Frustrated with EDDs

[wastingtime101]

Just a vent - skip this one if that annoys you.

I'm frustrated with eBay EDDs (estimated delivery dates).

I offer 1 biz day shipping on most items. All my sales coming in today, Fri Nov 22 are scheduled to ship Mon Nov 25.

I do not ship on Saturdays. I do not have Saturday set as a working day.

While I will ship an occasional item same day if the order comes in after midnight and I'm finishing outgoing packages early the next AM, it's not a habit of mine to ship same day so that should not be a factor here in eBay using "historical" handling time.

Nearly everything goes out next day (or 2nd day for some categories). eBay has no valid reason to tell my buyers placing orders today, Friday, that they should expect to receive their package on Monday.

Some of these packages have quite a distance to travel and since Thursday is a holiday they are not likely to receive those items until next Friday at the earliest. Buyers living closer may get them on Wednesday.

At the Nov 14 Seller Check In the eBay shipping team strongly emphasized how diligently they are working on EDDs and I can say with honesty I believe that because I see how EDDs will be cushioned during weather events, etc. It's clear to me eBay actively monitors and makes adjustments.

But today? Something is amiss with EDDs today and it's frustrating as we're in the midst of holiday.

I feel like I'm being set up to fail and my buyers are being set up for disappointment. We all know buyers lean on that first day of the EDD window and tend to ignore the last day.

/end rant

[bennotbill]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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You know I would have been all over that mystery. Was it recent @bennotbill ?

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That one was a year or so ago.

But you could fill up the forum with EDD inconsistencies and errors. On the UK forum when a page full of really obvious EDD errors were posted the reps always quoted the same answer. Which did become a catchphrase to poke fun at. All they constantly said was "It's working as designed".

[wastingtime101]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

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As @wastingtime101 said, lately it's been taking USPS 2 days for a package to even be delivered to your neighbor.

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Indeed. This is just a guess, but I'd wager USPS is not giving eBay realistic EDD based on zone, so eBay grabs info from USPS and tacks it on to the seller's "historical" handling time and that's where a lot of the estimates come from. Then we'll sometimes see longer estimates when eBay grants extensions to factor in weather / regional delays.

USPS needs to do a better job of clarifying 2-5 days to zones 1-3, but move out further and it becomes 3-6 days or 4-7 days or whatever. It's not at all realistic to tell buyers their Ground Adv package will make it coast-to-coast within 2 days on the short end. While that can happen if something gets put on a plane with extra room, that is definitely the exception to the rule.

Then there are issues when you bring Alaska, Hawaii, etc into the picture. Stuff travels on a slow ship instead of traveling by air and can go several weeks with no tracking scans, but the EDDs are looking at air travel of just a few days. They need a way to say if weight is over 1lb, or if the package is labeled hazmat, EDDs for Ground Adv will be based on transport by ship.

To make the hazmat thing happen, sellers would need a way to flag an item as hazmat at the listing level, otherwise the system couldn't extend the EDD until after the label is purchased - and if the label is purchased off eBay the system wouldn't even have a way to see it was hazmat.

[simba6]

Buyers want to know even if there is no way to.    Even fortune tellers won't tell you when your package will arrive.

[bennotbill]

We were told by reps on the forum that one of the factors in determining the EDD was distance. That if your buyer is two miles away it will reach them quicker than if they were a hundred miles away.

As replies to this rightly said that's nonsense. As the parcel won't just travel two miles as it has to go first to the sorting depot then on to the buyer, which maybe a long round trip. No doubt a lot longer in the States.

[fbusoni]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I offer 1 biz day shipping on most items. All my sales coming in today, Fri Nov 22 are scheduled to ship Mon Nov 25.

Nearly everything goes out next day (or 2nd day for some categories). eBay has no valid reason to tell my buyers placing orders today, Friday, that they should expect to receive their package on Monday.

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@wastingtime101 

In blue above, you first mention Monday as the ship-by date, and then later, Monday as the EDD.

For Friday orders, I am always asked to ship by Monday. 

But I have never had Monday alone set as an EDD.   

Are you saying that that is what you are receiving from eBay?

For example, I got an order last night which shows an EDD of 11/25 - 11/29.  

I will ship today (Saturday), but the buyer -- who lives across the country -- will know that he won't receive his book before Friday at the earliest.

PS: just saw your message here... glad to know it was a glitch:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping/Frustrated-with-EDDs/m-p/34793873/highlight/true#M492820

[wastingtime101]

Yeah, but that doesn't mean all my morning orders were fixed @fbusoni - it just means the afternoon orders are OK. All those morning orders from yesterday have an EDD starting Monday. You might have missed where I said, "We all know buyers lean on that first day of the EDD window and tend to ignore the last day."

