eBay

go-bad-chicken · ‎05-14-2019

I am currently away on a business trip, and will be gone for the next two weeks. Whenever I travel I have always just extend my handling time to cover the time that I will be away and unable to ship. I do not use eBay's vacation settings as I like to have the ability to make sales while I am away. Since I primarily sell books with this account, I tend to offer two types of domestic shipping services within each of my listings.

USPS Media Mail is the first shipping method.
I then also offer USPS Priority Mail shipping as a second shipping service for a nominal fee.
But a few of my listings exclude Media Mail all together and only offer USPS Priority Mail.

I bulk edited all of my listings and changed my handling time to 10 Business Days. So if someone made a purchase from me today (Tuesday 05-14-19) I would be obligated to ship that item no later than Tuesday 05-28-19. Here is the problem. I have already had two customers asking me why it will take 2 1/2 months for them a book should they choose to make a purchase from me.

These are the "Estimated Delivery Dates" that eBay is currently displaying to my prospective buyers who look at one of my listings.

A - Economy Shipping (USPS Media Mail 2 - 8 business days) - Estimated between Thu. Jul. 25 and Thu. Aug. 1

B - Expedited Shipping (USPS Priority Mail 1 - 3 business days) - Estimated between Wed. Jul. 24 and Sat. Jul. 27

C - Handling time - Will ship within 10 business days of receiving cleared payment. The seller has specified an extended handling time for this item.

What I am trying to understand is why are these "Estimated Delivery Dates" that are being displayed so ludicrous? I thought that eBay had a super secret high speed go-bot that had mastered the art of estimating delivery dates.
Is this some unintended glitch or am I just doing something wrong?

go-bad-chicken · ‎05-17-2019

@tunicaslot wrote:
I don't see how it can not be a technical difficulty - but we have many technical difficulties that Ebay hasn't fixed.

I just signed out and checked my listings but it seems everything is good although I do have 1 day handling. I do still see the extended ship time on your Boise items.

I don't see how this benefits Ebay as they make their money off of our sales and if something like this is making buyers push the back button - they've lost money.

Eigh. This is one of those points of concern that I currently have.

I am the type of seller who just wants to know the rules of the road. Once that is established I as a seller will choose to act acordingly. I hope that this post will point that out.

I HAVE HAF TO FIELD ALOT MORE UNNECESAEY MESSAGES FROM BUYERS DURING THIS BETA TEST.

This is my main concern as well

berserkerplanet · ‎05-17-2019

>>So it appears that this extended estimated delivery dates is by design and not a glitch

If it is intentional and not buggy behavior, it makes a 10 day handling time useless as a non-store vacation tool.

If that is the case, and eBay is doing it for whatever (as per usual) "customer perception" reasons, then they need to provide an alternate non-store vacation functionality that doesn't provide "the wrong customer perception". And/or be transparent about the implication of using a 10 day handling time (again, transparency not eBay's strong suit)

>>I don't see how it can not be a technical difficulty - but we have many technical difficulties that Ebay hasn't fixed.

IF it is intentional it isn't a software flaw - it would be coded in by design to fit some (undisclosed) agenda.

(don't make the mistake of assuming that handling time + carrier delivery estimate = estimated delivery date any more - that ship sailed a while back with the final disclosure of eBay's manipulation of delivery dates for Fast 'n Free, GD,, etc based on seller historic shipping performance. eBay is manipulating EDDs)

Doesn't affect me personally (at the moment) , but potentially disturbing, and I await seeing an official explanation.
(this is one where going silent will not be an acceptable response)

tunicaslot · ‎05-17-2019

You are a very dedicated seller that not only wants to succeed but make your buyers happy. Brian will be back with an answer for you.

I do have to say that the above poster had a viable reason for it - an overseas seller had been reported repeatedly by buyers of misrepresenting the item location as being in the US and shipping from their country outside the US - this would not apply in your case as you are a US seller who has been upfront with the ship time and the item location.

Hopefully - Brian can make sense of this and correct it as I'm sure it may be happening to others besides yourself. I may be critical of Ebay at times - but the board CS do try to help those with problems.

countrybreakfast · ‎10-09-2019

Hi Brian.

I saw your response in this forum, that you were looking into the issue for multiple ebay members. https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Huh-10-Business-Day-Handling-Time-Equals-August-01-quot/m-p/29...

I am having a similar issue, except I am offering 1 business day handling time. I've tried changing my handling and then changing it back. I've tried unenrolling from guaranteed delivery and re enrolling. I'm top rated seller, with 1.4% late shipment. I only have 10 late shipments out of 690 orders, and had four removed last night by the defects team. They said that even with the 10 I should be qualifying for Fast N' Free and Guaranteed Delivery on my listings as I offer free First Class Package or Priority Mail depending on item size/value. When instead I have an estimated delivery time of Saturday October 18th when today is Wednesday October 9th, with either mailing service. They defects team have sent my issue to a technical team, but I'm told it could take 5 days. This has been going on for a few weeks now, and honestly I've lost thousands in sales. I'm full time self employed and ebay is my main selling platform. If you were looking into this before, I'm hoping you have found an answer since and can help me get this fixed, because it needs to be fixed. Please, anything you can do would be much appreciated.

Thanks, Nick.