why is everything that I order not arriving by the due date

[gunton07]

All my latest purchases are not arriving by the due date is this due to overload of online purchases or just **bleep** Aus Post and courier services (or lack of )

[digital*ghost]

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@kitty-kat-kollection wrote:
If they are just estimates, why are buyers allowed to lodge an item not received case against sellers from literally the day after the estimated date of arrival?

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It's all in the framing. You can use exactly the same information to give very different impressions, and those impressions work their way into people's expectations, and therefore flow on to to their actions. 

You can't open an INR case for your purchase until at least 7 days have passed since it was sent.

vs

If your item hasn't arrived after 7 days, you can open a dispute for item not received. 

The first statement subtly suggests "please wait at least this long", the second "you shouldn't have to wait longer than this". 

ebay frames ETAs as due dates, as we can see by the OPs post, and many other buyer's actions. It says "estimate", but most people focus on the "on or before [exact date]" bit.

[springyzone]

I agree with DG in that the wording is important, it can help build up an impression.

But in effect these estimated dates are due dates ranges.

As i mentioned earlier, I have been finding my items usually tend to arrive a few days before their due date. There was one which was not marked as posted till the day before it was estimated to arrive and I was pretty sure it would go a couple of days over, but it arrived next day (the marking of posted may have been a day or so after the event, I suspect).

Would I have opened an item not received claim the day after the due date? No. I would always allow a bit of leeway. A few business days extra.

Realistically though, ebay has to have an exact date that is very clear to both sides. They have chosen, at the moment, to go with anything past the last estimated arrival day.

We sometimes see people on here complaining of the opposite sort of thing, they are too late to open an ebay claim. Again, ebay has to have a clear cut off date for claims.

There can't be any vagueness in the system because ebay is such a huge business with a lot of workers so basic guidelines need to be clear.

That doesn't mean there could not be other ways to calculate the exact dates and in fact in the future, ebay may tweak the system eg INR claims only able to be opened 3 days or more past the estimated arrival date.

But at the moment, the ETA is it. Buyers do take some note, they can become anxious if things are late, so sellers need to work the system so they can be pretty sure their ETA will be realistic 99% of the time.

[davewil1964]

and in fact in the future, ebay may tweak the system

Yeah, riiiiight. What fact would that be?

Why would they, given their bias towards buyers? And why would a buyer get antsy if something is a couple of days 'late'? Online buying doesn't lend itself to time sensitive purchases, regardless of what optimists think.

[4green2000]

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@gunton07 wrote:

All my latest purchases are not arriving by the due date is this due to overload of online purchases or just **bleep** Aus Post and courier services (or lack of )

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most likely items are from chinese sellers in AU and they don't post straight away due to the overload of sales..i found this too and i recon they post them 2-5 days after paying.

[springyzone]

I said, in fact in the future, ebay may tweak the system.

'in fact' is an expression, it does not refer to any particular fact. I am not saying ebay definitely will make changes, but they may.

In fact  I think it is almost certain that the way things are organised on ebay now won't stay the same forever, nothing ever does.

Ebay comes in for a lot of flak on the boards and some of it is deserved, but there are occasionally changes to the system that make it fairer for sellers. For instance, if I recall correctly, some of the star ratings that buyers give no longer impact on seller accounts as they used to do?

My impression is not that they are out to get sellers but more that they are trying to pull sellers into line, that line being that buyers will *get the item,

*get it as described

*and that it will be posted out to the buyer in a fairly quick time frame.

The actual fact is that all of those were major problem areas on ebay just a few years ago and they had to be addressed.

There has to be a due delivery date cut off line, after which buyers can open a claim.

There are a lot of changes I think could be possibly be put in place by ebay. I am sure they try to keep on top of problem areas & would be pretty sure they keep their own stats. They won't want to make sellers look too bad as that just makes them look bad, so if there is a major problem with things arriving late, right across the board, they could well try to overcome that problem by padding the delivery date range out a bit by a day or so.

On the other hand, if most items are getting through in the predicted time range, why would they change it?

[digital*ghost]

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@springyzone wrote:

There has to be a due delivery date cut off line, after which buyers can open a claim.

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There does need to be a timeframe for the dispute process, but there doesn't need to be a "due date" for delivery itself, and that is the bone of contention.

You mentioned that buyers get anxious when something is "late" - the thing is though, that's a problem that's been solely created by eBay, because they're the ones that created the issue of "late delivery". 

I bet you a lot would change if eBay simply gave gave the last date buyers had to open a request, and stopped showing "on or before", but rather switched to (eg) 5-8 days. Buyers don't need to approach a purchase with thinking an item is "due by", unless it's a guaranteed delivery item. The more expectations that are created uneccessarily, the more anxiousness a perceived anomaly will create. 

