What am I missing?

[the4masters2013]

I received an email from eBay today, which states:

90 items sent ; 0% sent with (or as ) untracked letters.

81% valid for trackable services.

All items I have sent have had sent have had tracking downloaded.

All items have been sent through Australia Post.

Am I missing something I should know about?

Or is eBay's maths worse than mine???

Thanks for any help.

[gec2002]

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@eol-products wrote:

I added up the difference in postage price and over a year for me it would add more than $500 to send those items tracked compared to unracked. Most of my items would be under 125grams packed but if they where heavier then the cost increase would be minimal.

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Yes the same, with a high percentage under 125g, to do all would add a very significant cost (and give eBay 10% of a significant cost which is what this is really about).  In fact if I am not covered not much point in sending tracked, its just costing me profit.  Guess I need to do the maths and see if the savings of sending untracked are out weighted by the cost of items lost and refunds.  Most of my untracked are $10 - $15 so it maybe a close call.  Need to workout at what price point the Risk/Reward becomes unacceptable.

[digital*ghost]

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@gec2002 wrote:

I am in the same boat as many in that I send untracked mostly, however if I think there could be issues I will send as a tracked letter.

However, the eBay email received today (19/1) "eBay Money Back Guarantee Policy Reminder" states "change to the way Item Not Received requests are resolved. If you use a tracked postage service, reliably upload valid tracking and use an eBay-integrated carrier for your eBay orders"  Is that "valid" what sellers would regard as valid ie an Auspost tracking number or what eBay seem to regard as valid ie only if originally listed as being listed with a Tracking Shipping Service, and items listed as "untracked" but sent with tracking (and uploaded into eBay) would not qualify and therefore forced to refund.

It would be nice if there was someone in eBay we could ask these technical question, as CS wouldn't even know what a Tracked Letter was.?

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I had the same concern when ebay sent the email saying less than half the tracking I upload is "valid".

They also say "reliably" upload valid tracking - what is reliably? Do they mean consistently? Do they mean on X% of all orders? Do they just mean all orders that have a tracked service selected get tracking uploaded? It is so typically eBay to be this vague and open to interpretation.

My hope (ha!), is that because tracked letters are via Aus Post, and they are an integrated carrier so tracking results display on eBay, the questions of "valid" tracking brought up through their emails is basically a non-issue, and it's just eBay using coded language to get as many sellers as possible uploading tracking to as many orders as possible. 

[gec2002]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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My hope (ha!), is that because tracked letters are via Aus Post, and they are an integrated carrier so tracking results display on eBay, the questions of "valid" tracking brought up through their emails is basically a non-issue, and it's just eBay using coded language to get as many sellers as possible uploading tracking to as many orders as possible. 

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Yes I agree, but unfortunately until some poor seller finds out the hard way or not, and reports back on the boards, we will not know with any certainty.  Talk about being treated like mushrooms.

[gec2002]

The saga continues with added new twists.

My "eBay for Business - A Change to your listings" email I received today 1/3 states

"Our objective is to ensure that buyer expectations are met about the type of postage service that is being provided. For any items that are priced below $20 and have had less than 20% tracking applied between July and December of 2020, we will assume these items are being sent by an untracked letter service. On the week commencing 29th March, these items will be automatically moved to the Australia Post Domestic Regular Letter Untracked in the item’s listing. "

So does that mean even if its listed as a "Tracked Letter" eBay will assume its untracked and not accept that it was tracked in a INR case?  Surely not.

It also states "Your listings may show longer Estimated Delivery Dates"  How much longer a day, a week, a month or a year.

Also "Your listings may be placed lower in search results"  What if they are promoted listings, will being untracked override this (which you pay extra for) and put them lower than Tracked and unpromoted??

What is the most annoying is that there is no possible way to get an accurate answer to these types of questions, which are critical to how you run your business.  Even if we could I guess it would be the usual "We can't provide that type of information as it would allow sellers to game the system" because only eBay is allowed to game the system.