eBay

221barts · ‎07-30-2021

I am a long term ebay seller and member. I sell mainly books and use the US Postal Service's Media Mail. Over the past year I have had to do a number of refunds due to the inability of the Post Office to deliver Media Mail in a timely fashion. The usual time frame has been 8-10 days. The current time frame is now 4-5 weeks in some parts of the country. I pay for a US Postal product which does not give refunds for poor service. Tracking now gives the phrase, "arriving late," no estimate of how late just this phrase will be used for weeks and weeks on end. The customer gets very angry and takes their complaints and anger to me, regarding a service I can not control. Buyers will often file a "lost book report," which triggers ebay to place me on a time frame to respond. Ebay next takes the sale price of the item out of my bank account and give the seller a refund. I do everything I can to safely wrap books in a box due to the damage the Post Office inflicts on books in padded envelopes. I mail the next day and then "trust" the item arrives in a timely fashion. Well my reader and fellow ebay book seller - THE US POSTAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND UNRELIABLE. Maybe it's time for ebay to speak up and time for my fellow book sellers to say if you can't deliver then tell us the truth - enough of telling us the phrase "arriving late" - but in reality there is no data on the arrival date for the book - ebay won't let me get away with this poor service. Ebay takes my money quickly to satisfy an impatient buyer. What about the ebay book seller - where is ebay efforts in protecting the hard working ebay book seller - it sure protects the buyer!!! Ebay has power to let the US Post Office know there is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed. US Postal rates go up and service goes down.

lja440 · ‎07-31-2021

I have been a mail carrier (rural) since 2000 and an eBayer since 2004 and sell mainly in the media categories.

First off Media Mail has always been subject to mail volume. It moves when there is room, that is its nature in return for very low postage costs.

Second, we (USPS) experienced the perfect storm. We saw an increase in packages that has lasted over 18 months. We have had package volume that exceeded what normally we only saw during the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday week. We also had an influx of political mail which is always high during election time. I still have customers that daily get political mail that stacks up around 2". This was also compounded by the appointment of a man to Postmaster General with a huge political agenda to cripple the Post Office in the attempt to rig the election. He has gone so far as to scrap or disable millions of dollars of sorting machines.

On top of this USPS like many other companies are working short-handed. Like other necessary workers our craft had a lot of losses due to covid, my small office of 7 mail routes had over the corse of the pandemic 3 people out with it, one with a severe case that kept him out for quite awhile and one carrier who didn't get it but had to quarantine because his wife came down with it at her job.

Has this impacted my personal packages, well somewhat. I haven't been listing as my normal when work is heavy, I layed off listing going into the election time and haven't started back up. But I am still working my B&M space and incoming packages of stock (LP records) hasn't really been effected all that much but then if a lot takes an extra week or two to arrive it's no biggy, I usually have a couple thousand records to clean, grade and price for the shop at any one time.

cellguy215 · ‎07-31-2021

The United States Postal Service provides outstanding service. I use a Zebra ZP450 thermal printer, they cost about $120. I ship thousands of packages a year and maybe 1-2 are lost in transit. You must be using a **bleep**ty inkjet printer and taping over the labels or something.

cellguy215 · ‎07-31-2021

Sorry friend I didn't see you are shipping by media mail. I use USPS first class. With media mail customers just need to shut up and wait.

soh.maryl · ‎07-31-2021

So you missed the fact that the pandemic, for about a year and a half, caused issues in just about every aspect of life as we know it?

POs are working short staffed. The new Postmaster General cracked down on overtime.

Media mail is generally acknowledged to be the very slowest class of shipping with the USPS.

"Maybe it's time for eBay to speak up . . ." And you really believe that will make a difference because . . .?

ckimodog · ‎07-31-2021

Yes the pandemic had a lot to do with the postal service and their short comings. They were totally overwhelmed with 3 times the work, not to mention they hired a lot of contract labor and temp employees and that couldn't have been easy. Although I feel the covid outbreak really hurt USPS, they have had many issues long before the pandemic reared it's ugly head. Before the covid, I had a sale that was going to the next city over in our community. I figured "great, one day delivery."Never happened. I reside here in the midwest and the item was shipped to another state way up north. I never thought anything about it until the buyer contacted me and told me it's been 3 weeks and no receipt of the item has shown up. That happened a few times to me during the covid. My orders were taking little trips the wrong state and not the one it was supposed to go to, before it finally showed up to the correct destination. Sellers don't have much of a choice...UPS and Fed ex are even more expensive, especially for small items like what I sell. I can see your frustrations and can only hope that things turn around for the better.

1tuna · ‎07-31-2021

I like the USPS and all I use is 1st class.......priority is just not needed for 6-8 ounce packages

I have so much faith in the PO that i rarely look at tracking

I do not need to get all worked up with tracking so I choose not to look

medial mail is different I suppose...do book sellers even use UPS or fedex

I like to use USPS becasue I can keep the shipping down to $5 in the USA

Germantown proud Germantown strong
up the whiskey hickon
moving right along
19144

soh.maryl · ‎07-31-2021

Your message was misdirected. I am not the one with the complaint about the USPS.

a_c_green · ‎07-31-2021

@221barts wrote:
I am a long term ebay seller and member. I sell mainly books and use the US Postal Service's Media Mail. Over the past year I have had to do a number of refunds due to the inability of the Post Office to deliver Media Mail in a timely fashion.

