eBay

msmaggie060 · ‎12-04-2016

Either I'm not reading the dates correctly or the Economy International Shipping is showing 8 to 16 days again. Raphael said this was fixed and corrected to 11-23 days but when I check my items have changed back again. Can someone else check please. Not my items though, I have had to remove Australia temporarily from my items since I have already got a defect for late shipping from an Aussie buyer. Can't do anything about it either, it went Lettermail. Plus, can you image trying to explain that situation to a CS?

@rose-dee how about your items? I know you had the same problem with the dates a few weeks ago too.

reallynicestamps · ‎12-05-2016

I'm kinda cynical about that.

As I recall, Canada did run a Made in Canada labelling program in the late 20th century, but it was voluntary and not supported by tax breaks for manufacturers.

Basically the manufacturers had a 'feel good' program going.

But with so many of Trump's cronies and family doing their manufacturing overseas (even the touted Carrier deal lost 1400 jobs to a new plant in Mexico while paying the company $700 per worker per year to keep 1000 in the States) I really don't see much chance of higher duty on imports.

And since they are an anti-government government, the chances of spending tax money on a new program to encourage 'made in the USA' labelling are also pretty slight.

But with this bunch of flipfloppers and hypocrites, who knows?

gwrocen · ‎12-05-2016

@rose-dee wrote:
@musicyouneed wrote:
That is so good that you have tracking info to show how long it is taking. I have loads of buyers from Australia but cringe each time I send something out with the ebay estimated date of arrival. There is no way that the parcels will get to their destination by the date ebay said they would. Do I stop shipping to Australia because of that?

I would really appreciate if you could show that to Raphael on Wed. Showing how long it is taking. I know that he can't do anything about it but maybe pass on the info to someone to show.
I'll be bringing this issue up with Raphael on Wednesday, and will be certain to include a link to this thread so he can read it (or pass it along, since he's leaving).

The long tracking times to places like New Caledonia aren't relevant in terms of defects as long as the seller ships with tracking and gets an acceptance scan for the shipment within their stated handling time. Although the seller might get an INR, they won't get a defect even if a tracked parcel takes 2 months to arrive, as long as the seller has the acceptance scan.

Although the shortened eBay delivery estimates for international economy shipping may cause problems with buyer expectations of delivery on tracked parcels, the big issue for sellers are defects that will result for non-tracked shipments as long as eBay leaves these shortened delivery times in place. Whether this is a glitch or deliberate, it really needs to be changed back quickly. It's especially bad for this to occur during the pre-Christmas period.

With respect to the long shipping delay between NZ and New Caledonia mentioned by the poster above, even though the flight may only take a few hours, I would make an educated guess that there are very few "mail flights" between the two destinations per month, especially if the planes are smaller and weight is a consideration. In many remote parts of the world mail for a particular destination is collected and one special flight is scheduled every so often to carry the mail there.

Would appreciate it if you would discuss this with Raphael on Wednesday as we have to be out of town that day.

The point still is that just because there is no tracking, this should not mean that sellers do not mail the parcels when they said they did and that buyers will not get their parcels.

No tracking should not mean that the seller should not to be believed which seems to be the case. It's not the seller's fault that Canada Post no longer offers tracking for Small Packets or that it is so expensive to have registered mail that buyers refuse to pay the extra charges to have tracking.

Who knows why parcels sit in some places for as long as they do or why they get shuffled back and forth between distribution points until someone realizes that oh! maybe the parcel should go west instead of east. This has happened in the USA.

Re our parcel to New Caledonia - New Caledonia has two airports and they get daily flights coming in. So why did it take 18 days to move from New Zealand to NC? And why is Canada Post's Air Mail Delivery Standard to New Caledonia "less than two weeks"? We opened a ticket with Canada Post to investigate after the expected delivery standard had passed. We were told it will take at least 30 days to do the investigation. Maybe they sent their letter by that "slow boat to China" to the International Postal Authority. Still waiting for a response even though the parcel has been delivered.

