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?

[countessalmirena]

<-- I know this has absolutely no connection to the Yorkshiremen, but it is... I think... irresistible.

[menca-3]

How does 3 day guaranteed delivery operate.

I have it appearing on my listings, but never got any details about how it works.

Recently I have been sending a lot of BX9 mailers with regular postage and no tracking.

We had one that took ninedays western Adelaide to Southern Adelaide.

Another posted just after Easter arrived on Thursday in country Victoria.

Am I at risk of having to pay claims?

My friend and I have been building good sales, but I am getting scared now. We have been buying packaging in bulk and passed that on to customers as our postage ratings fell below 4.5, have gone up to 4.9 now but we lose money on postage. Everybody else makes money from us on postage, and are we at risk of losing more when the false claims for non delivery start up?

Combine that with the disappearance of Super Sundays and we will become unviable quickly.

[digital*ghost]

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@menca-3wrote:

How does 3 day guaranteed delivery operate.

I have it appearing on my listings, but never got any details about how it works.

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I see Fast & Free on some of your listings, which eBay will put there if they think the buyer will probably get it within 4 business days and postage is listed as free (it's based on your and the buyer's postcode, so not everyone will see it - it's more common to see it on your own listings because then the ETA is calculated based on from and to your own postcode, and if you have a short handling time).

Fast and Free is different to guaranteed delivery, though - F&F just appears, but guaranteed delivery is something you have to opt in to and meet specific conditions in order to participate. I switched to show only Guaranteed Delivery listings while looking at all of your items for sale, the results came back as 0, so you won't have to worry about that. 

[digital*ghost]

I just thought it might be worth posting here, in case some didn't get eBay's latest update email (I got one yesterday trying to talk me into opting in to Guaranteed Delivery).

Anyway, for those that may be on the fence, or interested, Sendle has decided to guarantee 2 day delivery for parcels sent through them, and will compensate the sender if that guarantee isn't met. I'm sure there are pros and cons to switching to Sendle, so it's an option that should be researched thoroughly before making any switches, but figured some may find the info useful. 

[davewil1964]

Thanks for that.

I didn't read the email. Now I don't have to.

[countessalmirena]

Oh, how less dulcet are the tones of eBay's updaters than the afrighted howler monkey...

[melbourneclearance]

Hm, thanks for that, dg. I've had a look at their website and their prices are very good. I may give them a call. I think it is bye bye AP for me.

I've been cutting costs, I started buying cheaper boxes and envelopes from non AP sellers late last year. Now if this Sendle thing can work, bring on more ebay and PayPal fees!!!  (...or not.... )

[lyndal1838]

Are your buyers going to be happy with courier deliveries with no option to use AP.

Many buyers do not like courier deliveries and will not buy from sellers who use them.

[melbourneclearance]

Yes, I will have to think about that. Also, I like to use a box to send, Sendle requires A4 satchel under 500g for the cheap national freight, otherwise it will work out more expensive than AP's under 1kg BX1. The signature on delivery bit is a problem.

I have just fired over a few questions to Sendle email support (another minus - no phone support!).

BTW, the Sendle 2 day guaranteed delivery from Melbourne only covers Melbourne, Adelaide, Geelong, Sydney, and Canberra.

[joztamps]

If I was you, I would have a good hard look at the reviews Sendle gets on "Product Review" before I risked transferring my business and ebay reputation to them.
It's interesting that they aren't actually a courier business, they sub all their work to actual courier companies, such as the el cheapo (read "no frills, corner-cutting") Couriers Please.