YOUR ITEM HAS SHIPPED, please share your opinion

[castlemagicmemories]

At the Chat last week, a well respected, very helpful, established poster (not me) mentioned concern regarding the message, YOUR ITEM HAS SHIPPED.  A Blue on the thread requested links to threads that expressed opinions about this message and asked that he be paged to any threads about this.

To help the Blue with his request,  I have searched the Boards for these threads, and searched my own posts, to no avail, so I hope that there is a good response to this thread.

There have been several threads recently on the Buying Board from buyers who received the YOUR ITEM HAS SHIPPED message who thought the seller was a scammer because the item did not show any movement, nor was it in the hands of the carrier.  This does not help Ebay or sellers if buyers think this. 

What these buyers did not know was that the message, your item has shipped, was sent automatically when the seller printed postage.  Sellers have handling times, so it may be several days after the postage is printed that the carrier receives the shipment and the item actually does ship.  

So what do you think?  Are you satisfied with the message as is? Please share your opinions.  What do you think?

[airsheep]

I'd rather see 'Seller has printed a shipping label'. As you said, sometimes handling times get into it, or the shipping co. doesn't scan the label in properly; other times, the seller really is clueless about shipping, or terrible at communicating if a delay arises (or a scammer, rare but true).

[castlemagicmemories]

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@airsheep wrote:
I'd rather see 'Seller has printed a shipping label'. As you said, sometimes handling times get into it, or the shipping co. doesn't scan the label in properly; other times, the seller really is clueless about shipping, or terrible at communicating if a delay arises (or a scammer, rare but true).

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Good points, possibly something stating USPS may not scan the item until delivery, or Your carrier may not scan the item until delivery, would work.

Thank you for your input!

[chrysylys]

I've been watching for those threads but haven't seen a new one.  I've seen that notice on my own orders, but that's not what they're looking for.  I think people have gotten used to it and aren't posting about it as much.

[pixzee]

As a buyer I have noticed a HUGE increase in the number of emails in the last 6 months. I don't know if there was an eBay policy change  or my preferences were somehow reset but I have yet to find a way to tick off (do not send) specific emails like "you package was delivered" etc.

The "Your item has shipped" email is inaccurate.

The truth is either "The seller has provided a tracking number" or "The seller has marked this item shipped." But as a buyer I don't want two emails, (I don't even want one) one informing me "The seller has provided a tracking number" and 4 days later another updating me that "The seller has marked this item shipped." The latter is the (very) old  trigger for the email. Now that sellers commonly use tracking numbers, tracking has become a trigger for that same eMail as well. Ebay hasn't figured out, or are too cheap or lazy, to mark the difference.

What they could do:

There are 2 triggers; trigger 1: tracking number and Trigger 2: marked shipped.

For trigger 1 (tracking number):  email sent to buyer "the seller has provided a tracking number" and trigger 2 is canceled.

For trigger 2 (marked shipped): "the seller has shipped your item" and trigger 1 is canceled.

The buyer only receives one email either way.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@castlemagicmemories wrote:

At the Chat last week, a well respected, very helpful, established poster (not me) mentioned concern regarding the message, YOUR ITEM HAS SHIPPED.  A Blue on the thread requested links to threads that expressed opinions about this message and asked that he be paged to any threads about this.

To help the Blue with his request,  I have searched the Boards for these threads, and searched my own posts, to no avail, so I hope that there is a good response to this thread.

There have been several threads recently on the Buying Board from buyers who received the YOUR ITEM HAS SHIPPED message who thought the seller was a scammer because the item did not show any movement, nor was it in the hands of the carrier.  This does not help Ebay or sellers if buyers think this. 

What these buyers did not know was that the message, your item has shipped, was sent automatically when the seller printed postage.  Sellers have handling times, so it may be several days after the postage is printed that the carrier receives the shipment and the item actually does ship.  

So what do you think?  Are you satisfied with the message as is? Please share your opinions.  What do you think?

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alan@ebay  @Anonymous

Sorry to bother you two, just trying to help; I tried to fulfill your request for links to threads, but due to the fact I performed a limited search, I could not find any, so to help, I started this thread and a companion thread on the Selling Board which has garnered a far greater response.  

[zzydny]

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@airsheep wrote:
I'd rather see 'Seller has printed a shipping label'. As you said, sometimes handling times get into it, or the shipping co. doesn't scan the label in properly; other times, the seller really is clueless about shipping, or terrible at communicating if a delay arises (or a scammer, rare but true).

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Yes!  This. 

It is the limit of frustration to receive an "item has shipped" notice when you KNOW it cannot have shipped--like late on a Saturday night or on a holiday.  And I think that it is even worse when a seller with long handling times prints shipping right after the sale but doesn't go to the PO (don't even ask me about  the seller who recently didn't bother to ship my item until nine days later). 

As a seller, this concerns me, too, because (although I send everything out by the next postal day) my buyers will get notices on Saturdays and holidays when, of course, I haven't shipped simply because I can't when the PO is closed.

I really like the idea of a "postage printed" notice.

[calntom]

I have a 1-day handling time. So the ebay email may not be an issue for me.

Regardless of what ebay sends the customer, nearly every customer gets an ebay message from me stating something like this:

Thank you for your purchase. I will get your item headed your way today, 1-3-17 via UPS Ground.
Best Regards, ---- calntom

Thank you for your purchase. I will get your item headed your way tomorrow, 1-4-17 via UPS Ground.
Best Regards, ---- calntom

I think the buyer appreciates an email directly from me rather than from the bot.

Never have received a message from a buyer in 2017 asking “where is my item”? About 575 transactions, no issues.

[thallidguy]

As someone who has been shopping by mail order for over 30 years, I've learned to shrug off a lot of things and this is one of them.

But if buyers are taking it too literally — and we know that there are unreasonable and impatient buyers on eBay — then it seems that eBay has created yet another problem for sellers by stoking buyers' already high-pitched expectations.

I realized a long time ago that one of the biggest problems with eBay is that the people who make decisions like this really don't understand how eBay works at the level of the individual transaction. They have a great understanding from a bird's-eye perspective, much better than any of us could possibly have, but they don't actually use the system, so they don't have any intuition about how it works,

[missjen831]

OMG.......why did the blues remove the original thread posted on THIS BOARD and then move the much shorter thread from the buying board over to this board? @Anonymous what gives? This isn’t right, the other thread was several pages long and had a good discussion going. What was the purposes of removing it and then moving an identical thread from another board?

[penguins_dont_fly]

@castlemagicmemories

I just posted a nice list of posts ... and a few other people did too ...

What the heck is the point in asking for links to threads if the posts are just going to "poof"???

[beautybylynn]

I usually follow up with a message  'I printed out the shipping label. The package will not be mailed till xx and should arrive in xx days. Tracking isnt alway updated regulary. If you have ANY questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I have never had a problem

[thallidguy]

Would this be an example?

[castlemagicmemories]

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@thallidguy wrote:

Would this be an example?

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absolutely and thank you!

[missjen831]

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@missjen831 wrote:

OMG.......why did the blues remove the original thread posted on THIS BOARD and then move the much shorter thread from the buying board over to this board? @Anonymous what gives? This isn’t right, the other thread was several pages long and had a good discussion going. What was the purposes of removing it and then moving an identical thread from another board?

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Its been fixed! Thanks whoever restored this thread & put the other one back on the buying board 🙂