lengthy wait for shipping of item

[michellebartley]

I brought an item from a UK seller on the 3rd March, I just enquired when they would ship it and they said 19th March. This a long time to wait? But possibly its an estimate.

[springyzone · Accepted solution]

---

@michellebartleywrote:
The item was 6 x 10ml concentrated vitamin drops for small animals. They are usually about $AU16.00 just for one bottle. I paid just over AU$15.00 for them which is very very cheap. I had bought from this seller over a year ago but got tired of waiting for them to respond to my emails and cancelled the order. They are a very large seller with around 400 thousand items or so.. But thats no excuse for waiting over 2 weeks to post something. Their have quite a lot of negative feedback. I'll be lucky if its posted. Really lucky.

---

If what you say is accurate, don't cancel the sale, just wait it out.You'd be mad to cancel a purchase where you're getting 6 bottles for less than the price you'd pay for one.

The wait time is an inconvenience perhaps but it's not going to affect your life. Just wait it out.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

---

@springyzonewrote:

---

@michellebartleywrote:
The item was 6 x 10ml concentrated vitamin drops for small animals. They are usually about $AU16.00 just for one bottle. I paid just over AU$15.00 for them which is very very cheap. I had bought from this seller over a year ago but got tired of waiting for them to respond to my emails and cancelled the order. They are a very large seller with around 400 thousand items or so.. But thats no excuse for waiting over 2 weeks to post something. Their have quite a lot of negative feedback. I'll be lucky if its posted. Really lucky.

---

If what you say is accurate, don't cancel the sale, just wait it out.You'd be mad to cancel a purchase where you're getting 6 bottles for less than the price you'd pay for one.

The wait time is an inconvenience perhaps but it's not going to affect your life. Just wait it out.

---

nah, I say cancel . . . . . that will teach them!

[digital*ghost]

---

@springyzonewrote:

---

@digital*ghost

I understand what you are saying, and in an ideal world, maybe that is how it should work. For sure.

But I don't see ebay as an ideal world. I see the real world as a fairly impatient place, to be honest.

I've seen sellers who have long handling times & who have neutrals & neg after neg complaining about their service, even though Blind freddy could have seen before buying how it was going to be.

I think if it is a custom made product, a buyer might understand the reason for a delay, but a lot of buyers aren't understanding about why ordinary products can't be off within a week. I know I have been guilty of exactly the same feelings at times, not that I would ever give bad feedback for it, don't get me wrong. But a lot do & I guess I'm weary, I just don't think you can change human nature so you have to go along with it & work around it. Ebay I think is trying to do that-keep the customers happy, make it snappy, make it competitive with other sites.

Trouble is, just about every website I buy from (and I just spent $104 about 30 minutes ago at another site) has a 1-3 day handling time.

---

I still feel like this is missing the point, though. So what if the world is impatient? Being impatient doesn't make things happen faster, and it's not even remotely akin to justification to expect things to happen faster.  If someone is impatient for an item they want to buy, they have a choice to not buy the one that's got a 15 day handling time.

I don't think comparing what some sellers can do in short timeframes to what other sellers will do in longer timeframes is fair, either. Take Vistaprint for example, they could probably print off thousands of my custom return address labels within an hour of me ordering if they really wanted to, and most orders ship out within the first week even though I always only pay for the slowest processing, but I wouldn't then go to a small, homemade business who doesn't have a mass-production set up, and may in fact have a hand press or something, and think they could get me a couple thousand labels posted out within days. 

It's not like every seller who has 10+ days handling has it because they just want to take their sweet time about things and they could "up their game" if they had to; some have queues (even factories who can mass produce stuff can have long handling times because they have a schedule to keep - you order something, and they allocate a production slot, rarely is it straight away), some live in remote areas where mail goes out less frequently (and they may have to account for people buying just after the mail has gone out), some don't knock out products as fast as they can because it significantly increases the risk of expensive mistakes, or because the process can't be rushed (I have some products that take me an hour to make, but it doesn't mean I can always ship them out straight away, because I might have 20 other orders already awaiting shipment that also take at least an hour to make, I did a custom belt for someone last year and that took me two weeks to make - the buyer was ecstatic it only took that long, BTW, and yes the purchase was via eBay).

