@eburtonlab wrote:
@leadgard9
Even if I quote the cheapest shipping method, and the full 30 days handling time, the buyer is allowed to open a case sooner than they can with Chinese sellers.
I do not understand the benefit you intend to gain by delaying shipping time to prevent buyers from opening an INR.
Most US sellers see their nearness to their customers as a benefit, rather than as the detriment you apparently view it as.
Chinese sellers are flooding the search results, and their ratings are much better, because they are never late and their handling time is short, which puts them even higher in search.
Chinese sellers are not a monolithic block, but many individuals. As a whole they have some advantages over US sellers, notably subsidized shipping costs; they often also take advantage of economies of scale and proximity to manufacturing to provide low prices. But while quoting long shipping times my prevent some INR claims from being filed and forestall some bad feedback, in most cases buyers actually prefer shorter shipping times and will seek out sellers that can provide that. While delivering on time helps rankings, long delivery estimates hurt rankings. There are trade offs.
Ultimately, search ranking depends almost entirely on the individual buyer's chosen sort order and search preferences; some buyers sort by lowest price, but others sort by nearest first or newly listed. Some buyers limit their search to a particular price range, or use other criteria to weed out sellers. Many, many buyers in the US go to great lengths to filter out sellers shipping from overseas.
Use your proximity to your customer base as a strategic advantage, rather than focusing on the short term tactic of preventing your customers from filing INR cases.
The problem is, buyers, are quick to buy, and slow to read. The amount of buyers I've had, that open returns for reason that are CLEARLY spelled out, in multiple locations on my listing, is absurd. Simple things. Blatant things.
"hey, I'm sorry, I thought this was for mens", when my title literally says ladies. Yet you expect them to pay attention to shipping time? I put handling time on my items, and buyers are up in arms a few days later, because I haven't shipped out, despite handling showing 5, 10 or even 20. 80% of the time I have extended handling, I have people complaining I haven't shipped yet. So, I highly doubt they notice the chinese sellers shipping times, or even bother to notice it's from China.
My gripe, comes with international shipping. I'm not concerned about Americans buying from China. So the people buying from me, might actually be closer to China than to me. Sometimes international takes a long time, but ebay gives absurdly low estimates, which allows buyers to open INR cases right away, and because there could be a gap between scans once it leaves the country, the buyer can push the case and get ebay to decide against me, and I can't do anything about it once the item appears.
And feedback? Chinese sellers are given such a long shipping estimate, that by the time the delivery estimate date comes up, it's already too late to leave feedback.
