How are people offering 3 day Guarenteed Delivery??

[retrogamestoreau]

3 Day Guarenteed delivery is completely unfair to sellers. No one can guarentee a delivery time when Australia Post (a company that received over 1 million complaints last year) has a monopoly on the Australian Postal service. It's even worse if you live in rural Australia like I do. eBay wants to compete with Amazon, fair enough. But it's best-match algorithm is obviously punishing sellers that have chose not to opt in because they'd rather be honest with their customers! My impressions have dropped significantly since the introduction of this, yet sales through my website sales are at an all time high..

I see people offering a 3 day guarenteed delivery on items less than $5, which means they would have to be sending the items as a large letter without tracking and any guarenteed delivery date... If this is happening there must be a greater benefit to being dishonest with your customers than there is risk of negative feedback or returns?

Should I be lying about my delivery times in order to help my best match ranking?

[lane-ends]

If you cant prove it was delivered on time then you cant say no to a return.

[digital*ghost]

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@retrogamestoreauwrote:

3 Day Guarenteed delivery is completely unfair to sellers. No one can guarentee a delivery time

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Sellers who opt in know that they can't guarantee it in a literal sense, just that there is a high enough probability of a package being delivered within the specified timeframe, and are prepared to offer compensation (refund of postage) to the buyer if it doesn't happen, or are prepared to let eBay give the buyer a $10 credit if postage was free - the buyer has to keep the item for this to be available. (Sellers who opted in by 1st April and complied with all of the requirements won't have to fund any compensation or return postage if it's delivered late and the buyer wants to return it, until after June, so you may see a lot of sellers withdraw mid-year, especially if they do not offer free postage).

Sellers are also able to specify which areas they want to guarantee delivery to, so some will only do it for orders going intrastate or to major metro areas.

Not sure about the low-cost large letter stuff, ebay require that 95% ofGD orders need to be delivered on time and have tracking uploaded, and if GD transactions fall below that, the seller is no longer eligible to offer it, so if sellers are using letter post, they won't be guaranteeing delivery for very long. 

[melbourneclearance]

I think it is premature for ebay Oz to introduce GD. US Mail has every letter tracked, therefore ebay US can do this GD thing. In fact, to be a Top-Rated Seller in the US the seller needs 90 or 95% of their items uploaded with tracking.

We in Oz are not ready for GD stuff.

[digital*ghost]

Agreed - I also think your average Aussie seller is a bit more resistant to the idea of compensating buyers for this kind of thing, whether they or eBay fund it. I know I am, anyway.

[jfmgray]

In reality very very few are offering guaranteed delivery. As an example if you search "Elvis Presley" in music you get 9225 items. If you filter with the 3-day guaranteed delivery option this is reduced to 6 items, and all 6 are from the one seller (one of the largest music sellers on eBay).  Results may vary in other categories.

[countessalmirena]

Many in Australia cannot even get a pizza delivered on time.

I would agree; this Guaranteed Delivery thing doesn't seem to me to be fair or realistic at this stage, and it's going to put ideas into eBay buyers' heads about what they are entitled to expect in terms of delivery time, and the compensation they deserve if the delivery time is not met.

[springyzone]

I know of someone who has opted in & it is for items that I assume are well over the $5 mark, in fact most likely range from $50 into the hundreds (though I am guessing based on the product, haven't actually asked or checked).

But from what I have been told, that person was able to strictly pick their areas. They chose 3 metropolitan areas, from memory.

They also do not use Aust Post. They have a regular courier service they use where delivery to those areas is pretty much always assured next day. So for them, this option was really about business as  usual to those 3 areas.

For the occasional seller or anyone routinely using Aust Post it could be a lot riskier business.

I still don't get why there is this obsession by ebay with guaranteeing delivery in 3 days. No other retailers do it. I suppose there might be the occasional emergency product people are after, but for me, I am pretty impressed with any seller who says in the ad that they post off within 24 hours. Some even say same day postage if bought before noon or whatever. As long as they follow through with that, the item will generally be with you within about a week in any case, if you are both in metropoltan areas. If you're not, then you're unlikely to find too many sellers guaranteeing 3 day delivery to your area anyway

[padi*0409]

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@springyzonewrote:

As long as they follow through with that, the item will generally be with you within about a week in any case, if you are both in metropoltan areas. If you're not, then you're unlikely to find too many sellers guaranteeing 3 day delivery to your area anyway

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.............so long as the parcel doesn't go through Chullora, Underwood or Sunshine West springy...............

[springyzone]

True, but it is the posting away bit that counts with me. If i can see something was posted quickly then that's the main thing.

I suppose at least people who use a regular courier service though don't have to worry about the parcel getting held up in the Aust post system.