The fact that next week has a holiday makes it a rough situation, especially if those buyers are counting on getting those items before Thanksgiving and will be upset to find out they won't receive them until after.

[isatwin74]

My tracking shows(was shipped today as this is a Thanksgiving item) Arrives Wed, Dec 4 - Tue, Dec 10 and it also says ship by Dec 9th lol.  I have 1 business day shipping.  Item is going 1 state away from me.

[wastingtime101]

I thought it was a glitch that cleared up, but the next day I was proven wrong. Since the week before Thanksgiving eBay keeps showing my buyers impossible EDDs.

Here's [screenshot below] one of countless examples from the weekend. Buyer purchased late Saturday night. Item is shipping today, Monday. eBay tells buyer to expect it by tomorrow, Tuesday, at the front end of the delivery range.

I cannot ship a package to myself and receive it the next day. At minimum it will take 2 days to myself, even for Priority.

Ground Adv to zone 5 won't get there in a day. Three-four days maybe, and that's only because this package is not going through Indianapolis, Charleston or San Antonio.

Those 3 cities are where packages go to sit. And sit. And sit some more.

If I could afford to close my shop down right now I would. eBay's making this month unnecessarily difficult with their unrealistic EDDs.

[wastingtime101]

Orders placed today, Friday Dec 13th, with 1 biz day handling will ship on Monday Dec 16th.

Buyers should not be told their orders, shipped Ground Adv, will arrive Mon Dec 16th.

eBay, you are setting our buyers up for disappointment. Stop showing false EDDs!

[wastingtime101]

I purchased an item Wed Feb 5
4 biz day handling

Seller shipped 1 day early on Mon Feb 10

eBay original EDD Feb 10-14

Carrier current estimate Feb 13 (who knows if that will stick or if the package will get held up in the middle of the country for a week).

I know how eBay works, but if I didn't, I'd have looked at the tracking update as a buyer that said shipped Feb 10, and wondered if the seller was playing games shipping late since I was originally shown Feb 10 estimated delivery.

The point of posting this is to say:

I understand why buyers are constantly sending semi-hostile messages to sellers about shipping late and when are you going to ship. From the buying side of things it looks bad.

[lakefor94]

From the financial side of things, ebay figures getting the buyer to purchase is pretty much all that matters. The seller can deal with any disappointments ......

[wastingtime101]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I offer 1 biz day shipping on most items. All my sales coming in today, Fri Nov 22 are scheduled to ship Mon Nov 25. I do not ship on Saturdays. I do not have Saturday set as a working day.

eBay has no valid reason to tell my buyers placing orders today, Friday, that they should expect to receive their package on Monday.

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By the way, this ^^ is still happening every Friday. Buyers ordering items Friday, scheduled to ship Monday with Ground Adv, are shown EDDs of either Monday or Tuesday.

eBay appears to be counting Saturday as a working day for EDDs (not for ship by dates), even though it's not set as a working day in my account settings.

That buyer, in zone 8, is not getting their package today, Tues the 11th. USPS current estimate is Friday the 14th and that's if the package doesn't get held up in the middle of the country where the operational delays are a mess.

I will give eBay props because the tail end of the EDD is Feb 18th which shows eBay has extended dates to account for some of these regional delays! Thank you for that, eBay. It's just too bad the front end of the EDD window, the most important date in setting buyer expectations, is a big fat lie.

Package arriving in 1 day to zone 8 with Ground Adv ... and then I woke up. 🙄

[wastingtime101]

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@lakefor94 wrote:

From the financial side of things, ebay figures getting the buyer to purchase is pretty much all that matters. The seller can deal with any disappointments ......

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I agree, but it's a flawed way of thinking. It's not just the seller that deals with it when the buyer gets upset and says they'll do all their shopping on Amazon.

[lakefor94]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@lakefor94 wrote:

From the financial side of things, ebay figures getting the buyer to purchase is pretty much all that matters. The seller can deal with any disappointments ......

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I agree, but it's a flawed way of thinking. It's not just the seller that deals with it when the buyer gets upset and says they'll do all their shopping on Amazon.

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Copy that. There are quite a few skeptical processes  eBay fosters that we think are flawed.

I will leave those for another thread.

It is tough for others to compete on delivery times with a company that runs their own delivery fleet.

[babclassics]

What can we do about this?  eBay needs to change at the very least their earliest EDD for at least ground advantage!  Am having all the same problems you talk about in posts above and elsewhere.  Orders on Friday night and Saturday are especially bad unless i get out to the post office on Saturday and ship "early" to try to counter act the delivery EDD after 1 day of required ship date.

I have talked about this with ebay for business on facebook and while they are quick to remove bad metrics and remove negative feedback on these shipments, it seems there is nothing they can do about the EDDs being impossible.

Thanks for all your writing about these problems, it is good to at least know I am not alone 🙂