eBay doesn't make it easy enough for buyers to see multiple shipments in their orders

[stoneledge]

Customer after customer sends messages asking "where their other package is,"  when all of their tracking numbers are posted to their order.   What often happens is that the post office delivers one package and then delivers the next package the next day.  In the meantime, the customer is alarmed and confused, worried that they've been cheated.

I've asked some of the buyers about this and they report that myEbay Purchase History only shows them one tracking number at first. They have to click, click, click to find the info that's already there for them. Yes, you and I can do that, but the average buyer isn't interested in hunting for information.

eBay needs to make it easier and clearer for buyers to see that they have multiple tracking numbers on a single order. 

[stoneledge]

@Anonymous @sandyoutlet

I am going to need some help with this issue as it is causing serious problems for buyers and has happened repeatedly.   In addition to the issue in my OP, there is a bug in the Resolution Center process. that is creating turmoil and confusion for buyers and sellers, and the bug is destroying data that the buyer, seller, and eBay need to resolve problems (that are only perceived problems because of the issue in the OP).

Here is the chronology of what happens:

1. Buyer orders more than one of an item that ships separately.
2. Seller ships and posts multiple tracking numbers to the order.
3. See OP.  Sometimes one of the items is delivered before the other(s). Customer worries that the order wasn't shipped completely, or that something they paid for was lost.  Based on several cases, the customer interface only shows 1 tracking number in the Purchase History and buyers need to dig deeper to find the other tracking number.  This is not a behavior that is intuitive or easy for all buyers, nor should it have to be.  The info should be there for buyers in plain sight. In fact, when one order has multiple shipments, eBay should put a nice big flag on the order and in messages to the buyer:  This order has been shipped in X packages.  Please be aware that packages may arrive on different days.  Here are the tracking numbers for each of your X packages.  Thanks for shopping at eBay!
4. Here's where it gets much worse. eBay makes it easier for Buyer to open an "item not received" case than it makes it for the buyer to contact the seller about this specific order.  Buyer may do both things or just one. Buyer may leave Neg Feedback at the same time falsely claiming seller has cheated the buyer. 
5. Buyer opens a case "I didn't get my item" and includes the comment. "I ordered 3, but I only got 1. You didn't fulfill the order that I paid for.  I looked and only see 1 tracking number on this order."
   
   
6. @Anonymous @sandyoutlet Here's where it REALLY goes south and it's a serious bug in the system. Pay close attention. I have encountered this but twice this week already.
7. The 3 tracking numbers are already in the Order / Sales Record that the Seller can see.  They have been there since the day the items shpped.
8. Because the Buyer has opened an Item Not Received case in the Resolution Center, the Seller must respond.  The advice given by every experienced seller in the Community is:  You MUST enter the Tracking Number into the CASE so that eBay can see it.    In this case, that is very bad advice. Here's why:  
9. When the seller enters the tracking number into the Resolution Center Case, the tracking number entered winds up erasing the original three tracking numbers that were in the Order/ Sales Record. That's a disaster of course because now the original, on-time dated entries of Tracking Numbers have been erased.  I have personally witnessed this happening twice this week.  The original multiple tracking numbers are replaced by the entry that the Seller puts into the case to prove (again) that he shipped the order.  
10. It's a fine mess.  I know that this doesn't apply to a large% of orders but I am seeing it and having replicated it for the 2nd time this week, I am reporting it right away.
11. I had one order with 4 tracking numbers...the next day I went to check the delivery status and only 1 tracking number remained
12. I had another order with 3 trackng numbers...same thing happened.  So while I'm trying to show the buyer that the 3 tracking numbers have been on the order all along, now that I put a tracking number into the Resolution Center case, ebay has erased the 3 tracking numbers and left only 1, which is what the buyer thought in the first place because ebay didn't make it easy for her to see all 3 tracking numbers at the time of shipment and at the time she received the 1st package.   
13. In both cases I have manually re-entered the tracking numbers that ebay erased so that the buyer and I can refer to them.
14. Going forward I will try to, as I often do, send a message to the buyer at the time of shipping that they'll get X packages which may arrive on different days.  There is ample evidence, however, that buyers don't always read these messages nor do they always read the details on the listings pages.
    
    It's really baffling that ebay is doing both of these things so badly and it's destructive to the trust that ebay is trying to build with buyers.

Please let's keep the comments on topic.  Thanks!

