2 day handling times don't work well with different time zones

[jfee4319]

As a seller I want to stop at the post office every OTHER day. Not every day. 

I select 2 business day handling times for this reason BUT that doesn't necessarily work. I will often be expected to stop by post office EVERY business day. I'll try to explain. This isn't as clear and short as I desired. Here goes... 

Tuesday night after work I prepare ALL orders placed Monday and Tuesday. After midnight I'm in bed. 

Wednesday I go to work. Stop by post office to ship ALL orders after work. Return home. Enter tracking numbers, message customers to update and thank them, and leave feedback.

Wednesday I have an evening free from preparing orders for shipping. 

Thursday evening after work I prepare ALL orders from Wednesday and Thursday. Even if an order is placed at 11:53pm Thursday I'm up late preparing it to ship Friday after work.

Friday morning I go to work. After work I stop by the post office to ship. At home I enter tracking numbers, message customers, and leave feedback. Friday is an evening free from preparing orders to ship

This routine repeats... I pack one day. Ship next day. Following day I pack. Day after I ship... and so on. 

For a 2 business day handling time this should work right? No. Not really. Lets back up...

Tuesday night after work I prepare ALL orders placed Monday and Tuesday. After midnight I'm in bed. An order is placed after midnight in my time zone. The order is placed in California (or another location in Pacific Standard Time zone) just before midnight Pacific Time. I wake expecting all orders placed to be ready ship Wednesday after work. I'll stop at the post office Wednesday. I won't stop by the post office again until Friday BUT the order placed after midnight Eastern Time Tuesday night/Wednesday morning but just before midnight by someone in California is expected to be shipped Wednesday or Thursday. By Friday its flagged as late. 

I'm venting. Doubt anything can be changed to remedy this. Most likely suggestions will be to print labels and ship from home rather than ship from post office. Or wake up at 4am before work to prepare orders from other time zones so that they can be shipped after work. Or go by post office every day. 

Thanks

[wastingtime101 · Accepted solution]

Hey @jfee4319 . This should not be happening. eBay goes by midnight in the seller's time zone when determining ship by dates. Something is off.

1. Can you provide some item number examples?

2. Can you check this page to see what your settings look like and post a screenshot here?

https://www.ebay.com/ship/cutoff

[jfee4319]

Hello @wastingtime101 

"2. Can you check this page to see what your settings look like and post a screenshot here?

https://www.ebay.com/ship/cutoff"

...appears to be very useful! I don't think I've ever seen this. I'll check this out very soon. I don't recall being asked to do this. 

Thanks so much for the response and help! 

[wastingtime101]

Please don't misunderstand @jfee4319 . That page is for same day handling cut off. But sometimes if the seller's settings are wonky on that page it can affect more than just same day handling. If you haven't set anything up on that page yet: don't.

[jfee4319]

Oh! I see. I did notice that was same day handling. I hesitated and decided to check it out later mainly because of that. So I didn't set anything up on that page. Thanks for the quick response!

[stainlessenginecovers]

More importantly why aren't you purchasing, printing and attaching shipping labels at home and just having USPS pick up?? You will save $$ on the shipping cost alone and NOT have to 'input' tracking numbers. 

Also, if you are that busy, just do 'auto feedback'...this way, the moment someone buys, feedback is left. 

Now you've saved 3 steps and 'stopping/waiting in line' at the Post Office

[deserdog]

I have 5 days handling on all my items on Ebay and Etsy. That being said, I usually ship within 1 or 2 days. And lots of time I go to the post office every day. I know I could schedule a pick and us a scan form, but the problem is now that many time the items don't get scanned in for several days. A Shipment Confirmation Acceptance Notice (SCAN) Form (PS Form 5630) allows customers to see that the shipment containing their package has been received by USPS and the package is pending acceptance. It use to be the rule that all packages were to be scanned before they left the post office, but not anymore.

[stainlessenginecovers]

---

@deserdog wrote:

I have 5 days handling on all my items on Ebay and Etsy. That being said, I usually ship within 1 or 2 days. And lots of time I go to the post office every day. I know I could schedule a pick and us a scan form, but the problem is now that many time the items don't get scanned in for several days. A Shipment Confirmation Acceptance Notice (SCAN) Form (PS Form 5630) allows customers to see that the shipment containing their package has been received by USPS and the package is pending acceptance. It use to be the rule that all packages were to be scanned before they left the post office, but not anymore.

---

That's strange because ALL my 20,000+ packages since 2011 have ALWAYS been scanned as 'received' within 1 day, and ALL my packages are 'picked up from my porch' (in both OC Cali and in Nevada) and I have never used a scan form. 

[booji_girl]

Many addresses are not eligible for USPS pickup, most commonly many apartment buildings, but other situations like rural areas, even entire ineligible zip codes, etc. My 44 floor densely populated building doesn't even allow anything that can't fit in a letter slot to be left as outgoing mail because there isn't enough room in the lobby and it would be total chaos for the poor postal workers, so the only options are a trip to the post office or hoping a street corner drop box will be checked on time and nothing grody or damaging happens to the contents of said box before it's picked up and hopefully scanned. Personally, I go the PO counter route so I can witness that scan happen and get a receipt just in case, which also records the date/time/tracking #s/weight according to their own scales, handy and sometimes crucial evidence to have. 

