My 'Time Away" Was Not Honored nor Calculated Correctly into My Shipments.

[stephannhill]

Hello:

I have an eBay Store, H&H Treasures. I recently was out of town and thus, programmed a “Time Away” notification from February 18th – March 3rd.  During my "Time Away",  I had a total of five items that were sold. I mailed them out on March 3rd, the same day I flew back home. However, THREE of those five items were incorrectly labeled as “Shipment Overdue”. It resulted in being demoted from Top Seller to Above Standard. Thus, due to the "Time Away" not being honored, I lost my Top Seller Rating.  Those THREE items were indeed sold during the time I was away from home and thus, my merchandise.  Has this happened to other sellers? I have sent two emails to eBay and they have yet to answer my emails nor fix the inaccurate "shipment overdue" label of those three items.  I have been very diligent in keeping my Top Rated Seller status as I have worked very hard on my eBay Business to maintain that status and I should not lose it due to a bug in the system.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my issue! If you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to reach out to me via by messaging me through my eBay account as this is very frustrating for me. 

Sincerely,

Frustrated eBay Seller

[luxgoods]

Those three items , were they sold through offers to buyers? I found out that if you made offers to buyers and go on vacation with time away and someone accepts the offer then it is if you never went away and you have to stick to your set delivery time say 1 or 3 days.  I learned this the hard way.

[meme6253]

You Really should try calling Them, rather than message them, You will probably have better Luck at least I Hope So!!

[luckythewinner]

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@stephannhill wrote:

I have an eBay Store, H&H Treasures. I recently was out of town and thus, programmed a “Time Away” notification from February 18th – March 3rd.  During my "Time Away",  I had a total of five items that were sold. I mailed them out on March 3rd, the same day I flew back home. However, THREE of those five items were incorrectly labeled as “Shipment Overdue”. It resulted in being demoted from Top Seller to Above Standard.

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I think eBay evaluated you on Feb 20th for transactions through Feb 1. And I think eBay will evaluate you on Mar 20th for transactions through Mar 1.

So I guess I am confused about when eBay demoted your from Top Rated to Above Standard.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@luckythewinner wrote: ...  I guess I am confused about when eBay demoted your from Top Rated to Above Standard.

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OP is still showing as a TRS, so I think they are reporting what eBay says about their upcoming March 20 evaluation. 

[goodbrakes]

When you set a store for "Time Away / Vacation" Buyers can still purchase items unless you put your settings for no purchases can be made during that time period or change the shipping time frame. If you don't do that eBay still requires you to ship the item in the time frame you set up in your Store listing. If you don't do that you will get dinged for a late shipment.

[dirk12955]

Tagging on:

I learned my lesson on expecting eBay to do what they are supposed to do.

When I leave town I put my store(s) on Time away and change my handling time to enough days 

to cover my behind for shipping.  

I leave all the listings up.

[monica-sells]

hindsight I know, but...

did you remember to change the "handling time" on your individual items?

It appears you did because you were not 'dinged' on all of the away sales....

I remember when I left selling option 'on' while away, I had to "mass edit" my shipping/handling time from 1 day to 10 Days (the time I was away)

if you did, and can "prove it" I would contact ebay for business on facebook and ask for a review of this decision

[asset_liquidators]

What goodbrakes said is correct and it has always been that way. When you go away you need to set it to "hide" your listings. Otherwise, you will still need to ship within your stated handling time. Also, this ONLY applies to fixed price listings. You cannot hide auction style listings. Auction style listing need to be manually ended.

[kensgiftshop]

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@goodbrakes wrote:

When you set a store for "Time Away / Vacation" Buyers can still purchase items unless you put your settings for no purchases can be made during that time period or change the shipping time frame. If you don't do that eBay still requires you to ship the item in the time frame you set up in your Store listing. If you don't do that you will get dinged for a late shipment.

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The Time Away option is supposed to adjust your shipping time, where the vacation option didn't.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@kensgiftshop wrote: ... The Time Away option is supposed to adjust your shipping time, where the vacation option didn't.

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It's supposed to, but apparently it doesn't.  

I think even eBay staff are confused about this policy.  Here's a thread in which eBay staff repeatedly ignore requests to clarify this issue, blindly insisting that only delivery date matters.  The back-and-forth would be a hilarious parody of  "Who's on first" if this wasn't a serious issue.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Does-eBay-have-a-feature-that-allows-me-to-pause-all-of-my-fix...

[janet9988]

Whether you choose to allow sales or pause them, delivery dates won't be updated for:

• Second Chance Offers
• Auto-accepted offers
• Pending counter-offers
• Seller initiated offers accepted during Time Away
• Items with local pickup, in-store pickup, or Global Shipping Program as the shipping option
• Digital items

You may want to change the shipping format or the handling times on these items while on time away.

[johnrj1226]

@stephannhill 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling-tools/time-away?id=5137&st=12&pos=2&query=Time%20Away&inte...

I always did one of two things when I was away depending on the length of time I would be gone

1.  Less than a week - extended my handling time

2  week or more - cancelled my listing (depending on  the number  of listings

[powell-memorabilia]

Well, have you considered “user error” as the cause?  There is a difference between time away and a time away message.

[velvet@ebay · Accepted solution]

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@stephannhill wrote:

Hello:

I have an eBay Store, H&H Treasures. I recently was out of town and thus, programmed a “Time Away” notification from February 18th – March 3rd.  During my "Time Away",  I had a total of five items that were sold. I mailed them out on March 3rd, the same day I flew back home. However, THREE of those five items were incorrectly labeled as “Shipment Overdue”. It resulted in being demoted from Top Seller to Above Standard. Thus, due to the "Time Away" not being honored, I lost my Top Seller Rating.  Those THREE items were indeed sold during the time I was away from home and thus, my merchandise.  Has this happened to other sellers? I have sent two emails to eBay and they have yet to answer my emails nor fix the inaccurate "shipment overdue" label of those three items.  I have been very diligent in keeping my Top Rated Seller status as I have worked very hard on my eBay Business to maintain that status and I should not lose it due to a bug in the system.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read my issue! If you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to reach out to me via by messaging me through my eBay account as this is very frustrating for me. 

Sincerely,

Frustrated eBay Seller

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Hi @stephannhill! I see a lot of people have chimed in and I wanted to as well. We have a help page here that breaks it all down, but in essence, handling and shipping shouldn't need to be updated when using Time away unless one of the following scenarios occur:

• Second Chance Offers
• Auto-accepted offers
• Pending counter-offers
• Seller initiated offers accepted during Time Away
• Items with local pickup, in-store pickup, or Global Shipping Program as the shipping option
• Digital items

Having said that, if your three transactions that received late shipments don't happen to fall into one of the above scenarios, then I would encourage you to contact Customer Support. They can take a closer look with you and if the late shipments were placed correctly, they'll let you know why. If they weren't, then they can get them removed.