Estimated delivery date at purchase different to feedback delivery date

[indian-pacific]

I have noticed recently that the estimated delivery dates at purchase no longer come close to the actural delivery dates and feedback page delivery date making the item arrive "on time" but totally different (ie a week) to what was on the purchase confirmation.

This has occured on several items purchased by myself and others with items from different sellers and catagories of product.

One example is a purchase I made on the 20/1/20, marked shipped on the 21/1 due for delivery 23/1 (reasonable time since only a couple of suburbs away).
Item arrived on the 30/1 (8 days for shipping) but according to the feedback page was due for delivery on the 30/1.....That date was news to me!

So when you answer the

"Did this item arrive on time? Estimated delivery date: Thu, 30 Jan"  

truthfully,  its a yes.......but it was actually all along due on the 23rd!

Is Ebay rigging the figures to boost the on time delivery date numbers/quota?

Anyone else noticed this?

[davewil1964]

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@indian-pacific wrote:

I have noticed recently that the estimated delivery dates at purchase no longer come close to the actural delivery dates and feedback page delivery date making the item arrive "on time" but totally different (ie a week) to what was on the purchase confirmation.

This has occured on several items purchased by myself and others with items from different sellers and catagories of product.

One example is a purchase I made on the 20/1/20, marked shipped on the 21/1 due for delivery 23/1 (reasonable time since only a couple of suburbs away).
Item arrived on the 30/1 (8 days for shipping) but according to the feedback page was due for delivery on the 30/1.....That date was news to me!

So when you answer the

"Did this item arrive on time? Estimated delivery date: Thu, 30 Jan"  

truthfully,  its a yes.......but it was actually all along due on the 23rd!

Is Ebay rigging the figures to boost the on time delivery date numbers/quota?

Anyone else noticed this?

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Why would eBay rig the figures? They are seller-specific.

How close are the couple of suburbs to the vast swathes of the country that are ash?

The standard is 2-6 working days for Australia Post PLUS the seller's handling time. The due date would be an optimistic AP calculation based on location, but not a guarantee.

[countessalmirena]

@indian-pacific,

Your post is a little worrying.

Have you not experienced many times that a letter you've posted, or a letter posted to you, to/from a location not much more than half an hour away can take as long as two weeks to be actually delivered? Of course, it's wonderful when something arrives the day after it's been posted, but that is certainly not the norm.

I live within the express delivery zone, yet I've experienced even express parcels, posted on time, taking longer than AP's somewhat cagey "promise". For regular parcels, I would not expect next day delivery, or delivery within three days. (Hope, yes - expect, no.)

davewil has posted what Australia Post provide as an estimated delivery time. He's also pointed out that inevitably there are handling times which will be specific to each seller. And - also referred to - Australia's currently being severely impacted by bushfires, hazardous levels of smoke, dust storms, plus the effect of safety precautions and/or fear with respect to the novel coronavirus. All of that affects service.

Finally, eBay use the word "estimated". eBay's estimations frequently run the gamut from mildly unrealistic to wildly unrealistic. Even were eBay's estimations based upon all the logistical informaiton, that word "estimated" remains.

[indian-pacific]

Hello,

My issue is not with the sellers, My issue is with Ebays estimations....and they way they are handled.

The example article went from Sydney suburb strathfield to Sydney suburb of Fairfield NSW a distance as the crow flies of 16.1km.(according to google).

This parcel would not be going through flood, dust, fire or virus areas.

The estimation dates are estimated.....granted.

The parcel was untracked so could not be followed to get an accurate arrival date.

My problem is... that we (no sorry it seems only I) buy on a realistic time frame to recieve the item (not necessarily the one stated...2-3  days extra in this case is reasonable) but the feedback delivery date....Ebay knows the date it will arrive and has got it 100% correct according to the feedback entry page, yet can't get close to the date at time of purchase when it knows where the item is coming from and where its going to.

Ebay knew the item would arrive on the 30th but said as an estimation it would arrive on the 23rd at time of sale.

Ebay used to be able to estimate within 1 or 2 days (at time of purchase) of when the goods will arrive, now its around a week later...but ebay knew that because the feedback page says it was that date all along.

[collect247]

What do you estimate would be the time it would take you to walk from Fairfield to Strathfield?