It's pretty hard for me to accept that the way the changes have been implemented have made things better for buyers, when my buyers don't experience this kind of anxiousness about delivery via other sales venues. As far as I'm concerned, that's telling enough in itself. 

[shoppingbag*]

Hello everyone. I am still looking to buy a crystal ball for the purpose of getting exact (set in stone) delivery dates. If anyone has one for sale, could you please let me know. I have been looking for some time now, but I suspect that those of you who may have one are not about to part with it.

[kitty-kat-kollection]

😂

As a seller, I find people tend to fall into one of three categories. MOST people are normal and just wait to receive their item, are happy if it's early, don't say anything if it's "late".

Some people are nervous and send an anxious message literally on the last ebay estimated date asking if I have sent their item. Ah, yes...the tracking number is in their ebay purchase records. (I am of course always nice, look up the Aus Post parcel tracker myself and then tell them what I can) They appreciate my response and then a few days later when their item arrives, all good.

Some (thankfully rare) others send an angry message the day of the latest estimate, demanding to know where their item is and then within 30 minutes they have lodged an INR case via ebay. (ebay then tells me there is a waiting period before they can actually do anything as it's still so soon.) These people I always wonder about. The immediate aggression, shouting and instant ebay case says they just want a refund.

THEN there are the VERY few people who say literally NOTHING and then 4 weeks later I receive their item returned to sender (mailman error), I let them know, they say "Oh, that happens a lot!", I re-send after confirming they still want the item, and all is well. But if I hadn't received the item back, would I ever have heard from them? Did they not want it?

😂 I have to laugh.

[springyzone]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@springyzone wrote:

There has to be a due delivery date cut off line, after which buyers can open a claim.

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There does need to be a timeframe for the dispute process, but there doesn't need to be a "due date" for delivery itself, and that is the bone of contention.

You mentioned that buyers get anxious when something is "late" - the thing is though, that's a problem that's been solely created by eBay, because they're the ones that created the issue of "late delivery". 

I bet you a lot would change if eBay simply gave gave the last date buyers had to open a request, and stopped showing "on or before", but rather switched to (eg) 5-8 days. Buyers don't need to approach a purchase with thinking an item is "due by", unless it's a guaranteed delivery item. The more expectations that are created uneccessarily, the more anxiousness a perceived anomaly will create. 

It's pretty hard for me to accept that the way the changes have been implemented have made things better for buyers, when my buyers don't experience this kind of anxiousness about delivery via other sales venues. As far as I'm concerned, that's telling enough in itself. 

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The trouble I see with this is the loss of clarity.

I can understand that delivery dates could be switched to say eg 5-8 days.

At the moment, a lot of buyers know that if an item isn't there by the last due date, that they could open an item not received claim. I think only some of them would do it immediately, I imagine most people would wait an extra few days just to give it time to arrive.

But it is also pretty easy for buyers to work out when the deadline for making an ebay claim is-which I think is 30 days after the last expected due date?

The problem I see is that if you change that delivery to eg 5-8 days, buyers might not be exactly sure when they can open an INR claim. Is it 8 normal days, 8 business days?

I don't know that the ETA though have to be tied exactly to the date when an INR claim can be opened. For example, there would be nothing to stop ebay changing the system so a case could only be opened eg 5 days after the last expected date and the window could still be till 30 days after that.

I think buyers do experience anxiety when deliveries are late on other sales venues though i do take the point the exact delivery dates on those are rarely explicitly stated.

But nothing is more anxiety provoking (in my experience of life) than uncertainty. I saw one online business not related to ebay that went into receivership and I firmly believe a lot of it had to do with frustrating buyers. The website stated delivery within approximately 3 weeks but when that time blew out, I know I got anxious and rang the company. But the angst on one of the review sites has to be seen to be believed. 

Not pretending to have all the answers here but I do think buyers feel less anxiety when things are clear.

[digital*ghost]

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@springyzone wrote:

At the moment, a lot of buyers know that if an item isn't there by the last due date, that they could open an item not received claim.

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Back when only PayPal offered a dispute process, and the timeframe was 45 days, the 45 days was the information everyone needed to know.

The only time anyone ever asked "but what's the earliest date I can open a dispute?", was when the transaction was problematic from the get-go, eg they realised right after purchasing that they'd fallen for a scam listing.  

And, it would be clear enough if a buyer tried to open a dispute too early and was prevented from doing so, so I would ask, what reason would there be for needing to know the exact - earliest - date for opening a dispute, in favour of making it clear the last day of opening a dispute? Like, what is the benefit of that to buyers and sellers? I personally can't see one. 

To be honest I'm not sure why that would result in uncertainty and frustration, either. Sellers wouldn't suddenly start sending items whenever they felt like, and delivery dates become "whenever" because of a simple change like that.