eBay told a customer that their purchase had a guarenteed delivery date

[retrogamestoreau]

I had a customer purchase an item from me in the NT. eBay gave them a guarenteed delivery time of 4-5 business days. The item did not arrive in that time despite me sending it out the same day it was purchased. Postage was purchased via eBay. I called Australia Post and they said delivery time for that area is estimated to be 5-7 business days. Why is eBay telling my customers their order will arrive before the date Australia Post can get it to them? Is there a way to fix this? I don't want to recieve negative feedback because eBay is offering unobtainable delivery dates to my customers.

[curraone]

You can't do anything about the ebay estimated dates - it has been noted for some time they don't allow enough time

What you can do is extend your handling time.     I have 4 days handling time on my listings, even though I post the same day or the next day.

[retrogamestoreau]

The only issue with doing that is the best match algorithm favours listings with shorter handling times.

[curraone]

nobody knows how best match works - and many buyers, myself for one, don't use best match anyway

Get a few negs for postage tho and you are dead  to best match anyway

[tazzieterror]

As curraone has said, about the only thing you can control is the handling time so adding in a couple of days buffer will help avoid "late" deliveries.

eBay's estimates *are* totally ridiculous though - I think it was over the Easter long weekend where I noticed for an interstate item I was interested in, if I purchased on Friday afternoon, eBay said it would be delivered on the Saturday or Sunday - it was something completely impossible, anyway, especially as I'm in a regional area that can't even receive next-day express post.

I also buy on eBay a lot and likewise never use "Best Match" when searching for items