Ebay Plus Express Postage - is Rarely Express!

[scrawf]

What is ebay doing to sellers who are not obiding buy the despatch and express postage guidelines.

Express postage to me - means next day delivery once despatched if on the East coast.

90% of my items that are 'Express' usually take 5 days from order placement to delivery on the Eastern coast.

Sellers list items as Auspost Express Postage then send via Fastways normal road service.

I am paying a premium to even select these sellers who are more expensive and getting no benefits?

One example right now is an E+ item that has just been despatched after 7 days!?

Ebay plus is a joke, I certainly wont be bothering to renew the subscription.

Am I alone here?

[gutterpunkz05]

AP  suspended the Express service  way back in April.

[padi*0409]

Looking at all the negs you've left for sellers maybe you should rethink using eBay, or at the very least check the seller's feedback. If you deal with high-volume sellers with less than 99.5% feedback then you should be wary of them.

Also when you're in the sellers feedback check where they are registered, many Asian sellers will claim to have stock in Australia when they do not.

Edit. G'day gp................

[scrawf]

Thanks for pointing that out, had no idea...

Express Post guarantee temporarily suspended

Express Post is still available, and will continue to be prioritised as the fastest option for customers, but may not always meet the next business day delivery standard.

[scrawf]

That's not how it should work, if you set up a premium service you should ensure it is followed and SLA's are met.

[padi*0409]

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@scrawf wrote:

That's not how it should work, if you set up a premium service you should ensure it is followed and SLA's are met.

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I would doubt if SLA's are relevant when a seller is registered overseas. Also bear in mind eBay is a selling platform and really has very little control over the actions of the sellers using it - that is especially relevant when dealing with Asian sellers.

Due diligence on the part of the buyer is essential for on-line shopping.............Caveat Emptor.

[*tippy*toes*]

There's this thing at the moment called a pandemic. You may have heard about it on the news. It's having this ability to cause delays with lots of stuff, including mail deliveries. I know some people think it shouldn't apply to them, and nothing should change because of who they are, but it's kind of out of everyone's hands. 

[digital*ghost]

A lot of regulations Aus Post were obliged to abide by have been suspended until June next year due to the current conditions - far fewer staff so that social distancing regs can be complied with, pre-Christmas levels of parcels in the system, drastically reduced flight availability (which is how express parcels needed to travel to meet a next day delivery guarantee, if going to an interstate destination), and availability of long-haul drivers to transport items would also be affected.

They withdrew the next day delivery guarantee, as has been mentioned, plus withdrew the priority option for letters, and are only delivering letter mail every second day (a lot of small packages are delivered this way, too). 

With express, it now just means "faster than regular" (I mean, it always did anyway, and only had the next day delivery guarantee to major metro areas), i.e. that you should usually get the package in a few days rather than a couple of weeks or so - or, in other words, you are getting a benefit (as long as your sellers are posting via an express method, within their stated handling time), it's just not immediately obvious if you're comparing it to the speed of delivery pre-covid, it also means the sellers are meeting their SLA. 

Except those using Fastway if they list as Aus Post express, - in my experience that is rarely an express service, even at the best of times, plus while eBay classifies them as "express" purely because they are a courier, they always had a delivery timeframe listed as up to 2 weeks. Regardless of anything else, couriers should not be used when AP has been listed as the delivery service IMO, as there are many reasons why couriers are far less appropriate for some buyers. 

[shoppingbag*]

I never took it up because of the potential problems. It may work in a perfect world, but in the real world there are too many unknowns to be able to absolutley guarantee anything.