For those who don't want to go through my whole rant and semi-stream of consciousness rambling, I'm basically posting here today wondering if any other sellers are currently having issues with eBay Standard Envelope? I have been using it since like May/June of last year, and outside of some hiccups here and there, no real issues until the past few weeks. If you have time to waste, feel free to listen to me go on and on and on, but really hoping to hear back from others in the community and see if this is a big issue going on atm, or if its just a fluke for the time being.
Thanks in advance,
Drew
Has been quite some time since I've posted on here, apparently last time was May of last year when I had a buyer do the old switch-er-oo and send me back a binder full of jank. The two times I've come to these forums before, I needed insight into how to deal with problematic buyers, but today a new issue has arisen that has never been as problematic as it has all of a sudden this week: unreliable tracking.
For anyone who has been selling on here in the collectable sphere since the beginning of last year and before, you are probably all too aware of eBay's introduction of the standard envelope tracking service. When it was first introduced, I was hesitant like many, and actually went into first as a buyer to see what the experience was like from that end. Surprising no one for this new service (think was this time last year it was first introduced?) there were issues a plenty. The card I ordered took about a month to finally reach me. Because of that experience, I waited some time before I decided using it for my own sales. But for anyone who deals with trading cards and wants to have a tracking service embedded with their sales, you'll know the price advantage of the envelope shipping vs. USPS First Class is astounding. There are always the dissenters outside of collectables who will say "well, just use First Class, don't be cheap," but when you have stacks of cards that their listed price doesn't even cover First Class, you certainly know envelope shipping is the only option for these kinds of orders.
Instead of continuing to ramble on and on with the back story, I want to address the issue at hand and see if there are any other sellers experiencing the tracking issues I am right now, because I tried searching and wasn't able to find much in recent months. Anyway, I've done probably 500+ orders using this tracking service and never had any real issues. There were buyers who would contact me with concerns, because for those unfamiliar with the service, the package can be listed delivered well before it actually is since the tracking is done through eBay and not USPS (but I won't diverge into the whole process here and get to the **bleep** point already lol).
A couple weeks ago, had a buyer contact me they didn't receive their card. I explained kindly as I had a dozen times before that's just what happens with this cheaper service, and to wait 24-48 hours, and that they should expect their order by then. They contacted me several days later and expressed it still hadn't arrived, and I apologized and explained how this hadn't happened before, and how I'd love to help, but that as a seller this issue was out of my control since the tracking available to us showed the package had been delivered, and that the only course the buyer could take was contact their local post office. Then I got another message from a buyer a day later, whose package was listed as delivered a week before, and had been sent out around the same time (think January 22nd, give or take). I explained the same thing to them, that they seemed earnest and I was sorry, but that the situation was totally out of my control as a seller.
Then a few days later, I received that buyer's envelope marked "return to sender." Of course not being a shady piece of **bleep**, I refunded the buyer and explained that I received their package back so they were entitled to a refund even though tracking said delivered. It was odd to have these back to back experiences, but I do believe I had a return to sender envelope in this fashion before, but didn't think much of it then, just this time with having those two experiences from envelopes sent out on the same date.
So bringing this back around, this week, which started January 30th, I've sent out a few dozen envelopes using this tracking service, and almost all of them have been stuck on "Tracking Number Provided" since Monday and its now Friday evening. Typically it wouldn't fuss me too much, since I don't keep up with tracking unless notified by a buyer because of the volume of my sales, but recently got my first bit of neutral feedback for "slow shipping" (took me 2 business days to ship something, though to be fair in some regards, it had been sent on Monday, when order the previous Thurs, and zero update on tracking until that Wed even though it was a First Class) so I've been wanting to ensure my shipments have been smooth this week, and of course that is the way things go.
I will post this question at the top as well for those who don't want to venture through my lengthy narrative, but basically I'm wondering if any other sellers who frequently use this tracking method have experienced issues as of late. I'm sure things will work out fine enough in the end, but with that recent feedback and the fact I've had a good chunk of my sales relying on this shipping method, it has produced some anxiety if there are some kind of internal issues with it and I will have to change my business practices and only list items that are of a value consistent with the ever-increasing costs of First Class and above.