We got our one and only defect in 18 years on eBay because of an untracked package that arrived within the time frame we had picked (11-23 business days) but eBay had the wrong shortened delivery times posted. We were not contacted by eBay to see if we had mailed the parcel within our handling time (which we had - we keep very good records of all our transactions) but gave us the defect because of delivery time since the buyer was asked if they received the parcel within the stated delivery time.

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-05-2016

@gwrocen wrote:
No tracking should not mean that the seller should not to be believed which seems to be the case. It's not the seller's fault that Canada Post no longer offers tracking for Small Packets or that it is so expensive to have registered mail that buyers refuse to pay the extra charges to have tracking.

Canada Post has never offered tracking for Small Packet. They used to offer insurance for Small Packet. And for a period of time they used to show originate scans online for Small Packet.

-..-

rose-dee · ‎12-05-2016

@gwrocen wrote:
We got our one and only defect in 18 years on eBay because of an untracked package that arrived within the time frame we had picked (11-23 business days) but eBay had the wrong shortened delivery times posted. We were not contacted by eBay to see if we had mailed the parcel within our handling time (which we had - we keep very good records of all our transactions) but gave us the defect because of delivery time since the buyer was asked if they received the parcel within the stated delivery time.

Yes, this is the sad part of eBay's on-time delivery policy. It was developed not for our Canadian realities, but with U.S. sellers in mind (who have reasonably-priced tracking available on most USPS services). Yet we are still obliged to meet those standards although we don't have the same shipping services at our disposal.

Unfortunately, even if we were able to provide absolute proof that an non-tracked item was mailed without our handling time, it makes no difference in terms of eBay's on-time rules. If we ship without tracking, eBay says we must deliver within their time frames or get a defect, they don't care who or where we are. Which is why those displayed time frames are so critical.

You can be sure I'll be bringing this issue up with Raphael on Wednesday. I consider it a serious problem, and I hope he can get someone to do something about it before he leaves.

rose-dee · ‎12-05-2016

@msmaggie060 wrote:
Either I'm not reading the dates correctly or the Economy International Shipping is showing 8 to 16 days again.

As a follow-up, I've just spot-checked several of my own listings on .com, and it appears that Australia is the main problem destination in terms of short time frame. If I recall correctly, it used to be one of the destinations that simply said "Varies for items shipped from an international location", which was fine as an open-ended, non-committal time frame.

I mostly list on .com, but do still have some .ca listings, and I see that on the latter, Australia is shown as 7-14 days on some, 8-14 days on others, for Light/Small Packet International. Even this is way too short, in my view.

Could it be that eBay is starting to insert specific time frames for destinations where previously they only used the "Varies" delivery estimate? If so, they got Australia really wrong.

Out of interest I check and recorded the eBay delivery displays on about a dozen of my listings, some on .ca, most on .com. Here is what I've found (I'm going to share this table with Raphael on Wed. as well).

Why New Zealand gets the usual “Varies for items shipped from an international location”, but Australia gets a very short time frame, makes no sense, nor does it seem logical to have a specific time frame for Norway and Germany and none for, say, Denmark: Even where eBay has specified times for European destinations, they are too short, in my experience. It certainly looks from this table that eBay is just taking the Light/Small Packet estimates from .ca, adding a day or two and using them for "Economy outside U.S." on .com.

Destination	Listing on .ca with “Light/Small Pkt” shipping	Listing on .com with “Economy Int’l” shipping
Australia	7-14 days or 8-15 on some	8-16 days
New Zealand	“Varies…”	“Varies…”
Hong Kong	“Varies…”	“Varies…”
France	7-14 days	7-14 days
Denmark	“Varies…”	“Varies…”
Germany	6-21 days	6-19 days
Norway	6-12 days or 7-12 days (on some listings)	7-17 days
U.K.	6-14 days	6-14 days

rose-dee · ‎12-05-2016

Correction: I meant to say above that "Out of interest I checked and recorded the eBay delivery displays..."

