How much allowance to give on COVID/Holiday Shipping Delays

[ben_hutcherson]

I know this year has been a ridiculous year as far as shipping times. I had trouble over the summer, it got better, and then since November it's gotten insane again. I know this is a problem, as I've seen it both on stuff I bought and stuff I sold. I'm not discounting this. I also know that tracking within the USPS has fallen apart, and have bought multiple items where the ONLY scan I've seen is the delivery scan(one not even an acceptance scan) and others where I've only seen sporadic movement scans along the way. Even though I watch them, I've kept the faith that they'll eventually show up, and generally I'll at least see a scan into the sorting facility into the neighboring big city and know it will show up a day or two later.

At the same time, though, as a buyer I'm running into some purchases where I'm butting up against things like packages falling off the face of the earth and I'm getting close to things like guarantee deadlines.

One particular one is an international purchase, Germany to the US. I bought and paid Nov. 8th, it has an acceptance scan Nov. 11th, and quite literally has shown nothing since then. This particular item gave an estimated delivery date of Nov. 17th-Dec. 4th. I knew buying that date wasn't at all realistic, but had hoped it would at least arrive by the end of the year.

BTW, I've made well over $1K in international purchases on Ebay since October(a lot of the stuff I'm buying/collecting these days shows up in the condition/variant I want overseas). I'm not a stranger to shipping time. Right now, on Ebay and off, I have around $700 of purchased items still in transit from overseas. This item referenced above is the only outstanding one I have on Ebay, is around $100. I've made purchases since that have arrived.

Should I cut more slack, or is it time to start pushing on this? I don't want to be "that guy" since I know this is out of the sellers control, but at the same time this is a lot of money and I'm running out of time on things like the money back guarantee.

[khaos-motorsports]

There really is no rhyme or reason to which package is going to take 2 days or 2 months when it comes to using USPS as the shipping carrier. We've had international orders delivered within a week, while others have taken 2-1/2 months. If the package was scanned in the US, then it really is not on the seller, but USPS. Have you contacted USPS about the issue? Sometimes filing a missing mail search through them will help get the ball moving. I would also suggest contacting the seller to see if there is anything that they can do on their end. Moving forward you could also request that the seller not use USPS for the carrier. This will end up costing you more $ on the purchase, but you should receive the order much quicker compared to USPS. I don't know if you have read much on the forums about USPS shipping issues, but some sellers are having to deal with 200+ item not received cases due to issues at USPS. Hopefully you receive your package soon and are able to get this sorted!

[ben_hutcherson]

Thanks.

Yes, I know this is 100% in the hands of USPS and not the seller's fault. I have contacted them, especially since in this case it hasn't been scanned by USPS so I'm assuming the only thing that can be done is on the Dutch Post end.

I know too that USPS is nutty even when it comes to domestic first class letters. As a prime example, although not directly relevant, I got married in October(obviously with a scaled down ceremony). We still mailed around 100 invitations, although most had a politely phrased "We want you there but you can't actually come" card in them instead of an RSVP card. We mailed at the end of June, and the last arrived two weeks after the wedding.

Given the option, I will choose a non-USPS carrier for domestic and international. In fact, I've made a ton of orders from-another website-in the past couple of months because that particular website primarily ships by their own service and even if delivery dates are a little fuzzy I know it will be within a day or two of when they say.

Finally, as another little anecdote, back in November I bought something from a seller in Japan. Within a few hours of buying, I got a message that said(paraphrasing) "Sorry, but we're not sending by Japan post now due to shipping delays and unpredictability. We use a UPS shipping partner that charges $27. Do you want the item still, or do you want a refund?" My response-"Do you have items X, Y, and Z also?' They had two of those three(not inexpensive items BTW, one was $100 and the other $200), and I said "Okay, to get the most for my shipping money, I'll buy those also." Shipping time was exactly 10 days, and I've made two additional purchases from this seller since then(all of them multi-item orders, usually when I needed one small inexpensive item they were selling).

[password9019]

The party most responsible, imo, is eBay.  Nothing else.  eBay has one of the most advanced search engines in the world, okay?  It has the full capability to allow immense amounts of uploaded listings, yet restrict their visibility in search results.  But corporate greed raised its ugly head again, didn't it?

You don't think that senior management and eBay executives got together with the USPS top officials months ago, and discussed the impending bottleneck?  How to manage each entity's affairs in a way as to conceal responsibility, pass off accountability, and to make sure that insurance companies representing either side, would not have to start paying out?

Of course it was discussed- all of the above mentioned, because eBay had zero intention of limiting the visibility of items in search results.  On top of that, eBay did absolutely nothing to curtail - temporarily or otherwise - the volume of uploads sellers could manage.  No 'robo-seller' software became restricted, no search result limited., no alteration or modifications to seller limitations in general. And you'd be surprised to know what eBay is currently doing, to aid sellers in avoiding having to play by its own rules, in the instances of INR case openings.

eBay knew all along what it was going to do:  Everything shows, all things must go! 

eBay to USPS:  Great job, happy holidays, keep up the good work (and keep that insurance money in your pocket!

Tell me again how eBay is chiefly not responsible for the massive waves of INR's, and its complicit involvement in trying to 'make it all go way'?