@movieman630 wrote:
@maxine*j wrote:
@iart wrote:
People working for paychecks often get a set number of days per year to call in sick, or otherwise 'personal days'.
We're in for one-day shipping and sometimes it's a struggle. But we don't want to degrade the account because of illness 4 or 5 days a year.
Good idea.
The thing is, though, that as a customer of the business, an employee taking a sick day doesn't mean that what I've already bought and paid for won't arrive when it was supposed to arrive and when i counted on it to arrive. When someone in shipping is off sick, someone covers for him.
An order arriving late can be can be anything from a mild inconvenience to a major hassle for me as a buyer. Ditto a cancelled order, no matter who cancels it.
And, frankly, I think OP's "Sick Day Button" would be abused left and right, just based on reading posts to this forum for the past few years from so many uncommitted, unprofessional, often downright flippant, sellers.
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So we limit ourselves to the worst case scenario? We allow the worst users to dictate how we operate? And as I said, those who abuse, won't make money because their account is shut off from sales during this period and any "pending" sales can be automatically refunded at the buyers request. If I ordered something I "need right away" and it's readily available from many sellers. I can cancel the order and buy from someone else.
Your "Major Hassle" of having to re-order from another seller doesn't hold weight against a seller's "hassle of being hospitalized or in dire straits." Sorry but it doesn't.
The point IS a GOOD seller's reputation and account shouldn't have to suffer for having an unforeseen Emergency of any kind.
And the "Employee sick day business must go on" response is great if you're Amazon. But for those of us who are a one man operation. There is NO EMPLOYEE TO TAKE OVER FOR US!
Some of these rationalizations to counter an idea with very little downside is amazing. There are a lot of people out there who just like to be contrarian for the sake of doing so.
It would be unfair to buyers, who are increasingly hard to attract to eBay in part because of the unreliability of sellers. Buyers are not concerned, nor should they be, with whether they're buying from a "one-man operation" or a big business but should expect each of eBay's millions of sellers to all be held to the same performance standard, regardless of the size of the enterprise.
It would be unfair to sellers who make contingency plans that sellers who do not make such plans can fail to meet their obligations and do so without penalty. And heaven help small sellers if buyers saw that the official policy of eBay allowed small sellers to bunk off in ways that larger ones would not.
Considering how many sellers come here and admit that they routinely abuse cancellations reasons to avoid penalties, and how many sellers come here with the attitude that buyers are more or less the enemy, there would doubtless be a lot of abuse and misuse of the "Sick Day." There is much abuse of sick leave in the "real world," and it would be far worse here because of the essential anonymity.
Anything that lowers buyers' confidence and expectations hurts all sellers.
As for my hassles not equating with your illness or dire straits, in my eighty-odd years I have dealt with
death, illness, financial crises, fire and flood, so please do not think I lack sympathy or empathy. But it is because everyone must travel through the Dire Straits, and usually more than once in a lifetime, that I have the opinion I have about this.
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