Is there anybody here who likes the short editing time window on these boards? The bots get me with the pink bar of rejection every time.

gwrocen · ‎12-05-2016

@ypdc_dennis wrote:
Canada Post has never offered tracking for Small Packet. They used to offer insurance for Small Packet. And for a period of time they used to show originate scans online for Small Packet.

-..-

Yes, you're right.

For a couple of years there was insurance for Small Packets but not tracking.

But last Tuesday, we presented at the Post Office - a Small Packet - Air for International Destination.

We don't usually print shipping labels for Small Packets online since there is no discount but for this one

we had printed the shipping label through PayPal and it had a bar code.

The gal at the Post Office scanned the bar code and gave us a receipt showing that the parcel had been accepted.

Receipt shows the date and the destination Postal Code.

When the number is entered in Canada Post tracking it states that this is a valid number but for a number of reasons

is not in the tracking system. Namely, of course, because Small Packets are not tracked.

This may be another option for showing when a Small Packet was mailed

and if it is within a seller's handling time (if eBay would accept this).

rose-dee · ‎12-06-2016

@gwrocen wrote:

The gal at the Post Office scanned the bar code and gave us a receipt showing that the parcel had been accepted.

Receipt shows the date and the destination Postal Code.
When the number is entered in Canada Post tracking it states that this is a valid number but for a number of reasons
is not in the tracking system. Namely, of course, because Small Packets are not tracked.
This may be another option for showing when a Small Packet was mailed
and if it is within a seller's handling time (if eBay would accept this).

Canada Post discontinued the bar codes on Light and Small Packet some time ago, so I'm not sure why your label would have had a code (unless this is something really new?). I use labels for these services frequently, and they now have nothing except a couple of those little squiggly boxes, which no doubt mean something, but exactly what, I don't know.

A few of us "regulars" brought this basic idea up -- i.e. some sort of acceptance scan on a non-tracked service -- when the on-time metric was first introduced, and again more recently with Raphael of eBay Canada, but it has gone absolutely nowhere.

It makes sense, and is the simplest solution for Canadian sellers (and for Canada Post incidentally, since presumably they already have the technology in place). However the biggest roadblock is that it doesn't fit within eBay's U.S.-focused view of things. They have so far made no concessions, however minor, in their on-time policy, in recognition of Canadian sellers' particular issues. I doubt they ever will. We're on our own.

After banging on this particular door for many, many months, I've pretty much given up. I ended up extending my handling time instead, and showing "Economy" services on .com. That does work, as long as the "Economy" services have realistic delivery time frames.

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-06-2016

@rose-dee wrote:
@gwrocen wrote:
The gal at the Post Office scanned the bar code and gave us a receipt showing that the parcel had been accepted.
Receipt shows the date and the destination Postal Code.
When the number is entered in Canada Post tracking it states that this is a valid number but for a number of reasons
is not in the tracking system. Namely, of course, because Small Packets are not tracked.
This may be another option for showing when a Small Packet was mailed
and if it is within a seller's handling time (if eBay would accept this).
Canada Post discontinued the bar codes on Light and Small Packet some time ago, so I'm not sure why your label would have had a code (unless this is something really new?). I use labels for these services frequently, and they now have nothing except a couple of those little squiggly boxes, which no doubt mean something, but exactly what, I don't know.

A few of us "regulars" brought this basic idea up -- i.e. some sort of acceptance scan on a non-tracked service -- when the on-time metric was first introduced, and again more recently with Raphael of eBay Canada, but it has gone absolutely nowhere.

It makes sense, and is the simplest solution for Canadian sellers (and for Canada Post incidentally, since presumably they already have the technology in place). However the biggest roadblock is that it doesn't fit within eBay's U.S.-focused view of things. They have so far made no concessions, however minor, in their on-time policy, in recognition of Canadian sellers' particular issues. I doubt they ever will. We're on our own.

After banging on this particular door for many, many months, I've pretty much given up. I ended up extending my handling time instead, and showing "Economy" services on .com. That does work, as long as the "Economy" services have realistic delivery time frames.

