How bad is the estimated delivery times eBay give us? Late postage rates are a joke. 0 rating ebay!

[ecoins.australia]

I rate eBay 0 on all stars for this one.

[casbit33]

I have to agree, they don't take into account weekends and public holidays either..

When I buy something and I'm asked "did it arrive on or before such a date" I say yes even if it didn't because I know the delivery dates are wrong, and I don't want to penalise a seller for this.

[springyzone]

Does it penalise a seller?

The problem I have with ticking something arrived in time if it didn't is that it will just confirm to ebay that their estimates were correct.

If a seller ever complains to ebay about the whole issue, ebay might then turn around and say everything is fine, their figures show 95% of buyers get their items on or before the estimated date so there is obviously no problem.

Maybe if something doesn't arrive in time it would be better to be honest or else just don't answer the question.

[phorum_junkie*]

If you check the AP site you will see pretty much the same delivery times quoted, ebay just base their delivery time on that period plus a seller's handling time.

Many sellers have solved the problem by increasing their handling time to 3 or 5 days.

[clarry100]

We have solved this problem by increasing our handling time to 3-days but still mailing out the same day we receive the order. This adds 3-days to the ebay estimates making them appear more realistic.

We never get penalised for late delivery now.

And most of our POS FB comments mention how quick our delivery was. That's a good thing for other buyers to see.

Almost all our items go out as large letter with no tracking to defend ourselves against late delivery too.

We have been operating this way on out two stores since this new late delivery point system started about 12-months ago and we have not had a single NO answer yet.

And yes.. if the buyer ticks NO to the question about when it arrives it does chalk up a late delivery point against the seller.

It's not a seller defect but if you get more than 10% NO answers as compared to YES answers then you will likely lose your Power Seller status (if this does anything either). So you need to maintain a ratio of better than 10:1 Yes:No answers to stay out of trouble.

As far as Im concerned its better that the buyer does not give any answer at all.

So... my recommendation is to increase your handling time.

[*tippy*toes*]

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@springyzone wrote:

Does it penalise a seller?

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Yes, it gives the seller a defect.

[clarry100]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

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@springyzone wrote:

Does it penalise a seller?

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Yes, it gives the seller a defect.

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Late delivery is not a seller defect like we know them for out of stock or an unresolved dispute.

It's a percentage rating that if it gets higher than 10% they will likely take away your power seller status which in turn could affect your search rankings.

You need to maintain better than a ratio of 10x No answers for every 100x Yes answers to keep under their radar.

But they don't issue defects for these.

[yeoldecoinco]

That is what many sellers have done, increase their handling times.

One thing eBay has done by bringing in estimated delivery times, is cause sellers to defend themselves by increasing their handling times out to 3-5 days and still posting on same or next day.

This is what we have done as well, about 12 months ago and it works all right.

Out of a couple of thousand transactions in the last year, we have received very few late delivery strikes.

Sad and pathetic that we have to do such things to defend our business, selling on eBay is like fighting a war, a constant battle of wits...

[collect247]

And sadly I lost the War = 0 rating for ebay as a seller

[lane-ends]

It is an underhand way of pressuring sellers into offering door to door tracking verifiable by buyers online. Thats the end game for Ebay. Extending handling times is stop gap used by sellers to proretect themselves, there is no long term benefit to Ebay for this method.

Do not be surprised if at some stage sellers start to be penalized for long handling times.