How to reship a lost order without incurring a defect?

[creativecrisis]

An order that I shipped last Monday (5/11) still has no tracking history and hasn't been delivered. I contacted the buyer and offered to refund her or reship, since the latest estimated delivery date has now passed. She chose to have me reship the items, and I'm wondering how to do that without violating any of eBay's bizarre rules for punishing sellers? Can I just send the customer another package, or does she need to open a return, or ... ?

Appreciate any advice.

[richard1rst]

If you are satisified the package is lost and you are willing to send a replacement without making your buyer jump through hoops, AND you do not want to get a \defect for shipping late (which the second shipping label will automatically generate)

THEN

Print the shipping label OUTSIDE of  eBay WITHOUT referencing eBay at all. Paypal shipping, Pirate ship or ShipStation if you have any of those.  And DO NOT post the tracking number on eBay.

BUT do it as if it is NOT an eBay sale. That way eBay will never see the label and your buyer will get the replacement without you getting a ding. It is sort of like when I sell something on my independent site. 

[myboardid]

I would not be rushing to replace an order that you only shipped a week ago.  The Post Office has been very, very slow lately and packages are taking much, much longer to be delivered.  also, they are not getting scanned along the way.  If you send another item, your buyer will end up with a free one in the end.

[guangxi_hone]

Just wait. everybody knows and understands, I hope the situation so is your buyer. Just let her know that item will arrive late due to pandemic. Post office is struggling, especially sorting centers. My first class package traveled 2 weeks to the neighborhood state which is a record in my case because usually it a week  lately.

Some buyers inquire and they wait.

You package might  show up in the system at the buyer,s post office or  at the delivery.

Any way, if you want to reship do it in a week or so if buyer opens case. Go through Ebay to have record that you reshipped. You might be able print another label (have to pay but still with discount) from that transaction for some time. Sorry don't know when this option ends.

[nobody*s_perfect]

As others have recommended, just quietly ship the item in a way that doesn't get recorded on eBay. You can do this at:

www.PayPal.com/shipnow

[nobody*s_perfect · Accepted solution]

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@guangxi_hone wrote:

Just wait. everybody knows and understands, I hope the situation so is your buyer. ....

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Unfortunately, the OP came to us after committing to reship: "I contacted the buyer and offered to refund her or reship .... She chose to have me reship the items"

[buyselljack2016]

I have on occasion had to do a second mailing. I have just gone to the purchase, and printed another label.

I have yet to see a ding on my shipping metrics when doing that.

[nobody*s_perfect]

Maybe the policy has changed. eBay used to treat the second label as the shipping date, meaning that the seller missed their stated handling time.

[pvcliff]

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@creativecrisis wrote:

An order that I shipped last Monday (5/11) still has no tracking history and hasn't been delivered. I contacted the buyer and offered to refund her or reship, since the latest estimated delivery date has now passed. She chose to have me reship the items, and I'm wondering how to do that without violating any of eBay's bizarre rules for punishing sellers? Can I just send the customer another package, or does she need to open a return, or ... ?

Appreciate any advice.

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Wait, are you baby sitting tracking and then contacting buyers before they contact you? Do not baby sit tracking. Do not contact a customer because you think they don't have the item -- it does happen that a package can be delivered without any scans on the tracking. As others have said, in any case you were way premature in freaking out about this.

[creativecrisis]

Thanks so much, everyone, for your input. I realize there are delays with mail delivery right now. Even so, it's really unusual (for me) to see no tracking history a week after mailing something. My post office recently has been late with doing acceptance scans, but they are getting done. I also talked with a USPS rep, who looked at her internal system and couldn't pull up any information (other than tracking number submitted).

So I feel better about reshipping these items to the customers. None are expensive, and fortunately I have multiples. Again, appreciate all the responses!

[a_c_green]

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@creativecrisis wrote:

Thanks so much, everyone, for your input. I realize there are delays with mail delivery right now. Even so, it's really unusual (for me) to see no tracking history a week after mailing something.

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That would be unusual as of 2-3 months ago, but unfortunately we are living in strange times. Within the past month I've noticed numerous packages falling completely off the radar for up to a week before resurfacing, and within the past week I've noticed the USPS routing all our outbound shipments to Wisconsin for origin sorting instead of Chicago, so clearly they are struggling under the load.

If you delivered your packages to the post office then you know the USPS has them, and all that's really needed for now is to reassure customers who contact you that their package is on the way, offer them a link to the USPS tracking page for their package, and wait it out.

Since you promised a replacement to your buyer already, you're kind of obligated to ship that (use the https://www.paypal.com/shipnow link for the new label, in order to avoid eBay overwriting the previous tracking and calling this a late shipment), but be aware that the replacement is not likely to arrive any quicker than the first one, wherever that is right now.