Ebay provides misleading information to international buyers when publishing estimated delivery time

[sfor8673]

Ebay is publishing estimated delivery times that are (at very best) wildly optimistic, giving buyers false expectations and leading to an increased number of un-delivered / late / lost item claims being opened.

We are using Australia Post eParcel service to ship items by Regular, Registered, Pack & Track or Express EMS services to international buyers. Australia Post is obviously providing eBay with a schedule of "expected" delivery times to international destinations.

Regular international Airmail Adelaide to Austria: 5 business days.

Regular international Airmail Adelaide to Israel: 4-15 business days (nothing EVER delivered to Israel in under 4 weeks, even express EMS can take 1-2 weeks to deliver here...)

Regular international Airmail Adelaide to Norway: 4-15 business days (nothing EVER delivered ANYWHERE in EU in 4 days. Aust Post can't even get a parcel to Hobart in 4 days!)

Regular international Airmail Adelaide to Russia: 12-32 business days (nothing EVER delivered to Russia in under 4 weeks, even Moscow central takes 4-6 weeks)

Australia Post relies on the domestic mail service to complete the final leg of delivery AFTER customs and border protection agencies have done their thing. If the destination network is poorly developed, under-staffed, corrupt or just inefficient, the parcel can be delayed well past the delivery date. This enables the customer to make an un-delivered item claim.

Aust Post don't recognise an item is undelivered until 90 days after the estimated delivery date, yet eBay refunds the customer without any proof, without asking any questions and without asking Aust Post to provide accurate delivery estimates. 

Is anyone else getting increased amount of undelivered item claims?

Is anyone else experiencing delayed deliveries to common destinations (EU, North America, New Zealand, UK)?

Is anyone else using another carrier (DHL, FEDEX, UPS or similar) for their international deliveries?

Regards,

The Corps Shop

[sfor8673]

We are using the e-parcel system provided by Australia Post.

The system limites us to:

• Regular International Airmail,
• Pack & Track international (limited to a handful of destinations)
• Registered International no tracking by Australia Post, but can be tracked in some destination country domestic tracking system (only after it reaches the domestic mail centre sorting system)
• Express EMS international.

We had an open ebay Claim for undelivered parcel going to Israel. Customer just advised it had been delivered 10 WEEKS after we shipped it, despite eBay and Aust Post claiming 4-15 business days to this location. This is normal for Israel and we now warn all customers to expect late delivery which is outside outr control. They either accept late delivery, upgrade the shipping service or agree to cancel the order.

IMO, Ebay should be leveraging the postal carriers to provide improved services, after all, the carrier is needed to make the eBay business model work, and, the carrier needs eBay parcels to prop-up failing domestic mail services.

[735laz]

I agree with misleading delivery times, I have noted with concern that domestic delivery times are continually overly optimistic..if not deliberately misleading, so many times an item has an ETA at purchase page of say next week, only to find on completion of the purchase transaction the delivery time has an ETA extended by another two weeks...!!??