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the tag @stoneledge - I think that we could definitely do more to make tracking numbers more visible and easier to find from a buyer's perspective. 

With regards to point 9, I'm a little confused as the tracking number upload in the case flow isn't attached to the order details page, tracking number entry or your seller performance and shouldn't be overwriting anything that was already input. Have you seen this show up on your seller performance reports like Tracking upload or On Time Shipping?

In either situation, I think your idea of proactively sending a buyer an update message with expectations is a great one. Additionally within the case flow you could select the 'Other resolution' option and update the buyer that way too.

[stoneledge]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

Thanks for the tag @stoneledge - I think that we could definitely do more to make tracking numbers more visible and easier to find from a buyer's perspective. 

With regards to point 9, I'm a little confused as the tracking number upload in the case flow isn't attached to the order details page, tracking number entry or your seller performance and shouldn't be overwriting anything that was already input. Have you seen this show up on your seller performance reports like Tracking upload or On Time Shipping?

In either situation, I think your idea of proactively sending a buyer an update message with expectations is a great one. Additionally within the case flow you could select the 'Other resolution' option and update the buyer that way too.

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Thanks for responding tyler@ebay.

Regarding point 9, I witnessed two orders on which the original multiple tracking numbers that I had added to the order had disappeared after I had followed the "prevailing wisdom" advice to use the Resolution Center to add in a tracking number that was already in the order record.  The first time I had no idea why it happened.  And then when it happened again I concluded that the Resolution Center input must have made the multiple tracking numbers be replaced by the single number entered into the Resolution Center.   I'm very aware of the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but am reporting what I actually witnessed. Something made my tracking numbers vanish from the sales records.  If it wasn't Resolution Center, then something else at eBay did it.  I've never seen this before except for the 2 Resolution Center cases.  And I have scores of orders with multiple tracking numbers for a single line item sold in multiple units on a single transaction, and check those all the time.  They don't disappear.

 Have you seen this show up on your seller performance reports like Tracking upload or On Time Shipping?

I haven't looked into that but I don't particularly understand the question.  "this?"  pronouns breed confusion. 

With regard to the seller metrics, first, all of the tracking numbers were added on time and the shipments were on time, long before there was a case opened by a buyer (due to eBay's inadequate messaging).  Second, eBay has no idea, if a customer orders 3 units, if I'm going to ship 1 package or 3 packages or if I'm going to upload 1, 3, or more tracking numbers.  Any single tracking number would suffice for the purposes of eBay seller metrics.  I could enter 1, 3, or 8 tracking numbers.  You can enter as many tracking numbers as you want or need to.  

Because nothing was late in either of these cases, I didn't check eBay evaluation of their timeliness. 

And, as I reported, when I realized that eBay had deleted the tracking numbers, I went back and re-added them.   Since you asked, I went and looked and I don't see anything marked late for one of these cases....but it was not at all easy to figure this out. 

Relatedly, but separately, 

eBay makes it very hard to research specific items through the Tracking Reports in the Seller Dashboard.  eBay should use the Sales Record number in those reports and link to them. Instead, Sellers have to root through purchase history to try to figure out which specific order is on that report.   eBay presents us with item names and photos.  We don't care which item it was. We care which BUYER it was and the specific sales record. 

Likewise, the Resolution Center should link to the Sales Record. It's ridiculous that it doesn't.  Only from the summary page for the Resolution Center do we see a buyer name....which we must take over to Seller Hub to try to find the order.  The link to "view purchased item" is useless if we sell dozens of the same item to dozens of different buyers. It should link to the sales record in question.  From within the specific case, there is no reference to the buyer username, the item, the date or anything.  

Additionally within the case flow you could select the 'Other resolution' option and update the buyer that way too.

I don't know what that means.   My intuition is to just mesage the buyer within the case and tell her to look for her tracking numbers that have been posted in Order Details since the day it was shipped.  But the prevailing wisdom is to re-enter a tracking number into the resolution center.  I will stop doing that. 

eBay doesn't show Sellers how to tell buyers to look for things that are hard to find for some buyers. Sellers have no idea of which version of eBay the buyer is looking at.  

Sellers also don't know how to tell Buyers who open these cases how to close them. I don't know what to tell the buyer to do. I can only guess at what options the buyer has on the buyer's screen.  So I'm trying to direct a person whom I don't know who may have minimal computer skills or common sense on how to close an erroneous case based on what I guess her options might be.