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?

[melbourneclearance]

Interestingly, Sendle's product review boasts a 4.2 star while Couriers Please is at 2 stars. I have never used Sendle (never even heard of them until this thread) before but I have used Couriers Please a few times with bulky items that AP wouldn't take. Of the 4 times I have used Couriers Please 3 times were smooth, but once they were 5 days late in picking up despite my calling them everyday. They even refused to refund when I wanted to cancel the pick up and go with another courier, not sure if the refusal was completely legal but it got me waiting until they eventually turned up to pick up at least.

[joztamps]

Couriers Please can be very hit and miss.
They are cheap, so the drivers have to work harder and faster to make a reasonable quid, which tempts them to cut corners or delay ("prioritise") pick-ups and deliveries, especially (for example) if the job looks like taking too much time.

[digital*ghost]

Sendle broker out the service to a few different couriers, so who handles yours will depend on where you are and who is handling them for Sendle in that area. That also means Sendle are basically as good as the couriers in any given area, with some of them franchises that seem to give Sendle's parcels a low priority, so service quality will vary greatly in different areas.  I know some sellers have had really great experiences using it, while others quite the opposite (and I believe their insurance is virtually non-existant, so if anyone is sending high value and /or fragile items, it might not be the best option). 

It's interesting that they're offering a guarantee they'll be compensating for if it's not met, though, since they are effectively just the middle-man so are guaranteeing the service of multiple, various couriers (or so I assume, unless the limited areas are handled by only one or two companies). 

[ozepool]

I sell technical stuff, offer no returns and minimum 2 days handling time, all parcels are tracked and insured if high value item. I tried sending small items as a letter, even registered but had no shows all the time with the result I had to do refund including postage, no more, customers pay proper freight. Sellers need to protect themselves from the angry, sometimes dumb, even dishonest buyers. Even a neutral FB lasts 12 months, no resource with Ebay, customers when confronted, agree to withdraw but never do! I now have 100% FB, no more "buying" buyers

[lyndal1838]

Did you send the buyers a Feedback Revision Request after they had agreed to chance the feedback?

They cannot change anything without it.

[the4masters2013]

I had the same email yesterday and with much eye rolling logged into the Sendle webpage.

It appears that they deal only within the capitol cities plus the major places like Wollongong and Newcastle.

Another ebay suggestion which won't work in regional areas.  Again!

[egglesdtp]

If you wrote this, you are VERY clever, and should publish it.

[countessalmirena]

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@egglesdtp wrote:
If you wrote this, you are VERY clever, and should publish it.

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Well, if I published it, I think Monty Python would say "Hmm... that's suspiciously close to our famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch!"

[davewil1964]

John Cleese is apparently broke, and definitely big and tall, so I wouldn't be crossing him.

[countessalmirena]

I wouldn't dare. He'd probably taunt me.