Wanting some feedback here as to how to proceed with a potential bug with my shipping policies.
Background: My store uses a standard set of roughly 5 different shipping policies depending on item size.
-All of these policies use a standard flat rate (+$1 for each additional) - no calculated shipping
-These policies were originally set to use "USPS Parcel Select (5 to 7 Business Days)" as the delivery service
-These policies are all setup to offer combined shipping. Meaning - any buyer can add any item from any listing using these 5 policies to cart and the system will automatically give them a combined rate.
On September 30, 2023 USPS discontinued Parcel Select in favor of the new Ground Advantage Service, as stated in the following announcement:
"Listings on eBay offering:
Parcel Select Ground
- Listings have been updated to reflect Ground Advantage. You don’t need to do anything."
The trouble is, I DID need to do something. Around February 2024, I noticed my late shipment rate climbed to above 2% (whereas originally it was around 0.5%). Looking into this further, I noticed the late packages were taking 6-7 business days to be delivered. Looking at my shipping policies, I noticed the service "USPS Parcel Select (5 to 7 Business Days)" had been replaced with "USPS Ground Advantage (2 to 5 Business Days)":
Bingo! This was the reason my late shipment rate was climbing - the delivery speed had been adjusted despite the fact the service had simply been renamed.
The Problem: To counteract the rise in late shipment rate, and give my buyers a more accurate estimate of delivery timeframe, I chose the "Economy Shipping (1 to 10 business days)" Service in all 5 policies:
This change was made on Feb 28th, 2024 to the 5 shipping policies used by roughly 600 listings. The problem is, this change in service never reflected in any of the listings using these policies.
I only discovered this after losing Top Rated on my March 20th evaluation due to late shipment rate climbing above 3%. Looking at my listings using these policies, they all still show Standard Shipping (Ground Advantage) as the service. This is despite the fact that Economy Shipping (1 to 10 business days) is selected:
I have edited the policy, reapplied it to all affected listings multiple times, and am still completely unable to change the delivery service to anything other than Standard Shipping (Ground Advantage).
Has anyone else experienced this issue, and if so, what did you do to resolve it? As these policies are all setup to communicate with each-other to offer combined shipping, I am hesitant to go and manually create new policies for each of the 600 listings. But maybe there is a work-around I do not know of?
1 BEST ANSWER
Accepted Solutions
The shipping service you use has nothing to do with getting defects for late shipping.
If you ship within your handling time you wouldn't receive any defects for late shipping regardless of how long it takes for the item to be delivered.
I looked at one of your listings you have 1 Day handling time, which means you must ship within 24 hours ( next business day) upload tracking and receive an acceptance scan within your handling time.
If you are getting defects for late shipping, you aren't shipping within 1 day you need to change your handling time if you can't ship on time.
eBay looks at transactions for the past 3 months for Tracking uploaded and validated. So the item you shipped on March 14th won't be evaluated until the 20th of next month.
Go to your seller dashboard open Tracking uploaded and validated then click get full report as shown in the image below to see what transactions where shipped late.
I don't get your issue.
Almost all my sales give underestimated delivery expectation.
To avoid late shipment rate you simply need to get validated shipping. The delivery doesn't matter as long as you handled on time.
Or are you talking about something else ?
Sorry if I rambled a bit in the original post. The problem I'm experiencing is simple: I have "Economy Shipping" selected in my shipping policy, however, "Standard Shipping" only reflects in the listing using that policy. See below:
Shipping policy:
Listing:
The delivery estimate is indeed not the 1-10 business days chosen, but the 2-5 business days for Standard shipping. This is causing all orders to be marked late as I am currently using a service that cannot meet the 2-5 day timeframe. I am still unable to make the listing reflect the changes made in the actual policy it uses.
Are you by chance referring to the "Tracking uploaded on time and validated" metric? If so, mine currently sits at 99.5%, so I am shipping items out within my handling time. Yet, they are still being marked late. Take, for example, this order which was placed on March 14th:
Despite being shipped within 24 hours and delivered within 7 business days, it still showed up as a late shipment defect. If the proper service actually was reflected in the listing (1-10 business days Economy Shipping), this would have been fine. However, since Standard Shipping (2-5 business days) is still reflecting on the listing, the 7 days it actually took cause the order to be marked late.
The shipping service you use has nothing to do with getting defects for late shipping.
If you ship within your handling time you wouldn't receive any defects for late shipping regardless of how long it takes for the item to be delivered.
I looked at one of your listings you have 1 Day handling time, which means you must ship within 24 hours ( next business day) upload tracking and receive an acceptance scan within your handling time.
If you are getting defects for late shipping, you aren't shipping within 1 day you need to change your handling time if you can't ship on time.
eBay looks at transactions for the past 3 months for Tracking uploaded and validated. So the item you shipped on March 14th won't be evaluated until the 20th of next month.
Go to your seller dashboard open Tracking uploaded and validated then click get full report as shown in the image below to see what transactions where shipped late.
I really appreciate the reply and explaining how the late shipment defects are applied! I was unaware of the fact that if you do ship within 24 hours, the actual delivery date is irrelevant.
My original question (and reason for making this post) still remains though: I am still totally unable to make any changes to the delivery service used in any of my listings using these 5 policies. No matter what service I select (Economy, Expedited, etc..) Standard shipping still reflects in the listing. This is important because my buyers are getting a totally wrong impression about when they are going to receive their items!
Example from policy:
Listing using the policy:
In this example,.the buyer is getting a totally wrong estimate of when the package is going to be delivered. The actual delivery time (up to 10 business days) is approximately double the shown delivery time! I have tried reassigning policies, and having the listing use a new policy, and nomatter what it still shows Standard Shipping. Does anyone have any insight as to why this might be?