You mention the sites you buy from usually have 3 days handling time... Well, a lot of the sites I buy from have between 8-30 days handling time, so where should that leave my expectations, if what other sites can do should have a bearing on what every individual seller on eBay should do? You don't go into a fancy restaurant and start snapping your fingers and tapping your watch because McDonalds can serve a burger in 30 seconds.

[springyzone]

Everything you say is perfectly correct, but I don't feel the special circumstances & custom made items etc account for more than about 1% of ebay items and the customers who order such products are probably a different breed, willing to wait a bit longer.

I'm talking about your run of the mill, ordinary items. Most buyers seem to expect a reasonably fast turn around on them ie handling time of no more than a week.

Is it fair? Maybe not, but life's not fair.

I understand your analogy with maccas and fine dining, but to take it one step further. Most people would expect to wait in a fancy restaurant but even so, their patience would only stretch so far. Don't know if you've ever seen any episodes of MKR where those diners apparently arrive at 2pm, but in some instances have been kept there till 5am the next morning before all courses have been served. Don't know about you, but I'd be marking those cooks way down no matter how good the food was.

Not saying every item on ebay needs to be hustled off within the week at all. Ebay might even need one day to have a special category or time allowance for custom made items. But most of the ordinary everyday items probably need to go out within 7-10 days-or as far as a lot of customers are concerned, i think that would probably be the case. And in fact I think 99% of items do get posted quickly, ebay has herded sellers in that direction and the average item is generally posted much faster than was the case a decade ago.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

---

@springyzonewrote:

I understand your analogy with maccas and fine dining, but to take it one step further. Most people would expect to wait in a fancy restaurant but even so, their patience would only stretch so far. Don't know if you've ever seen any episodes of MKR where those diners apparently arrive at 2pm, but in some instances have been kept there till 5am the next morning before all courses have been served. Don't know about you, but I'd be marking those cooks way down no matter how good the food was.

---

now springy, surely you do not think that those cooking on MKR are responsible for food being served many hours after the guests arrive?  That has more to do with the fact that there are production activities going on inbetween courses.  Things like ALL teams talking to camera about the previous course and trashing or praising the contestants and/or their food.  

All in the name of manufactured drama.

I don’t think you do your case any good by citing MKR to make a point in comparison to a fine dining experience.

edit: don’t get me wrong, I am so enjoying reading your recent posts on this thread.  I look forward to them!

[digital*ghost]

My initial point, or main question is, why can't it be a matter of both seller and buyer choice? Choice isn't being taken away from anyone in the secarios when handling times are stated clearly. 

I've proved some scenarios where longer handling times are very necessary in response to the blanket statement that was made earlier where sellers shouldn't even be on eBay if they are taking that long to post, but I actually think the reasons behind a 10+ day handling time are 100% irrelevant. What matters is that the sellers state a handling time, and a buyer can then decide if they're willing to wait. It's not the same as any other issue where sellers deliberately mislead a buyer to cause false expectations and unsuspecting buyers purchase then wonder what's going on, and those are the things I believe eBay needs to address, and I also believe each seller has every right to state a handling time that suits them, for whatever reason, and each buyer has the right to decide if that handling time is acceptable to them.

It's no different to me than each seller having the right to decide if they will accept change of mind returns, and each buyer having the right to choose not to buy from a seller who doesn't.

My Maccas / restaurant analagy was imperfect. It's more akin to ringing one up and booking in for a reservation. If they tell you on the phone the earliest booking you can have is 3 weeks away but you really want it for a specific night that's sooner, you get to decide if you'll take that, anyway, or call another retaurant  - no one would tell them they shouldn't be in business at all just because they can't accomodate one customer's needs as quickly as they want. 

[*tippy*toes*]

Springy, I have a long handling time. You know why? It prevents me getting postage defects and it also makes buyers really happy when their item arrives way before the first estimate date. Regardless of my handling time, I still aim to post the same or next day (sometimes it could be 2 or 3 days if work prevents me from getting to the PO).

Are you saying I should be kicked off eBay because I choose to have a long handling time? If eBay didn't have their stupid defect thingy happening, then I'd gladly set my handling time to 1 day. Until that goes away, I have an extended handling time to protect myself. I offer express postage as an option. If a buyer wants the item quickly, they can choose express post. 

