eBay

wereskrull · ‎07-03-2022

Why do sellers constantly mark items as "shipped" when they haven't actually shipped it? Doesn't "shipped" mean "in the possession of delivery service"?

Why is it such common practice to tell a buyer that their order has shipped when it isn't seen by USPS/UPS/FedEx until several days later?

Is this ebay? Does printing a shipping label automatically make purchases "shipped"? Or is it something else?

mtgraves7984 · ‎07-03-2022

Is this ebay? Does printing a shipping label automatically make purchases "shipped"? Or is it something else?

@wereskrull

A common complaint, and yes, it's eBay. I think better verbiage would be 'Shipping label created', or the like. Hang in there.

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mtgraves7984 · ‎07-03-2022

Is this ebay? Does printing a shipping label automatically make purchases "shipped"? Or is it something else?

@wereskrull

A common complaint, and yes, it's eBay. I think better verbiage would be 'Shipping label created', or the like. Hang in there.

paulhua3 · ‎07-03-2022

@wereskrull wrote:

Does printing a shipping label automatically make purchases "shipped"?

Yes. When a label is printed, eBay marks the item as shipped.

stainlessenginecovers · ‎07-03-2022

Since money is paid for a shipping label by the seller, for the label to be created, creating a tracking number which requires the weight and most times, package size, and therefore is packaged and ready to start 'phase 2' of the shipping process- therefore it is the beginning of the shipping process.

Yes, they can change it to 'label/tracking number created' but even according to USPS, when a tracking number is created, they recognize it.

1tuna · ‎07-03-2022

this is a very common question on the forum

if you actually take the time to google the number and use the link for usps you will get one example

if you use the link thru ebay for tracking it says something a little bit different.

the verbiage is a little bit different than it used to be due to so many complaints

many times it will say that usps is expecting the package after a label has been created

when a seller uses ebay shipping its all marked shipped by ebay, not the seller

@wereskrull

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yuzuha · ‎07-03-2022

@wereskrull wrote:
Why is it such common practice to tell a buyer that their order has shipped when it isn't seen by USPS/UPS/FedEx until several days later?

Because that's what 99% of companies do. I placed an order on another website a couple of weeks ago; I got a "Your order has shipped" email but when I clicked on the tracking link it just said "A shipping label has been created" until the next day, when it was actually shipped.

abertolli · ‎07-03-2022

You can put in your own tracking number as long as it has the right format. In fact I have one item right now that was marked as shipped, and when I look up the tracking number it appears to be bogus. (Not shipping label created.)

simba6 · ‎07-03-2022

s this ebay? Does printing a shipping label automatically make purchases "shipped"? Or is it something else?

That is it ! Yes eBay marks it shipped the instant the seller pays for the shipping label. The seller has no control over that, can't be turned off. Sellers would love to stop that as it makes buyers unhappy.

susand24224 · ‎07-03-2022

Ebay automatically reports payment for a label as "shipped," as do most other companies. This irritates me as well, because often it can be days before the item makes it to the post office or other shipping outlet. I always send an email to the purchaser saying exactly when I am delivering to the post office.

themath_64 · ‎07-03-2022

@yuzuha wrote:
@wereskrull wrote:
Why is it such common practice to tell a buyer that their order has shipped when it isn't seen by USPS/UPS/FedEx until several days later?
Because that's what 99% of companies do. I placed an order on another website a couple of weeks ago; I got a "Your order has shipped" email but when I clicked on the tracking link it just said "A shipping label has been created" until the next day, when it was actually shipped.

I bolded the part that is the difference between online companies and some sellers on Ebay which is why this question is asked so much. Digikey, Mouser, Newark, Amazon... They all generate a tracking number before courier acceptance, but the courier gets the package the next day. Then there are some sellers on ebay who think getting the package to the courier in the 1-2 days they themselves claim they do is optional. I had one experience with a seller who claimed domestic stock, but it was taking so long it was going to miss the delivery window (a week before a deadline I had for a project). After many messages back and forth where the seller tells me to "be patient" because its "in transit" I was able to open and win my INR dispute (at which point he offered "express shipping"- but isn't it already in transit?) before the tracking updated beyond "label generated". In the end I refused delivery since I got my money back.

