Just a rant:
Okay, so I am both a buyer and a seller, and a staunch defender of both Ebay and the USPS. I've had long relationships with both, and despite having a few horror stories that would blow your mind and quite possibly infuriate you (including animal cruelty stuff, stuff involving Homeland Security, etc.), I have also tried Ebay's and USPS's competitors and found them inferior in various ways. The old standby's are flawed but as close to flawless as is available, in my view. Whenever we see someone spazzing out about Ebay, making sweeping hyperbolic statements about how horrible it is (as a whole), it's almost always either a newbie furious about something that was their own ignorant mistake, or a very long-time seller who is sick of adapting to an ever-evolving platform. Yes, the policies make selling harder and less lucrative than it used to be, but there are ways to optimize around the changes if you are willing to be nimble. As for USPS, the sweeping statements often come with political attachments that really have nothing to do with what's going on with this or that package.
All that said, there is one thing both entities do that drives me a bit nuts, and the past several months have really brought it to the fore: the binary nature of lateness, that is, something either happens "on time" or "late"; there is no regard for HOW late, unless it is SO late that a claim of utter failure can be made. All the time in-between those two dates is just "oh well", and people behave accordingly.
Here's how that looks with the USPS: Okay so you know how tracking predicts a delivery date, which you can see on the website. That date stays there for the next few days, but if enough movement doesn't occur early enough, then it switches to "Arriving Late." That is bad, bad news. Why? Because now, it's not likely to be only a day or two late, but many days or even weeks late. This is because once that switch occurs (automatically), whichever facility currently possesses the package has lost all incentive to hurry and move it along. They are judged internally (and awarded bonuses or punished with chew-outs or whatever) based entirely on numbers of packages delivered ON TIME. Once a package (or whole bin full of packages) no longer has any chance of on-time delivery, because it has sat at the facility for too long, the workers might as well focus on bins that just came in that day, as they could still make it on time. The backlog will be dealt with 'whenever', and the customer has no right to demand anything until 30-60 days, depending on the shipping tier. If it's First Class (or 'lesser') tier, the package could be lost forever with no compensation.
One thing we've all been noticing them doing in recent times is to put off doing the Acceptance scan...for a day...two days....three days, or more. That's because the 'on time' clock officially starts the moment they are documented as having possession of the package. It's not THEIR fault if the customer "didn't" hand it over until days after creating the label, right?
Except.......Ebay WILL consider it the seller's fault, and so will the buyer who is also watching tracking. It doesn't matter when the seller actually handed over the package, if they have no proof. Okay I KNOW what the answer is to this problem: The seller must "put on their big kid pants" and rather than use Scheduled Pickup or just put the labeled packages on the counter at the post office, they must wait in line and then demand that the counter clerk do the acceptance scan right then and there. Now I have some BIG big kid pants, I will do all kinds of bending over backwards for my buyers, but my post office is TINY and the woman who works the counter is MEAN. I am not about to stand with other customers hump-to-rump during a pandemic when I don't even have health insurance, and try to make Cruella do what I tell her to do. This woman hates me already, after I narc'ed on her for throwing a box of live fish across the room (no, that's not even the animal cruelty story I mentioned, lol).
And as for Ebay, they have (almost) the same binary assessment of what 'lateness' means. They do at least differentiate between overstepping your handling time versus package arriving on time, but in both cases, the date is still an either/or thing, success or failure, no matter of degree beyond failure. And this, I have noticed a lot lately as a buyer. When a seller has some sense of helplessness (or excuse because of Covid, depending on what kind of person they are), they are more inclined to put off shipping, because well it's all just a big mess now anyway. Except.....they do have my money, and I have nothing. The longer they wait to even buy a shipping label...the longer they wait to give the package over.....the longer the USPS takes to deliver.....the more frustrating it is, as a buyer.
And so much of this is because of the way both companies regard time, only one date is sacred; any day after that is 'oh well.'
