I am traveling and cannot ship an order until after the "ship by" date

[rmhasson]

I just left for a 5 day trip and literally an hour after I left I got an order. It is due to "ship by Friday" but I won't be back until 2 days later. Should I order the shipping label and just mail it Monday, or cancel the order and re-do it when I get back so I don't get dinged? 

[popblox · Accepted solution]

Based on the handling time stated in the listing, eBay expects a confirmation scan from you on or before Friday. Unfortunately, you're going to get dinged, regardless of how you go about this one.

To avoid things getting out of hand fast, you should probably reach out to your buyer and explain the situation, apologize, then ask if they can wait a little longer, or if they'd rather cancel the order.

If you haven't already, be sure to change the handling time to at least 5 Days on all your listings before this happens again.

[nobody*s_perfect]

There's no point in purchasing the label early if you're not going to also actually mail it on time.

I agree with the above advice to let the buyer know that the package will be mailed on Monday rather than on Friday (which  after all would technically be just one business day late) and give him the option of canceling due to the late shipment. He probably won't care.

[rmhasson]

already contacted the buyer, they are fine and happy.  And thanks for the tip - will change to 5 days.

[rmhasson]

yes - buyer was contacted and doesn't care. Purchasing the label on Friday will show the item as paid and shipped on that date based on what I have seen from getting orders on late saturdays or Sundays - those times I got the item to post office on Monday.  I guess if I get a ding nothing I can do.

[rmhasson]

UPDATE as of 5 days later. 

Original order came in Tuesday (Aug 3), and I had my settings to ship within 3 days. I set a calendar to remind myself to create the shipping label that was due that Friday (Aug 6) by midnight. I created the shipping label Friday afternoon and printed it and the packing slip to PDF. When I created the label, it asked for a shipping date, so I chose Monday Aug 9. I packed, printed the pdfs, and shipped today (Aug 9), and the package has been scanned as recieved by USPS as of 11am.  I also contacted the buyer and let them know it was shipped today (as I had originally promised them in my initial contact when they bought the item.)

In my seller hub it shows that this was shipped as of Aug 6 (on time), so I am hoping this instance won't show as a ding! I have also gone back and given myself 5 days processing time on all my other listings as suggested above. Thanks for all the advice, and I hope this helps someone else if they get in the same situation.