eBay

timemachine777 · ‎03-24-2018

For a while now, whenever I do a search I also check the guaranteed delivery charge and my results will usually go to zero. Even when doing one keyword search, for example shoes. I will get about 22 million results, but under guaranteed delivery it'll shrink to about a 100 thousand. That a huge miss. Only a half of 1% opted in 0.005%

No matter what the keyword is that I use to pull up massive results, I still get a fraction of 1% as my result when I switch to guaranteed delivery. eBay can't sell this feature to shareholders or board members so they are going to launch a May automatic opt-in on eBay's dime to show fake numbers of enrollment. Classic eBay.

They sent me my notice this morning and I have news for them. They will lose money by the boat loads. I'll stay opted in on their dime. Most of my packages including priority take more than 3 days to arrive. Last 4 transactions on this account.

From Maine

1st class 1st till 5th WY 5 days

priority 9th till 12th TN 4 days

Priority 12th till 16th VA 5 days

Standard 16th still in route to KY 9 days and counting

My other accounts are the same way, and ship mostly 1st class and priority. I just had an envelope ship out for another account 1st class, Maine to Texas. USPS sent it via Washington state, an extra 3000 miles away. It took a week to get to Texas. This is going to be a very interesting roll out.

mrconran · ‎03-25-2018

I can hardly wait till the Fallupdates.

timemachine777 · ‎03-25-2018

@mrconranwrote:
No doubt about that. Ebay has made it too difficult to sell here anymore. I am planning on starting my own site. I have been working pretty hard on it. I think if I can make through the 1st year I will do better and better while Ebay keeps sliding down hill.

eBay has gone out of it's way to make things harder to do on the site. At one time you could list real easy, until eBay wanted to micromanage the selling accounts, So they launched Turbo lister AKA turtle lister at the time. and the rest was down hill from there.

mrconran · ‎03-25-2018

I am a pretty high volume seller, Almost everyone of my buyers purchases more than one item. Right now I have over 100 sales records I have to contact Ebay about so I can be credited the outlandish shipping fees. I now have to refund almost every buyer and record the sale & refund so I can contact Ebay for credits. Compleat waste of my time. Now I chase the refunds/credits rather than restock and expand my store.

timemachine777 · ‎03-25-2018

@mrconranwrote:
I am a pretty high volume seller, Almost everyone of my buyers purchases more than one item. Right now I have over 100 sales records I have to contact Ebay about so I can be credited the outlandish shipping fees. I now have to refund almost every buyer and record the sale & refund so I can contact Ebay for credits. Compleat waste of my time. Now I chase the refunds/credits rather than restock and expand my store.

eBay stopped automatically giving back the refunds on FVF's via PP, when sellers adjusted the shipping fees. Just another way that eBay figured they could make money off the sellers. Most sellers don't bother contacting eBay for the refund.

coolections · ‎03-25-2018

It would be expected that the percent is very low as it is a new roll out. Give it time, no need to worry. You have the option right now.

timemachine777 · ‎03-26-2018

@coolectionswrote:
It would be expected that the percent is very low as it is a new roll out. Give it time, no need to worry. You have the option right now.

A half of 1% is low? That's beyond low. That means that just about every single seller on this site has no interest whatsoever in the feature.

automotivepartsrecyclrs · ‎03-26-2018

Returns other than something is wrong with item are automatically approved. If something is wrong with a item then the sellers has choices on the return.

generaluser3 · ‎03-26-2018

Thank goodness for these forums! When I received that ebay email, I went into hypermode trying to find where to Opt Out of the program. I looked everywhere in the Account Settings! Finally, I was able to calm down and came here to the forums, where I read that the Opt Out will be available only come May 1st. So I suppose the entire month of April will be sort of a Testing Ground for ebay.

I have another account that ships in 2 days, has a 14-day return, and hardly sells anything, so of course is not a TRS. That account did Not get this email. So I'm thinking ebay was selective in which accounts received this "Great News."

I checked my past sales, and the delivery times are split between 3-day and 4-day delivery times, with a sprinkling of 5-day delivery times in there. There are a few longer times, when there were some kind of delays.

