Holding item(s) to ship later

[ernesto1956]

More and more, I am getting customers who immediately pay, but want me to hold the item(s) for as much as a week before I ship. Usually it has to do with them not being home to properly receive the item when it arrives, which seems understandable to me.

But my items are getting tagged by the system as SHIP NOW—PAST DUE. And I would imagine that my shipping promptness rating is going down as a result. I am doing what the customer wants, so I would like not to be penalized for it.

Any thoughts on this dilemma? Is there a way around this penalty?

[pburn]

This has come up recently on this discussion board. The consensus of most seller/posters was that you should very politely and professionally explain the situation to your buyer. There are several options you could suggest:

(1) Assuming USPS shipping, the buyer could have their mail held at the post office to be delivered or picked up when they return. Here's a link to the form that can be submitted online.

https://holdmail.usps.com/holdmail/

(2) Suggest they have a friend, relative or neighbor following the tracking and pick up the package for them when it arrives.

(3) Offer to cancel the sale (at buyer's request) and relist the item when the buyer returns home.

I'm sure others will come up with more suggestions that were offered in that thread. Those are the three I can think of right now. If I come up with the thread, I'll post a link to it later.

As I recall, everyone agreed that you should not be taking the hit for your buyers' decision to buy something when they're leaving town. I will, in their defense, say that most buyers have no idea that it presents any kind of problem for a seller to do this for them. I'm sure they consider it a favor, but I doubt they realize it can cause real issues for the seller.

[pburn]

Here's the thread I referred to. It may have some good ideas in it for you.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Buyer-Paid-but-Wants-Me-to-Hold-Shipping-His-Purchase-for-5-Da...

[ernesto1956]

I went to that thread and read it. A lot of it sounds really bad. Bad for me as a seller, that is.

There are also two specific situations which make me delay shipping after the item is paid for.

(1) Sometimes I sell commissioned pieces. The buyer pays me using BIN, and then I spend three days making the item, get customer approval by showing them a photo of it, then ship. So there is a built-in shipping delay with this type of item.

(2) I recently got involved with a buyer who takes 7-10 days to pay for large multi-item shipments. We came to an agreement whereby I would re-invoice his purchase(s) with two separate, smaller invoices which he would pay sequentially…the larger of the two immediately, and then the smaller one a week later. I would then ship everything after receiving the second payment. But then, the first invoice would get dinged for being a late shipment.

[pburn]

Well, if your shipping/handling time is far enough out, you should be able to accommodate your commission buyers.

And perhaps you could renegotiate your agreement with your multi-item buyer. I suppose you could be willing to ship before you're paid, but I can't really recommend that. I'm sure if you explain that your seller metrics are suffering because of the current arrangement, you could come to some kind of new agreement--like the buyer waits to purchase your item(s) until s/he can actually afford to pay for them? LOL! C'mon, you're not a payday lender, after all!

Good luck in coming to some kind of acceptable agreement with your customers! Otherwise, before long, you may not be able to sell to them at all--or anyone else, for that matter!

[ernesto1956]

At present, ebay says I’m a top-rated seller, but my late shipment rate is at 1.08%, or 4 out of 370 transactions. Is that bad? Will I lose a lot to fees?