Why the heck would you consider ebay's estimate to be any where near accurate?

There are too many scanario's that may happen to be able to predict time of arrival that's why it's an estimate.

[sandypebbles]

I have never known eBay's guesses to be correct,rarely,near correct

Live in a Sydney suburb and mail from neighbouring suburbs regularly takes at least a week to get to me

eBay's guesses are based on Australia Post fantasy . Neither eBay nor Australia Post 'know' anything (except how to boost about how great they are)

[digital*ghost]

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@indian-pacific wrote:

Is Ebay rigging the figures to boost the on time delivery date numbers/quota?

---

To what end? Most ETAs are a date range rather than an exact date, they can also change according to the postage service selected (if I look at my own listings, eBay has standard delivery estimated for a day earlier than express delivery, as shown below, and which is all kinds of wrong (expanding the details it shows express is estimated to arrive between the 5th and 7th, though):

The only thing I can think of for eBay to adjust delivery dates to those shown in listings is that the address used during checkout was different to what is on file as the registered delivery address. That, or they may be currently adding a few days grace to ETAs due to the fires interrupting many transit routes, and it was logistically easier to adjust them post-sale than within the listing framework (I don't know, not a programmer or anything so it's an uneducated guess / suggestion).

Otherwise, I can't see that eBay would have anything to gain by manipulating the dates, since the only use for the stat in general is to decide how good the seller is (in a nutshell). I mean, the data was supposed to contribute to the algorithm that decides what the ETAs are, but if it does do that, then eBay has even less reason to manipulate them post-sale. 

If you have an order arrive after their estimate and tick 'no', ebay don't view it as "oh, well the seller appears to have posted it within their handling time according to when it was marked as shipped, so it must have been a postal service issue, maybe we should reconsider how we determine the delivery estimates".

What they actually do is "hey seller, your buyer said the item didn't arrive within the time we told them it would, that's a strike on you, bud, we don't care why or how, we'll just assume it's your fault" (the exception to this is if the seller supplies proof of lodgement within their handling time, then eBay may consider removing the strike). 

So yeah, eBay designed this system and get nothing out of readjusting delivery estimates to make the seller (or themselves) look better - they actually have a vested interest in sellers losing good ratings, either because it can force the seller to work harder and harder trying to jump through all of their hoops and meet all of the expectations eBay create for buyers (their current propaganda is all about giving buyers essentially perfect experiences, including lightning fast dispatch and delivery), or in some cases (though not due to late shipments) they'll charge the seller higher fees if certain standards fall below what eBay deem acceptable. 

[springyzone]

Hmm, interesting.

You're right. I see what you mean.

I just made a purchase today and thought I would check it out in the feedback section (not that I actually wanted to give feedback at this point of course, so i just glanced and clicked out).

Now, my purchase says estimated delivery is 7-10th Feb.

On the feedback page it asks if the item arrived on or before 11 Feb.

I will look at it again of course once the book arrives and see what date it says then.

I also know someone else who made a purchase and their date in feedback was a week later than the estimated date on their purchase.

I don't see this as a bad thing. I don't know what is causing it but it seems to be happening to quite a few people. Maybe ebay has listened to sellers and although they are calculating the actual delivery estimates the same way, have added a bit of leeway for the feedback estimates. This would make sense because people don't usually give feedback till a few days after they receive an item and this way, it is virtually saying to buyers that anything up to that date was acceptable, don't go marking the seller down.

The wording on mine in the feedback section was something like "Did your item arrive on or before 11 Feb?" It didn't say that that was the original estimated delivery date range.

[zanadoo_56]

It's not only eBay's delivery estimates that are fanciful - so are Australia Post's. 

It's better to assume that both estimates are optimistic at best, ie: USS Enterprise (even the oldest model) has taken your parcel and will be beaming it down to you any moment now.  Hopefully.

I bought an item from an Oz seller and AP's tracking said it would be delivered in 2 days. Yep, it was there in black and white - 2 days - from somewhere in WA to Melb VIC.  I don't think so!  Especially as AP had only just received the lodgement details, not the actual parcel.

You've got laugh sometimes....and have lots of patience.

[jolcu_8141]

I bought a giorno cotton doll last night and it arivved today