Don't take this to mean I'm talking about every ebay seller. I've found several absolutely stellar sellers who have proven turn around time track records. But there is enough of a contingent of sellers doing things "wrong" combined with regular companies doing things right that this question keeps coming up.

quicksilverdiecast · ‎07-04-2022

Don't blame the sellers, it is entirely eBay fault, they have shipping so screwed up now that it is not funny. The reason it is like this is that ebay tries to make sellers jump thru hoops that they have NO CONTROL over! Here is how it goes on the sellers end. A buyer makes a purchase(we will use a single item in this case, because they have really screwed up combined shipping and the "Cart", more on this later) and pays for the purchase, the purchased items shows up in the sellers "SOLD" chart...now here is where it gets good...ebay now forces sellers to upload the shipping label(tracking) within the time limit window, which is set by the seller when listing the item under the "Shipping and Handling" time by selecting the number of days, for the sake of simple explanation we will say the seller chooses 3 days, which means the seller has a "padded" window set in place to get the label printed(tracking) by generating postage within that 3 day period, however this does not mean that the seller cannot generate the label sooner(in my case I have a 10 day "pad" but in most cases I ship the same day maybe two, as I have always done) Once the label is generated it automatically sends the "tracking" info to the buyer, leading the buyer to ASSUME that the item has been shipped and is in the hands of a carrier, while not necessarily true as the seller has 3 days to get it into the carriers hands, even though the labels has been generated. The second part is even worse in that when the item has actually been shipped(any time within that 3 day "Pad") THEN ebay decided that the seller is responsible for "controlling" the carrier as if the seller actually owned the carrier and can control all the hows whys and whatevers within the carrier, this part of the shipping is derived from the fact that the carrier has actually scanned the item(now keep in mind that the seller has absolutely NO CONTROL whatsoever over the carrier, and in USPS case for example it is a crap shoot, sometimes they scan it sometimes they do not, in the case of a seller who moves a lot of product, in my case sometimes as many as 100 parcels at a time that is in a container, you have carriers who simply dump the items into the truck and buzz off down the road, yet USPS policy is to scan it when and where it is in their hands LOL! I have questioned the carriers and they say they do not have the time to scan them in as the branch sets a time limit on the carriers to complete their route or they get written up(this is one issue) the second issue is alternate and or subs carriers of whom I have witnessed actually set around the outgoing parcels to put incoming mail in the box and then scamper off leaving all the parcels setting there(again remember the seller is supposed to be able to control USPS and how they run their business) I cannot tell you how many times this happens, as well as you never know if the parcels were scanned at the branch when the carrier dumps it all in the truck and "supposedly" scans at the branch, to which again numerous times they were not and just sent along the way until it reaches a main terminal. This sets in motion demerits for the seller as in ebays eyes it was not shipped within their parameters (even though it was, but not scanned by USPS) (I have called USPS over this numerous times about the ebay "Policies" and they simply laugh and say well then tell ebay to deliver the parcels themselves!)So the while the seller has done everything WITHIN his control he believes everything is fine, while the buyer who has erroneously assumed that as soon as the tracking number shows up to them is wondering what is going on when they see no movement of tracking and then begins bombarding the seller as to "where is my order" which can be a problem if the seller ships out numerous parcels daily from being constantly being bombarded by buyers, which in a lot of cases do not read the item descriptions "handling times" and assumes that as soon as it was paid for it better be on the way then. Ebay does not explain this to the buyers and what they do show leaves a lot to be desired, and simply lets the seller take the heat. This will also set into motion on each parcel in question of the seller having to figure out which variable has caused what to happen, which can take up a lot of time trying to figure it out himself. Most sellers take pride in running their own business and try to do their best, while like everything else you have a few who to put it nicely do not. So when you run into this situation it is 99% due to ebays hoops that back sellers into. NOW onto ebays wonderful cart system. Here again this is due to ebay brilliant idea. to put it into simple terms so one can actually understand(both buyers and sellers) Imagine going grocery shopping(buyers) and filling up your "cart" with all the items you want and you head down the check out isle(sellers) (here is where it gets good) once in the cashiers isle(buyer) ebay gets in the middle and will not let the buyer show the seller what is in the cart!, yet does NOT advise either of us(buyer or seller) of this. Now the buyer ASSUMES that since it is in the cart the seller can see it and process it, (common sense tells you this) however NOT SO and the seller has no clue you the buyer even has a cart filled with items with money in hand ready to buy! You the buyer get frustrated on not getting a combined total, and will do a number of things, #1 send a message to the seller wanting to know what is up with his order?(while the seller has no idea of the buyer, nor ever would have if he would not have messaged the seller) #2 get mad and blame the seller for not combining his order and leading to a potential neg feedback. #3 simply goes away to find and buy his needs somewhere else, possible to even another platform, giving unfairly the seller a bad reputation and doubtful to ever come back to buy from you again! (caused by ebay) The seller loses the sale and brilliantly ebay loses any fees as well( sellers should be able to charge ebay for the lost sale and provide a feedback on how ebay handled the transaction) I cannot tell you how many times I have had to deal with all of this as well as calling ebay to no avail. International shipping is even worse on combining by blocking both seller and buyer from combining items entirely! you the seller wants 5 different items, ebay demands you pay shipping on each item, rather than combining into one parcel with one shipping rate! Again don't blame the seller....yet I have on a number of times found an international order somehow mysteriously combined and paid for! (you really cannot have it both ways ebay) Now no buyer in his right state of mind is going to pay excessive shipping costs again causing loss of sales because of ebay, Now I have on occasion when time permits and IF the buyer messages me will take all the items he wanted and generate and entirely new listing as a package deal for that buyer only with everything listed in the description and send the item number back to the buyer so he can make a sensible purchase. Now this can take considerable time to do on a single buyer muchless 3-4 or more buyers! But would not be necessary if ebay would stay out of the shipping end of it. here is a message this morning I got from a buyer that pretty much sums it up "Hi, I tried ebay-cart. There is no option for combined shipping and they ask for about $50 to ship 5 decals... :-(" So now I have to set down and have to figure this one out as well as a work around ebays redtape. This is NOT something that happens once in while, it is on going daily. I have been with ebay long enough that it was not always this way and worked fine letting the sellers control the aspects of shipping, however someone decided to fix something that was not broken. One would think Both buyers and sellers that when changing something that ebay would test it out before hand ( I would suggest grabbing someone off the street and set them down and say we want you to try out our idea and see if you can buy anything and as many items as you want, and if the "buyer" who knows nothing about ebay can understand and actually complete the transaction that would be a good thing, rather that just tossing it against the wall and hope it works, and if it doesn't the seller gets to take the heat anyhow) so while not a short answer hopefully I made it easy enough to understand where the real problem lies.