[springyzone]

---

@*tippy*toes*wrote:

Springy, I have a long handling time. You know why? It prevents me getting postage defects and it also makes buyers really happy when their item arrives way before the first estimate date. Regardless of my handling time, I still aim to post the same or next day (sometimes it could be 2 or 3 days if work prevents me from getting to the PO).

Are you saying I should be kicked off eBay because I choose to have a long handling time? If eBay didn't have their stupid defect thingy happening, then I'd gladly set my handling time to 1 day. Until that goes away, I have an extended handling time to protect myself. I offer express postage as an option. If a buyer wants the item quickly, they can choose express post. 

---

I understand perfectly and if i were selling, have to admit I would pad my estimate by a couple of days to play safe too.

There are a lot of things ebay does need to sort out & do better and their defect system is probably one of them.

But what I am seeing is that ebay has been like a massive ship, slowly changing course.

Back in about 2002, it was packed with home sellers, quirky items and it was a bit like the wild west fancy dress night on board-some real cowboys operating. You paid into their bank account & prayed you got your item and if you didn't, bad luck. And even with the things you did get, a lot of sellers took their own sweet time to post-often a couple of weeks.

So feedback mattered. If someone had a lot of great feedback, it was reassuring.

If you fast forward to today, the ebay juggernaut is heading in another direction. Lots of prefessional sellers, fewer and fewer auctions, more accountability with sellers forced to give the details that will generate an ETA. I'm not arguing that the ETA is always accurate, I'm just saying ads carry one, whether sellers like it or not.And although we've talked about custom made items, I'm pretty sure we're probably aware ebay isn't the main site for custom made-that niche is the big E, I don't sense ebay is generally heading that way though i know there is some of it here. Feedback is no longer as critical as buyers have better ways to deal with things if a deal goes belly up.

Ebay is competing in a world where most other online businesses have upped the ante over the last few years. It doesn't matter what my opinion about handling time is really, but I can see the day looming when ebay is going to tighten the reins even further on everyday items and sellers may one day be only able to choose a max of one week handling time. I can see a day where if sellers don't conform to ebay wishes, they'll be bottom of the search lists, somehow.

That's why i said if a seller takes 16 days handling time to post out a normal stock item, I think their days on ebay may be numbered, or else if they want to stay, they'll be forced by ebay to tighten up.

[springyzone]

---

@k1ooo-slr-saleswrote:

---

@springyzonewrote:

I understand your analogy with maccas and fine dining, but to take it one step further. Most people would expect to wait in a fancy restaurant but even so, their patience would only stretch so far. Don't know if you've ever seen any episodes of MKR where those diners apparently arrive at 2pm, but in some instances have been kept there till 5am the next morning before all courses have been served. Don't know about you, but I'd be marking those cooks way down no matter how good the food was.

---

now springy, surely you do not think that those cooking on MKR are responsible for food being served many hours after the guests arrive?  That has more to do with the fact that there are production activities going on inbetween courses.  Things like ALL teams talking to camera about the previous course and trashing or praising the contestants and/or their food.  

All in the name of manufactured drama.

I don’t think you do your case any good by citing MKR to make a point in comparison to a fine dining experience.

edit: don’t get me wrong, I am so enjoying reading your recent posts on this thread.  I look forward to them!

---

Thanks. I think.

Now that's true about the MKR team and how they have to front the cameras, but the fact remains. Most teams manage to finish their cook on time & all the production activities are over well before midnight. Some others take several extra hours between courses and that is the fault of the cooks. Apparently 5am was the most drawn out one ever.

Being the cranky old thing I am, I would definitely have marked that team down, yes.

[*tippy*toes*]

There are plenty of reasons why a seller might have their handling time set to 10, or 15, or 30 days. Not because they sell custom made items either. Some use it as a safety net. Others have health problems and may find themselves under the weather more than the average person, so play it safe. Others, like myself, work shift work and sometimes those shifts can dictate for days on end that even having a PO that is open 11 hours every day, you still can't get there.

Not everyone does it because they are lazy and couldn't be bothered going to the PO. If eBay has an issue with that, then they can build a bridge.