[booji_girl]

You can use the day checking part but set the "same day shipping" to "not offered" in the drop down:

The impossibly tiny and light gray print at the bottom says: Select the time by which you must receive cleared payment for an order to qualify for same business day handling. Your delivery estimates depend on your selected working days, separate from same-day cut-off times. The time it takes you to dispatch is set when creating a listing. Learn more about these settings here.

It's a pretty poorly designed table with a weirdly hard to read important seeming info at the bottom, but I think this all means you can at least set your work days without messing with the same day time cutoff issue. 

I'd also really like to know if I am wrong or if other unforeseen problems arise from this, and if anyone knows where to specify that Postal Holidays should not be counted.

[wastingtime101]

---

@booji_girl wrote:

I'd also really like to know if I am wrong or if other unforeseen problems arise from this, and if anyone knows where to specify that Postal Holidays should not be counted.

---

Postal holidays are automatically factored in. One unforeseen problem came with a seller I helped a few months ago. They had Sunday checked off but no other days - did not realize it. They wanted to know why their 1 day handling time was showing such long estimated delivery dates (EDDs) to buyers. It's because their settings on that page said they ship only on Sundays. So eBay was adding a week to all their EDDs, but there was no orange flag on the listing because their handling time was short.

Not the only seller I've seen affected by that, which is why one of my first questions to the OP here was to check their settings on that page.

If a seller has no boxes checked on that page, eBay will default to M-F as standard when calculating EDDs.

I agree with you the page is not intuitive and such important info should not be in fine print at the bottom; it should be in regular sized font at minimum, and possibly moved to the top for more clarity @booji_girl .

[booji_girl]

Thanks for the reply! I've noticed eBay telling my buyers their expected delivery date is Saturday for USPS Media Mail and Ground Advantage, which doesn't seem right to me. It also sometimes tells me something must be shipped by Saturday or Sunday even though the buyer already picked a USPS shipping method and I literally never use any other service and have only USPS shipping in business policies; that's why I filled in the working days page but it didn't seem to help. It also doesn't seem they counted 12/25/23 nor 1/1/24 in the estimate for a couple of my sales, but I've also had holidays such as last Thanksgiving that did seem to be automatically considered, even though the shipping methods are the same and I haven't changed any of my settings between then and now.

That's why I've been skeptical they are consistently, properly counting these things even though I know they claim they do in multiple places.  It's especially important to me because I am in Hawaii and almost all my orders are going to the US mainland. Between the time difference often eating up 1 of my handling days, and the fact they consistently underestimate expected transit time for HI-mainland delivery, it almost always shows unrealistic estimates to my customers and I feel bad misleading them (I mention it in the item descriptions but people don't always read that, or even realize I can't change the dates ebay shows them). I don't get how they're coming up with these dates when they often don't match the USPS tracking page, and also surely they have the statistical info to know the real average transit time?

I guess the best solution would probably be to increase my handling time to longer than just 3 business days? Sorry I've been so long winded, the inconsistency and mystery of it all means I have been researching this and puzzling over it a lot. 

[booji_girl]

---

I guess the best solution would probably be to increase my handling time to longer than just 3 business days? Sorry I've been so long winded, the inconsistency and mystery of it all means I have been researching this and puzzling over it a lot. 

---

            Since I wrote that, I have also learned that eBay Help [https://www.ebay.com/help/ship-track/ship-track-selling/estimated-delivery-dates] recommends using shipping rate tables to specify "get it by" dates, but I'm very hesitant to do that because it seems like it could easily cause unforeseen consequences. Does anyone have good/bad experiences trying to do things that way?

            One last solution for the Holiday thing could be using the time off option, but that seems a bit excessive since at least in my experience the "not excluding holidays" thing is inconsistent, and aside from the time sink of setting up vacations just in case, it seems it could also cause unnecessary complications. It might be worth it as insurance though if you are sure you absolutely must not be required to do anything re: ebay on the day in question.

[wastingtime101]

Hey @booji_girl - do not set up those rate tables for "get it by" dates! Not worth getting into detail, but trust me on that. There are some tech issues with it right now.

That working days page came up again today with another seller (link).

This part of what you said is concerning:

It also sometimes tells me something must be shipped by Saturday or Sunday; that's why I filled in the working days page but it didn't seem to help.

Are you willing to send me a private message with item numbers where the ship by date is/was off and screenshots so I can help you diagnose this problem? If so, just click on my username above then use the private message feature through this board (not through eBay messages).

[booji_girl]

Thank you so much for the fast and informative response, I was 99.9% sure it would be a bad idea but now I can just fully forget about it. 

Also, thanks for the incredibly generous offer to message you some examples! I definitely want to do that, but I have some other pressing things I have to do first (by chance noticed a couple of new weird problems with previously fine, live listings, so I'm searching for any more just in case).