themath_64 · ‎07-04-2022

@quicksilverdiecastI admit I only made it halfway through the text wall, so if you answered my point later on, I apologize.

My issue isn't what you described (as far as I read). I have no issue with a seller who meets their shipping promise. Even if the parcel isn't scanned on reception (which I would like to see happen but I can sort of understand why it doesn't) it will get scanned somewhere in tracking and I can reverse engineer whether or not it was shipped on time.

The issue I have to be as brief as I can is twofold:

1) Ebay gives the impression that the item is considered "shipped" the second a tracking number is generated.

2) Some ebay sellers take advantage of (1) because Ebay has no checks and balances between the label generation and the delivery estimate.

I'll give you an example: Seller and buyer are both in USA. Seller claims item is in the USA or has "USA stock". Seller claims item ships within 2 days after cleared payment and delivery estimate is 7 days. Buyer decides to buy and makes payment. Seller generates a tracking number and sends the number same day. From ebay's point of view, it is "shipped". Because the item is considered shipped (and this is where I have contention over the definition of "shipped") the buyer has no recourse whatsoever until the delivery estimate day has passed. As long as they can get tracking to say something besides "label generated" before the delivery estimate passes, the delivery estimate will update to a new day and you have to wait even longer before being able to file a dispute. If you bought from someone based on their promised ship date and the original delivery estimate, too bad. It gets there when it gets there.

Again, I can understand certain tracking situations like: Seller is in CA, Buyer is in NJ, tracking generated same day, delivery estimate is 7 days and first courier scan is 4 days later is in Chicago. Any rational person can figure out what happened there. What I can't understand is the above seller generating a tracking number and on day 7 the first scan after that is "item received by USPS" in Los Angeles. Its clear they took 7 days to get it to the post office and unless USPS hired Geordi LaForge its not getting to NJ later that day. But again, since there was a scan before the time on the original delivery estimate is up, the delivery estimate updates and the buyer simply as to wait.

Yeah yeah, seller gets dinged for not making delivery estimate, blah blah blah. That doesn't change the fact that a) they didn't ship it when they said and b) I didn't get it when they claimed which was part of the reason I bid/bought in the first place.

As an aside, I'd love to know how the algorithm for not meeting delivery estimates works, because I could see with a high volume seller they keep enough stock in the US to counteract the times where they can't meet it so they have no penalty in reality.

I find the whole "when was it shipped?" thing frustrating because for a vast majority of things I buy from ebay, they are made in China and I can get literally the exact same thing far cheaper from the "express" platform if I'm willing to wait 2.5-3.5 weeks for delivery. Sometimes for a myriad of reasons I cannot wait and I am willing to pay the premium (as in 2x-3x the cost versus buying from China) because if its in the USA and if the seller does indeed ship in the 2 day window they claim, I'll have it in a week or less. The frustration comes in when sellers game the system taking advantage of how ebay defines "shipped" and how they use delivery estimates to get what I call the "USA stock premium" while having it drop shipped (and the associated time penalty for doing so). Bonus frustration for waiting the extra time (and missing a deadline) only for it to not be as described, but that's another topic.

To sum up, I think any rational person can work backwards from when they see a scan update and determine whether or not a seller lived up to what they claimed. The frustration comes in because there are obvious holes created by ebay's definitions and policies that allow unscrupulous sellers to take advantage of people to make a buck.

janet9988 · ‎07-04-2022

The estimated delivery dates starts at the time of PAYMENT from the buyer. It does not matter what tricks the seller uses.

If i purchased/paid an item on Monday and the estimated delivery date shows as Friday that same week...then the item better be delivered by Friday.

themath_64 · ‎07-04-2022

That is my point exactly.

EDIT - I understand courier practices are not within a seller's control, but getting the item to the courier in the time frame they claim to do so is.