I will OPT OUT as soon as it is available, because although I ship USPS Priority Mail, it's wholly dependent on them once the package is in their hands, and I think delivery times are based on an infinite number of variables and scenarios on their end.

PLUS, and this is a big Plus as to why I do NOT want to be in this Guaranteed Delivery program, is that I ship from Zone 8. USPS has been really great on a general whole, but to Guarantee Delivery in 3 days or less -- from Zone 8 -- is sheer madness. Simply can't do it.

generaluser3 · ‎03-26-2018

Wait, since this program is running from May 1 to May 31, is the Opt Out going to be available on June 1st?

So much talk about this that I can't find the info I had seen earlier.

Anyway, it is what it is.

books...forthememories · ‎03-26-2018

@timemachine777wrote:
@southern*sweet*teawrote:
Well, it's their money to lose. When they lose enough, they'll stop the program, and maybe understand what sellers have been saying all along.
It would be interesting to know how many sellers are actually seeing their items shipped, arrive in 3 days or less. I now that the majority of mine take more than 3 days. Have you checked your tracking data in your sold item list?

Even if ebay BOUGHT USPS and tried to run it themselves, there would still be no way to "guarantee" 3-day shipping. ebay compeletely ignores all the possible variables, i.e., weather conditions, travel distances, et al. But what else is new?...

books...forthememories · ‎03-26-2018

completely ^

timemachine777 · ‎03-26-2018

@books...forthememorieswrote:
@timemachine777wrote:
@southern*sweet*teawrote:
Well, it's their money to lose. When they lose enough, they'll stop the program, and maybe understand what sellers have been saying all along.
It would be interesting to know how many sellers are actually seeing their items shipped, arrive in 3 days or less. I now that the majority of mine take more than 3 days. Have you checked your tracking data in your sold item list?
Even if ebay BOUGHT USPS and tried to run it themselves, there would still be no way to "guarantee" 3-day shipping. ebay compeletely ignores all the possible variables, i.e., weather conditions, travel distances, et al. But what else is new?...

Your right. USPS will no longer guarantee their own priority shipping anymore and extended the 2 day out to 3 days for packages shipped to farther zones. I had a big load of shipments go out today from my Fri to Mon sales (which were void of any from eBay as usual), So when I picked up my receipt a little while ago I noticed a package that I know was mark for standard shipping went priority, so I asked why, since my cut off point for priority default is VA, not the NC/SC line.

After a brief explanation, the Post Master, told me that USPS is looking at possibly ending ground shipping on most packages and extending Priority mail time of arrivals to zones 7 & 8. It's going to be interesting how eBay navigates that issue when it comes to GD.

Are they going to automatically filter out all sellers the are far away from the buyers location through search algorithm? I wouldn't put it past them since they already manipulate search results a lot as it is.

usstraightshooter · ‎03-27-2018

We are checking the switch to enable GD daily to make sure it's turned off. The first order we have that ships guaranteed delivery will be the occasion we set all available quantities to zero until GD goes away. We are not interested in dealing with the customer antagonism GD will create.

We are favored with a great location in the postal system such that our orders are almost always fast. Ebay already claims delivery dates that are better than USPS service levels and represent the best case for some routes. Just today we had a cancelled order when the customer was informed the eBay date was wishful fiction.

I would love to hear the eBay explanation of why GD works, and what their definition of "works" is 😉

--

Bud Ready

timemachine777 · ‎03-27-2018

@usstraightshooterwrote:
We are checking the switch to enable GD daily to make sure it's turned off. The first order we have that ships guaranteed delivery will be the occasion we set all available quantities to zero until GD goes away. We are not interested in dealing with the customer antagonism GD will create.

We are favored with a great location in the postal system such that our orders are almost always fast. Ebay already claims delivery dates that are better than USPS service levels and represent the best case for some routes. Just today we had a cancelled order when the customer was informed the eBay date was wishful fiction.

I would love to hear the eBay explanation of why GD works, and what their definition of "works" is 😉

--
Bud Ready

I see it this way: If GD works so well then eBay wouldn't need to opt everyone in. They are doing this because currently the feature that they are trying to push down sellers throats is being used on less than a half of 1% of items listed. That's a horribly almost none existent number of items.