Seller protection from USPS failures---does it exist anywhere? Etsy? Bonanza? Amazon Marketplace?

[chris-s-g]

Hi!  I know there are a lot of sellers out there who use other marketplace platforms and so I'm hoping you can tell me if any of them are protecting sellers during the USPS disaster that appears to be occurring right now.  I've had a package go from Philly to NYC via Hawaii and a few counties over in PA via Iowa.  Tracking shows no movement for a week sometimes.  USPS is a mess.  Buyers seem to be catching on and exploiting the situation by demanding a refund immediately after the EBAY GENERATED promised delivery date has passed, then keeping the item when it arrives late.  I am out the money I paid for shipping and for the item I shipped. 

I believe that there are some unscrupulous buyers who are taking advantage of the situation and we have to put an end to that exploitation of a broken USPS and  honest, hardworking eBay sellers.  

I have always shipped on time, within 24 hours of a sale.  I was a TRS but I am going to change my handling time to something like a week so I can force some cushion into the predicted delivery time.   But, that doesn't change the fact that eBay is providing a marketplace for scammers.  Not cool.

My question to all you is this: are there other sites on which we can sell, where sellers are not held over a barrel to keep giving away free stuff (and paying to ship it) to so-called "buyers"?  I understand that it's not the buyer's fault that a package is delayed, but it's not my fault either.  There must be a more fair way to treat this situation and I'm hoping to find a platform to which I can move my teenie-tiny store without worrying about having to work my butt off to give stuff away and to subsidize the USPS!

Thank you!

[vintagecraze50]

That’s correct. With INR cases and having to refund the goods and the money one is better off paying extra for  Fed Ex or UPS.

[bad*kitty*vintage]

Ebay just refunded one of my buyers who hasn't received a book that was shipped before Christmas ($25).  It was shipped media mail.   I have another pending case pending of an item that was shipped overseas.  What happens when the buyer receives the item eventually?  I sent Christmas cards out at least a week or more before Christmas.  Two cards, sent from NY to PA just arrived on Thursday and Friday (yesterday).  These people wrote to let me know...I have no idea if my other cards arrived.  I waited over 2 weeks for a priority package to come from PA to NY via Florida in December. 

[vintagecraze50]

Big Retailers I suppose can unload truckloads of merch for free. Not the average seller. 

[vintagecraze50]

You cant force them to wait. If your items are high value and they seem lost in the system you need to do package recalls/intercepts to prevent the delivery after the refund. Then, you have to hope that USPS has not really lost the item, but then if it is shown lost if you have insurance you file the claim with them.

[Anonymous]

These buyers are online porch pirates with ebay's blessings. Nothing better than free stuff. Some will say that's the risk seller's take. I say it's a risk ebay force's you to take.

[chris-s-g]

@vintagecraze50 Thanks!  I didn't realize there was such a thing as having the package intercepted and returned to me.  I'm not shipping mostly low-value stuff and sometimes the shipping costs are the biggest part.  I don't want to spend any money to retrieve the items, but MAYBE buyers would be willing to wait if they knew that demanding the refund immediately means they don't get the thing later anyway (for free).  Does a package recall/intercept cost extra to initiate?  

[chris-s-g]

@Anonymous I think the "risk sellers take" (you know, the cost of doing business) was reasonable when we were dealing with a USPS that was generally functional.  Granted, the USPS and the mafia are the only two organizations I've heard of where you can contract with them to do something and then have to pay extra for "insurance" that the job you're paying them to do actually gets done.  Interesting business model.  Like, could I sell a blender that I say works perfectly but then charge extra for "insurance" that it actually works?  No.  Nor would I want to.  But the USPS does that every day.  Oh, and you don't even get your money back for what you paid them to do their job and the insurance you bought when they don't do the job.  OK, so they really are like the mafia.  I've seen many similarities between (what I know of) "organized crime" and "government" but I digress...

The current situation with the USPS is extraordinarily messed up.  It's been making the national news almost daily.  Yet, there are no consequences to the USPS nor to the buyers for this mess.  We are making up for the failures of the government and eBay is making us do it.  I really think that eBay should extend the delivery time range right now.  This could allow for more realistic expectations on the buyer's side and extend the time at which they can file an INR case.  They should also remove all negative feedback associated with a sale where the item was delayed by USPS.  The buyer doesn't understand whose "fault" it is, but eBay does.  If a buyer wants to blow off steam about a late delivery, let them, but don't let it impact our reputation when we've been fulfilling our obligations completely.  

Hopefully, I have achieved an artificial version of that by extending my handling time to 15 days.  But, now it shows buyers that the earliest they'd receive something is 18 days from the sale.  If eBay would make the range itself bigger (3-18 days or something realistic) it would allow me to put my handling time back to 1 day and yet not be penalized for USPS snafus.  But, eBay won't do anything to discourage sales because they earn their commissions no matter what and they're not out the money for premature refunds, we are.  

Let's organize a seller buy-out of eBay so that eBay becomes a seller-owned platform!  (I wonder if such a radical suggestion will get me kicked off the board?)

[donsdetour]

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@Anonymous wrote:

These buyers are online porch pirates with ebay's blessings. Nothing better than free stuff. Some will say that's the risk seller's take. I say it's a risk ebay force's you to take.

---

EBay do not FORCE YOU to sell here.

You chose to.

So it is the sellers risk see.........

[theteamsetguy]

It depends on what you sell. Maybe that is your experience but doesn’t mean every seller has the same experience. 

[luckythewinner]

I know there are a lot of sellers out there who use other marketplace platforms and so I'm hoping you can tell me if any of them are protecting sellers during the USPS disaster that appears to be occurring right now.

Are these USPS delays causing you to operate at an overall loss, or are they just cutting into your profit margin? 

[tools*]

Hopefully, when we have a federal government again after the 20th, a competent person will be appointed to lead the Postal Service and things will improve.

[maros9416]

Extending the handling time only prevents you from making more sales. If the handling time is 15 days and you ship it the next day, the expected delivery time coincides with when the USPS clocked in the item. They then take it upon themselves to say ' delayed ' to your customer. The extended handling time is scaring off buyer who think it's going to take a month to get to them. The USPS is cutting through the back-log and most new packages I am sending are making it in 2-10 days, which is a vast improvement...My advice is to continue on full steam ahead, when you send orders use a scan sheet or get them clocked in by a clerk at the post office. It seems to make it easier to find a lost package if need be. We could not afford to close for the holiday season. Understanding that we may give back on a few orders, we accepted the risk as part of the bigger picture of what is going on. So many people's livelihoods have been decimated by the virus. I think it is unreasonable to expect 100% smooth sailing when others have no source of income at all. COVID has affected every single business. This is our portion of that loss. We are lucky to have been able to sell all this time.

[maros9416]

If the buyer had to bare the loss of a lost package in the mail system, no one would buy anything. All of the buyers that I have dealt with understood what is going on and that it is anybody's guess when the package will arrive. It seems that immediately after Christmas the flow of mail has picked up. Likewise, the post office lines are 1/4 of what they were in December.  

[spreadlovelikefire]

Just an FYI, extending your handling time does nothing for late deliveries.  The clock starts when the first scan hits.  So regardless if you ship it within 24 hours, 36 hours, or 7 days, the time starts then and the estimated delivery date is generated based off of that.  

[e-cheddar]

On Amazon, if you buy shipping labels through them, and you ship on time, for the most part you are protected against claims of INR when a package disappears or a customer claims they didn't get it...Amazon funds the refund in these cases.  That policy differs for different selling progams (likes seller-fulfilled prime, etc.) but most sellers are protected.