items posted?

[barwi_mar]

I buy from all over Australia and when the seller notifies me on EBay that the item has been posted I tend to believe them but I have noticed that 2 or 3 items bought at the same time and stated as posted at the same time arrive days apart. Is the facility on EBay to notify of "items posted" based on a trust that they (the seller) are telling the truth?

I've even bought items from buyers in Queensland and Melbourne at the same time and the sellers have notified me that the items had been sent on the same day yet the Queensland item has turned up 2-3 days earlier than the Melbourne item both of which are using standard Australian post. I live on a farm Tasmania so it is a little confusing.

[bigbrickshop]

The email that you receive to say that an item has been posted is automatically generated either when a seller manually marks the item as posted in eBay or pays for postage and prints the postage label online. Depending on the seller's handling time in the listing they may not be able to actually lodge the parcel immediately.

There seems to be no way to accurately estimate delivery times with Aus Post since they closed some distribution centres. For example, I can post a letter in Geelong to another address in Geelong but it has to travel to the Dandenong sorting centre then back to Geelong for delivery. This can take 2-3 days! As the volume of mail increases in the lead up to Christmas delivery times are also likely to extend.

If you have a tracking number you can generally check the tracking online, provided it has had at least once scanning event.

[bettyboopsadaisy · Accepted solution]

There are 2 separate considerations here -

1. When the item was posted   &

2. Delivery and arrival times

Before 'branding' any seller a liar, you should look at (1) when the item was actually posted by checking the date on the franking stamp, on your parcels. Sellers can control when they lodge and post an item, but that's where their control ends ! They have not no control over the vagueries Australia Post and how long it actually takes Australia Post to deliver the item.

Sellers have a real issue with receiving bad feedback and defects from buyers because the buyers believe their items have taken too long to arrive. This feedback is often undeserved because the fault lies with the carrier, Australia Post or some other.

[barwi_mar · Accepted solution]

The bulk of my purchases are DVDs and the parcels rarely have date marks accross the stamps but do have a bar code. As, as you pointed out, some of the sellers despatching methods automaticly lable the item as despatched but isn't, isn't that missleading?

[barwi_mar]

I have only given a "neutral" Feedback on one item and that was because it was advertised as "near new" but was in fact scuffed, scratched and the box it came in was falling apart. I give the appropriate amount of stars to fit any shortcomings, which I believe is the wright thing to do in order to improve transactions on eBay.