Sellers who say posted but didn't really for a couple of days

[wifetoalfred]

I've had a pretty good run with Sellers in the years I've bought things off eBay. Some Sellers go the extra mile and others have excellent customer service and are very quick at answering questions.

A few times when I've bought something I've got notificiation within an hour or 2 to say the item/s have been shipped. I've thought wow that's super fast but at times there is a 2 days delay before the item has actually been posted. I am assumeing the items are in the red and white postal bag and they have listed the item/s as shipped when they actually haven't been. Is this common practise with some Sellers?  As a buyer I'm just glad to have tracking info to follow parcels and still enjoy the eBay buying experience very much and continue to do so.

I never expect Sellers to post over the weekend and if I do a Buy It Now on a Saturday I don't expect it to be posted before Monday. I'd just like to have Sellers notify when the item is actually shipped. For those who are Sellers what is the reason for saying you've shipped them before it physically was?

[lyndal1838]

If a seller uses the ebay postage then the notification is sent as soon as they process the label.

It does not mean that they have actually been to the post office.

[digital*ghost]

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@wifetoalfred wrote:

For those who are Sellers what is the reason for saying you've shipped them before it physically was?

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There are certainly some sellers who might mark an item as shipped to give the impression the item is physically with the carrier before it is, eg I've had a few sellers with 1-2 day handling times mark an item as shipped on the second day, but when I receive the package it's post-marked a week afterwards.  (If they had a 7-day handling time, it wouldn't bother me so much, but I'd still prefer an order isn't marked as shipped so far off the actual dispatch).

But, just to maybe provide another perspective, as a seller I do actually mark items as shipped before they are physically with Australia Post. Just to be clear, though, I only mark as shipped on the day they'll be handed over to AP. 

As lyndal mentioned, with some postage systems, the seller doesn't have a choice, so if I'm processing a label via eBay and I'm not phyically posting until the next day, I change the posted date on the system before generating the label because there's little point in marking as unshipped once the label is created (the notification has already gone out). I have Aus Post's independent system (click & send) integrated with eBay, but I don't let label creation mark items as shipped most of the time (for any interested sellers, I just load up an order so the address is automatically filled in, then I remove the order as it keeps all of the address details in the label fields but doesn't communicate back to eBay when you process them. I found this to be the easiest way to prevent processing issues as well, because I was getting a lot of errors during the point where AP communicates the data back to eBay, resulting in payments being taking but no labels being generated....but I digress). 

The main two reasons I'll still mark orders as shipped prior to physically posting them are:

It removes processed orders from my awaiting shipment queue. This is actually really important for higher volume sellers (I am not high volume, but I buy from wholesalers all over the world and can appreciate why they have more order statuses through the whole process - eg Pending > Preparing > Prepared > Packing > Shipped (individual items also have their own status, in so far as whether they've been picked / packed). These can be crucial for efficiency, but eBay does not provide such options, just Order paid > Order shipped. So, sellers will use what options they do have available to mark certain stages in the order process. I leave feedback when I am starting to prepare an order, and mark as shipped when the order is packed and ready to go, enabling me to see at a glance in my selling history what else I still need to do before I can go to the PO.

It helps prevent situations where I've paid for a postage label, or even physically posted an order, but not yet marked as shipped, so a buyer messages to ask to either change or cancel the order. If I respond and say "already shipped", half the time people think "yeah right, you just don't want to help"

[davidc4430]

i think once a seller marks an item as 'posted' the clock starts on the time for delivery.

so if they say posted on day 1 but dont actually post until day 3 then they are losing 2 days delivery time so should an item not be recieved on or before the due date they have no one but themselves to blame for getting bad feedback for delivery.

[digital*ghost]

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@davidc4430 wrote:

i think once a seller marks an item as 'posted' the clock starts on the time for delivery.

so if they say posted on day 1 but dont actually post until day 3 then they are losing 2 days delivery time so should an item not be recieved on or before the due date they have no one but themselves to blame for getting bad feedback for delivery.

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The clock starts ticking as soon as payment is made, otherwise a seller could mark as shipped a week after payment and never get a late shipment. 

In saying that, a couple of times I noticed the ETA change to a sooner date when I used an eBay label. This was a while ago, so I don't know if it still hapens, but with my handling time (2 days),  the ETA is often one week away but if I used a BX1 box via eBay, posted same day, the ETA would sometimes be shortened by up to 2 days. 

One thing I did forget to mention (because I don't do this myself) is that some sellers will create postage labels online or have bulk satchels ready to go, so have tracking etc for the packages, but either get couriers to collect them, or drop them off in a street box, which can sometimes result in packages being in the postal system for a while before their first official scan (if they're via AP and were posted in a street box, they'll usually be scanned a couple of days later at a processing facility, other times they won't be scanned again until the day of delivery, so sometimes it can be impossible to know the actual date the package was handed over to the carrier).

[davidc4430]

i thought sellers could set their post times, in my case its 3 days, and the 'clock' started when i put the tracking number in.

if i'm wrong i stand corrected.

[*tippy*toes*]

Nah, the ETA clock starts from payment date and takes handling time into consideration. That's why a lot of people fattened out their handling time when the postage defects came into play, but still posted same or next day. Fattening it out extends the ETA by a few days.

[springyzone]

I can understand sellers might print labels etc and have it all recorded as shipped before it physically hits the PO but to me, there should not be a big time difference between the two events. If we are talking eg 24 hours, no harm done.

But if a seller marked something as sent and I noticed from stamps etc on the item that it was was actually posted a week or more after that, I would be marking down the postage stars. I don't like to be misled.

It's funny, because I bought a small item a few days back and received a long message from the seller (looked like a cut and paste so I guess all their customers get it) about how Aust post regulations and times have changed and things can take longer to arrive etc.

I noticed a lot of their neutral & neg feedback is about them being late in posting out items. I would not mark down a seller if it is clear they posted in a reasonable time but Aust post was a bit slow. But if a seller takes 2 weeks to post an item, that is not 5 star postage service in my book even if they padded out their postage times to cover it.

[phorum_junkie*]

I can understand sellers might print labels etc and have it all recorded as shipped before it physically hits the PO but to me, there should not be a big time difference between the two events.

It could easily be a couple of days if the sender is having the parcels picked up from their home. In most cases it is easy enough for a buyer to see if an item is posted if the seller lodges at a PO, the tracking will clearly state that it has been received by AP.

Sometimes sellers put items straight into the street box or AP fail to register the tracking events so a buyer will have a false picture of the delivery schedule.

[lane-ends]

Ignore what it says in Ebay in regards to shipped status, the only true indicator is a tracking event. Hence why Ebay is pushing for everything to be sent tracking.

I process shipments ASAP including label, ebay marks them as shipped (it is possible to override this date at the time of processing but I dont  usually as it may  turn out to be same day or next day) and they go in the pile for the next trip to post office. Usually everyday, but the post can be missed occasionally. Prior to ebays push for tracking they went in the street box guarnteed same day, but now often they will not go until next days PO run. So this system is actually slowing things down for the sake of proving quick shipment.

If something is shown to be posted a week late without prior arrangement then a late shipping DSR and most likely defect is fair enough, as it is only a real issue if it becomes a trend.

I will admit to having found a parcel on the back seat of the car that was meant to have been posted days ago.