To be clear, Media Mail doesn't have "a timely fashion;" it travels on a space-available basis, with up to three days allowed at each waypoint before it must go on the next truck out. I would not use Media Mail on items that qualify for it unless there was a serious cost savings over Parcel or Priority Flat Rate, and unless the buyer had a clear understanding that its arrival date is fairly unpredictable.

yuzuha · ‎07-31-2021

@soh.maryl wrote:

Media mail is generally acknowledged to be the very slowest class of shipping with the USPS.

Exactly. I stopped using Media Mail for things like DVDs years ago for that very reason-- even back then, stuff could take up to a month to be delivered. First Class mail may cost a bit more, but it is generally delivered within a consistent timeframe.

donsdetour · ‎07-31-2021

@221barts wrote:
I am a long term ebay seller and member. I sell mainly books and use the US Postal Service's Media Mail. Over the past year I have had to do a number of refunds due to the inability of the Post Office to deliver Media Mail in a timely fashion. The usual time frame has been 8-10 days. The current time frame is now 4-5 weeks in some parts of the country. I pay for a US Postal product which does not give refunds for poor service. Tracking now gives the phrase, "arriving late," no estimate of how late just this phrase will be used for weeks and weeks on end. The customer gets very angry and takes their complaints and anger to me, regarding a service I can not control. Buyers will often file a "lost book report," which triggers ebay to place me on a time frame to respond. Ebay next takes the sale price of the item out of my bank account and give the seller a refund. I do everything I can to safely wrap books in a box due to the damage the Post Office inflicts on books in padded envelopes. I mail the next day and then "trust" the item arrives in a timely fashion. Well my reader and fellow ebay book seller - THE US POSTAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN AND UNRELIABLE. Maybe it's time for ebay to speak up and time for my fellow book sellers to say if you can't deliver then tell us the truth - enough of telling us the phrase "arriving late" - but in reality there is no data on the arrival date for the book - ebay won't let me get away with this poor service. Ebay takes my money quickly to satisfy an impatient buyer. What about the ebay book seller - where is ebay efforts in protecting the hard working ebay book seller - it sure protects the buyer!!! Ebay has power to let the US Post Office know there is a very serious problem that needs to be addressed. US Postal rates go up and service goes down.

It is YOUR choice of how to get your items to the purchaser. If Media mail is costing you: stop using it and use a different method..

eBay does not own or control the USPS, they can do very little about this mess.

As for the USPS..... It be hurt it seems..

lja440 · ‎08-01-2021

I'd like to tell you about my day yesterday. First off as a regular carrier Saturday should be my day off, but we are short-handed and I haven't had a Saturday off in nearly 2 years.

Mail was heavy and I didn't get out of the office till 9:15. at 10:38 my ball joint broke on my jeep. Despite everyone franticly calling there was NO ONE to come get the mail, not in 3 county' worth of Post Offices. Finally, a plan was made. Kristin would stop delivering City 2, run home and get her route vehicle, leaving the rest of City 2 in the locked LLV for Jeff (city 1) to take over after he finished his route. She came and took the mail so now I can have the jeep towed.

The tow truck driver dropped me at my home (45 minutes away) and then delivered my jeep to the mechanic. I jumped in my backup jeep and called Kristin to see where she was. Catching her at 3pm I took all but 45 minutes of the route's mail back leaving her to do that before she returned to the PO to coordinate with Jeff on finishing City 2.

I then went to where my portion started and delivered mail until Racheal who just finished her route caught up to me and took the last hours worth. I pulled up to my house again at 7:45 last night.

$250 for the tow

estimate on the repair is $650-$700

And It was supposed to get tires Monday and they are $195 each before tax and mounting. They can't be put off because I needed them last month and am already on the spare.

I guess I'll be eating a lot of ramen this month.

toysaver · ‎08-01-2021

"Over the past year I have had to do a number of refunds due to the inability of the Post Office to deliver Media Mail in a timely fashion."

You pay less you get less. You can't expect premium service with Media Mail or First Class package rates. They are inferior and cost less for a reason. Priority Mail will be given precedence and if there's room on the truck the other classes may ship or sit idle until they can be squeezed aboard.

uniwarehousewares · ‎08-01-2021

USPS service is terrible, i have switched my shipping to UPS and fed ex, there are a lot package get lost (stolen) when ship through USPS, their claim process is terrible and they are overcharging for packages. USPS is burden on nation, they are running from our tax money and providing **bleep** service. if you call their helpline then they will answer after 4 hours, they don't take because they are running on our tax money.

lja440 · ‎08-01-2021

First off. USPS is NOT funded by tax money, it is funded by POSTAGE.

I have shipped hundreds of packages USPS and none have been lost or stolen. These have been as small as a ring box up to large boxes of heavy china and LP records.

I have shipped 3 packages FedEx and none were ever seen again. All three were cell phones destined for Verizon's insurance department.

I have pulled up rates for both USPS and FedEx for a 6"x6"x6" 2-pound package from my home in Ohio to Chicago.

USPS Parcel Select (economy ground) $7.76

FedEx Ground $12.15

USPS Priority $7.96

FedEx 2 day $28.92

To pick up the package from my home in rural Ohio FedEx $11.45, USPS FREE.