Late shipping conspiracy projections ?? bit of fun

[lane-ends]

Ok what is happining now is an obvious mess, with band aid work arounds. Ebay may be a complete puzzle to us mere mortals but there must be a bigger long term goal for them to stubbornly persist with this, so what is it?

I will play devils advocate and throw one up.

GOAL.:

Ebay want all buyers items who have visible tracking to buyers available from point of dispatch, so they feel more confident, and is a growing expectation. Also verification that seller has posted as per their handling day claims.

Ebay have no love of low price, low fee items and want to up the value/quality of stock on site

PROCESS:

Introduce controversial "shipping defects" so we get used to it, have a rant, adapt, then setttle down. The principle is evidence based defects rather than subjective defects. Yet buyer reported is still subjective, some dont reply, others can't remember so have a guess, eventually buyers work out impact, some will say on time when late to save seller a defect, some will say late when it wasn't as a sly slap> this aspect becomes ineffective. Sellers increasing handlling times without tracking lodgement to get around iit s not really achieving anything for Ebay in long run, so they will want to close that loophole.

POTENTIAL NEXT STEP RESPONSE

All items are to to have visible online lodgement validation within stated handling times REGARDLESS of delivery date. Not lodgement event within handling time=auto defect. Gets rid of buyer perceptions/result manipulation, and seller workarounds. "late shipment " defect then becomes genuine late shipment rather than late delivery instigated. Forces sellers to use Ebay linked shipping and prevents sellers from witholding tracking info (also a current workaround)

Sellers have items that are low value that dont justify tracking??  Do Ebay care? No, they want rid of these, forcing sellers to only offer items that can afford tracked shipping..

END RESULT

Simplified undisputable defects system reduces Ebays dispute workload..ie they have removed sellers arguable reasons for not having tracking lodgement. Buyers can buy with confidence items will be shipped on time and be fully trackable to their door

More value items=more fees + moves Ebay up the "quality" satus ladder

Aims achieved without stating it, diplomatic manipulation. 

Most changes that have been instigated by Ebay over the years have first been met with outrage, threats to leave, seller workarounds and then reluctance compliance. Ebay has always got what they wanted and those goals were not always apparent at the outset of changes.

Is this far fetched?? Or can I dredge this topic up in a couple of years and say told you so?

Any more conspiracies to add???.

[digital*ghost]

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@lane-ends wrote:

Sellers have items that are low value that dont justify tracking??  Do Ebay care? No, they want rid of these, forcing sellers to only offer items that can afford tracked shipping..

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Except... A) I don't give eBay that much credit when they make their decisions (you only have to look at their track history for rescinding new policies that don't work at all to realise they're not capable of comprehensive, long term thought / goals  ). 

And B) eBay is a global company - other countries can access far cheaper tracked postage options than we can. Not all of them, but most of the major ones, so it wouldn't get rid of cheap items. Aside from not being able to see the impact or effect of their decisions (whereas the majority of sellers can immediately), they also rarely take the unique circumstances etc of the littler countries like Aus into consideration when they devise their policies. (Sometimes they do, for example in the US, a seller has to send something like 95% of their shipments tracked in order to qualify for TRS). 

eBay are "strongly encouraging" tracked shipments, but that's not really surprising as the feature itself (not the cost) is of benefit to everyone involved in a transaction. 

[lane-ends]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

I posted an item last Thursday to the same state. EBay's estimate says 7th to 11th March. My Post notified me this morning that it's "with Australia Post for delivery today".

I'm wondering how people get on if something sits at the PO for a few days. I just checked the tracking for an item from last week and it was awaiting collection on Wednesday, but not actually collected until Friday. It was still before the first date of the estimate, but wondering if eBay takes that into consideration when slapping people? What if someone has to go away unexpectedly and doesn't collect it for10 days? Will the seller get slapped if it then falls outside the estimate?

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Yep there are reports of ebay sticking by buyer pick up date as delivery date. Hence only real protection is validated lodgement.

Full tracking from start to finish is becoming the norm for online sales, buyers are starting to expect it, otherwise they are getting toey and asking if you have sent it yet (or rather ask why you haven't). This insecurity and impatience will affect their perception when they tick the" did it arrive by?" box. So by not having lodgement or witholding uploading it, including just relying on extending handling times to give a buffer (only option with letter rate)will start to have reduced protection as a workaround. More particularly as many Ebay seller swill now be using full tracking, so those that dont will start to raise questions amongst buyers.

Agree on the point about policies introduced by a national operation not taking into acount local ability of services to comply (ie AP's tracking only being partial or too expensive)

[casbit33]

I wonder if this means all the cheap chinese things will disappear. Probably not as ebay clearly benefit from them and want to get rid of us.

[toysandthings12]

Wont affect china sellers, they get cheap access to the worlds factory and have cheap freight with trade agreements worldwide.

[lane-ends]

Dont know. a lot of the tracking numbers on those are fake tracking so unlikely to prortect them against late deliveries.

The whoel late sipping defects system seems to be playing havoc with all international destinations as far as I can see.