don't expect this little bump in the road will hurt us too badly, but it is frustrating when you try to do everything right and it doesn't work.

I'm happy to work for a company that believes its hard working staff deserves both the 24th and 25th off to spend with family for the holidays. Maybe eBay should consider that sellers know how to run their business and if they temporarily extend the handling time (especially around holidays) they might have a good reason for doing so and don't need to be nagged about it?

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

@mr_lincoln wrote:

They like to "hedge" wherever then can, huh?!? I seem to recall on a Weekly Chat something about eBay looking at the ACTUAL time Sellers take to ship opposed to their stated Handling time ... forget the exact context but it might have been about the "Estimated delivery" showing on listings ... meaning, if you state 2 days but typically ship in 1 day your deliveries might reflect a shorter Delivery time frame on your listings ... its sort of like "fuzzy logic" in computer speak ...

@mr_lincoln - Yeah, I know they are a bit "fuzzy" as far as estimated delivery time and don't really take your handling time in to account if you typically ship faster. That is annoying, but it very rarely negatively affects us. Most of our orders manage to arrive on or before the estimate any way and we rarely get any buyer complaints about delivery times.

This is the first time I've ever had eBay ignore the handling time as far as calculating the "ship by date" and that's a much bigger problem.

mr_lincoln · ‎12-26-2019

@autopiacarcare "Late shipping" defects only occur when Sellers do not get their Acceptance scan within their STATED Handling time window. If THAT is happening, meaning you are getting the scans within the 2 days but eBay is dinging you for not shipping in 1 day then THAT is a real issue and needs to be addressed ...

Regards,
Mr. Lincoln - Community Mentor

autopiacarcare · ‎12-26-2019

@mr_lincoln wrote:
@autopiacarcare "Late shipping" defects only occur when Sellers do not get their Acceptance scan within their STATED Handling time window. If THAT is happening, meaning you are getting the scans within the 2 days but eBay is dinging you for not shipping in 1 day then THAT is a real issue and needs to be addressed ...

Luckily both orders were shipping to FL and we're in FL, so unless UPS is still really behind from the holiday rush they should get there on or before the 12/30 estimated delivery and be "on time" in that regard.

My concern is that since they were showing a "ship by" date of 12/24 and eBay was listing them as "overdue" in our seller hub this morning, eBay will expect that pick up scan to have happened on the 24th.

I'm hoping that the error was just in the "ship by" date being displayed to us and that once they get scanned later this afternoon when UPS picks up, eBay will recognize that scan is within the 2 business day handling time that was on the listing at time of purchase.

I'll just have to wait and see how this plays out once they are scanned and our metrics are updated. If they do show up as "late shipments", CS will definitely be getting an earful from me.

ekmadonna · ‎12-26-2019

I feel for ya, I just got a LATE SHIPMENT ding for NOT having a scan at the post office at all. Well yeah duh it was a local pick-up. Customer left a positive feed back within 2 hrs and I entered into the notes that it was a local pick-up and marked it as having shipped. It's all a bunch of baloney!

gramophone-georg · ‎12-26-2019

@mr_lincoln wrote:
@autopiacarcare "Late shipping" defects only occur when Sellers do not get their Acceptance scan within their STATED Handling time window. If THAT is happening, meaning you are getting the scans within the 2 days but eBay is dinging you for not shipping in 1 day then THAT is a real issue and needs to be addressed ...

eBay's Q4 2019 is going to be a disaster compared to everyone else, so they will need to jam as many sellers as possible into the 5% rate increase category to make up for it, even if they have to ~~lie~~ unleash "glitches" to make this happen.

2020 will be an "interesting" year for eBay. Maybe they'll make Don Trump CEO after he needs to golden parachute out of his current position...

Chaos is NOT an "industry standard".