@moviemem wrote:
I hear of many sellers who send items by letter post without tracking and I think it will be virtually impossible to avoid getting defects.Too many defects will affect your ability to sell on ebay.
Difficult, but not impossible. I post 99% of my items as letters, only registered for higher value stuff, and my dashboard currently shows 0% late shipments from around 800 transactions.
I have a 2 day handling time, but to be honest I actually think it's my location that helps me more than anything else, as I live in metro SA, meaning I'm not situated somewhere that my packages have to travel from one side of the country to the other if I get a buyer in Perth or Brisbane (I also use priority on all of them). In other words, I attribute the 0% to both luck (in so far as "I'm in SA because that's where I found myself to be" can be considered luck 
) and posting same or next day.
Late shipments and the effects of too many have changed quite a lot since they were introduced. I remember when it was announced, I was most upset about it (partly because they were first announced in the US, and they were more strict over there). When I figured out the Aus policies (read: actually read) I remember they originally had 5% late shipments would result in eBay changing the postage options you could offer, which could have meant anything.
Last time a checked, it said the threshold was 10% and if you exceed that it may result in eBay restricting the handling time you could have on your listings (as well as loss of TRS, at 5% from memory).
Now, I dunno about anyone else, but what exactly do eBay think that will acheive? I presume they mean they'll lengthen the minimum handling time a seller can select, so if they have a 1 day handling time and items are frequently 2 days "late", they might make them have a 3 day handling time. They've already lost TRS so that won't matter, and the end result? Buyers will see a more realistic ETA, which says plenty about eBay's ETA and late shipment metric all on its own.
Surely eBay can see that if there's sellers who are actually meeting their handling time but the carrier isn't meeting eBay's ETA (via the volume of tracked shipments), and the solution is to implement a longer handling time so eBay's ETA is both more in line with actual delivery time frames and therefore providing more realistic expectations for buyers, the probem is with eBay and their infernal meddling, not anyone else.
I do believe this was introduced to get more sellers using tracked postage methods, but it's totally the wrong way to go about it, IMO.
@digital*ghost wrote:
I do believe this was introduced to get more sellers using tracked postage methods, but it's totally the wrong way to go about it, IMO.
Which of course will increase the FVF's that eBay will collect from the extra postage costs,
@go-tazz wrote:Which of course will increase the FVF's that eBay will collect from the extra postage costs,
Ah but maybe that's to make up for the fees lost on friday's due to the techies fiddling with the system and stuffing things up whilst enhancing out eBay experience Taz.................................
