Warning ! Site wide technical glitch affecting ETA of items

[e_purchasing]

I have noticed since Wednesday, eBay is miscalculating ETA of items and advertising the wrong ETA.

Whether the item has 1, 2,3,5, or 7 business days as handling, the ETA is calculating at same business day. Only those items with 10 business days handling are displaying correct ETA.

ETA is not including the handling time in addition to postage time and only displaying postage time as the ETA.

If you are a seller, check for yourself (if you have handling of more than 1 day) and report the issue to eBay so they fix it.

If you are a buyer, check handling time before buying and add that to the displayed ETA.

I picked this up when I ordered something on Wednesday and asked the seller why he still had not shipped as of today and he advised me that he had 4 business days as handling time advertised on the site and sure enough when he is supposed to ship it by is a business day after the earliest I am (according to the site) to receive it. ie it was showing ETA 9-16 May but his handling time would be 12 May before he even shipped it. The "true" ETA should have displayed 13-20 May

I'm pretty easy going but if I was an unhinged buyer expecting the item on 16 May the latest, I would be going off the deep end with disputes and negs against an innocent seller.

[p9games]

Spoke to a surprisingly helpful support agent - John.  He checked his internal systems and confirmed that this is indeed a known issue.

Whilst I was on the call and he was checking something I marked an order received a minute or two earlier as sent and confirmed it was showing a reasonable ETA of 7 to 10 days (untracked Auspost shipment). So the issue appears to have been resolved - kinda sorta.  Orders that WERE impacted are not being updated with correct ETA's so I expect more of these INR claims.

I also mentioned to john (the support agent) that I chatted to an incredibly unhelpful ebay genius who told me it would take 2 days for an Ebay callback.  He said was going to report that.

I take it all with a grain of salt  -talk of reports and him monitoring the situation and calling me back proactively.... but we shall see.  

[king-cards]

I can confirm that all my recent orders are showing correct dates. But all orders almost a week were showing Express Post estimated delivery times instead of the untracked times, so expecting more issues as those pass through the system.

Interestingly enough, none of my trading cards orders (the few I still get with my remaining stock) have seen any complaints despite also being affected by this issue. I do miss those customers since switching to books, which generally have much older and whinier people buying them.

[twyngwyn]

I have a 10 day handling time (since Covid) that has not affected my sales…..I’m so glad this might be ‘sorted’ for you

[davewil1964]

I find book buyers, my exclusive clientele, to be very polite.

[*casey*]

---

@king-cards wrote:

" I do miss those customers since switching to books, which generally have much older and whinier people buying them

You'll probably have less if they read your post.

How to put off potential  "older " buyers !

---

[king-cards]

There are virtually no buyers reading Ebay forums. Agree or not, it's simply an observation. Coming from selling trading cards, which have a younger interest group who understands the internet/buying online better, to selling books which has a lot of older and less internet-versed customers, the difference was significant and rather shocking when I first started. Books are certainly not as bad as other fields (cheap DVDs were by far the absolute worst), but I do get more problem customers with them compared to things I've sold in the past.

[*casey*]

---

@king-cards wrote:

"There are virtually no buyers reading Ebay forums"

Ridiculous statement.

This thread's already had 485 views and you have no idea how many of those  are buyers.

And  many sellers are also  buyers

[king-cards]

Don't wanna derail the thread so this is the last I'll say about it, but that's absurd. Ebay themselves don't even read these forums. 99.99% of people who buy on this platform probably don't even know they exist. If they do, they're on the Buyers board asking for help/looking up a specific issue. The Seller board is used almost exclusively to report on news and problems, there are not bored buyers trawling through looking for sellers to get upset at.

[*casey*]

Thank you for explaining  who uses the boards and how    LOL

"I do miss those customers since switching to books, which generally have much older and whinier people buying them

"to selling books which has a lot of older and less internet-versed customers"

" there are not bored buyers trawling through looking for sellers to get upset at"

As your posts have become  increasingly  condescending towards some buyers, I'd like to reassure  any

buyers reading  here,  this is NOT  the way that  other  book sellers describe their clients.

This is:

davewil1964

I find book buyers, my exclusive clientele, to be very polite.

My last post on this thread so it can get back on track

[countessalmirena]

👩‍🏫📔📖📕📚📘🧾

💃🏏⛵️✍🏻🛜💻🖥️⌨️👩‍💻🧠

😩🚫

As an intelligent, not old, not whiny, internet-savvy book buyer, who reads these boards, what can I say…? Only that fellow book buyers form the majority of my friends, and they also lack the whiny technophobe ancient dimwit touch… oh, and that most book sellers have demonstrated admirable qualities to me.

Not all. The occupation isn’t a definitive test.