There never used to be a bar code on small or light packet but a few months ago Canada Post put one on the small packet labels but it is for internal use.

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-06-2016

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@rose-dee wrote:

Canada Post discontinued the bar codes on Light and Small Packet some time ago, so I'm not sure why your label would have had a code (unless this is something really new?). I use labels for these services frequently, and they now have nothing except a couple of those little squiggly boxes, which no doubt mean something, but exactly what, I don't know.

There never used to be a bar code on small or light packet but a few months ago Canada Post put one on the small packet labels but it is for internal use.

Small packet has had bar codes for at least a couple of years now (UR 000 000 000 CA). Light packet has had the squiggly box (QR codes) for about as long.

For internal use. But Canada Post did display the Small Packet originate scans for small packet online for about 6 months before some HQ bureaucrat decided that shouldn't be done since it's not a tracked service.

-..-

i.am.vivian · ‎12-06-2016

@ypdc_dennis wrote:
Small packet has had bar codes for at least a couple of years now (UR 000 000 000 CA). Light packet has had the squiggly box (QR codes) for about as long.

For internal use. But Canada Post did display the Small Packet originate scans for small packet online for about 6 months before some HQ bureaucrat decided that shouldn't be done since it's not a tracked service.

Now that IS interesting. I don't remember that. Or forgot. Or didn't pay attention. Or never knew in the first place. So its all set up and ready to go, entry scanning could happen at the flick of a switch (or wave of a wand), no extra added costs, only they have DECIDED not to. Then how hard is it to give us the second half, the DELIVERY half?

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-06-2016

@i.am.vivian wrote:
@ypdc_dennis wrote:
Small packet has had bar codes for at least a couple of years now (UR 000 000 000 CA). Light packet has had the squiggly box (QR codes) for about as long.

For internal use. But Canada Post did display the Small Packet originate scans for small packet online for about 6 months before some HQ bureaucrat decided that shouldn't be done since it's not a tracked service.

Now that IS interesting. I don't remember that. Or forgot. Or didn't pay attention. Or never knew in the first place. So its all set up and ready to go, entry scanning could happen at the flick of a switch (or wave of a wand), no extra added costs, only they have DECIDED not to. Then how hard is it to give us the second half, the DELIVERY half?

Small packet is an external service so it means agreements with all the other post offices in the world for the delivery part -- and the COST part (the other post offices won't be doing scanning for free).

If Canada Post started displaying the originate scans online again I'd be happy -- since that meets eBay's shipping defect reporting standard.

Or even: Buy your small packet shipping via paypal and Canada Post then feeds paypal and eBay with the originate scans as they occur.

-..-

zee-chan · ‎12-06-2016

Delivery estimate days aside, I'm also very annoyed by eBay showing estimated delivery dates for Sundays...

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-07-2016

I mostly list on .com, but do still have some .ca listings, and I see that on the latter, Australia is shown as 7-14 days on some, 8-14 days on others, for Light/Small Packet International. Even this is way too short, in my view.

You have a few listings showing 1 day handling and the rest as 2 days so that's why you are seeing 2 different estimates. Also small and light packet are not always given the same time frame to eac country do that might account for some of the differences.

Apparently the economy delivery estimates haven't changed although I thought they had. Poco put up a chart in February and the times are still the same. I'll post his chart in the next post.

Since the delivery estimates on .com are not specifically for Canadians, I would show Raphael the comparison for standard and economy international rather than bringing small packet into it. It doesn't make sense to me why there is no difference between the two delivery times for some countries and only a 2 one 3 day difference for others. Most of the standard times given are similar or the same as USPS first class int'l times given. Economy should obviously be slower.

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-07-2016

February 2016

rose-dee · ‎12-07-2016

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

You have a few listings showing 1 day handling and the rest as 2 days so that's why you are seeing 2 different estimates. Also small and light packet are not always given the same time frame to eac country do that might account for some of the differences.

Yes, I'm aware of both. I recently changed most of my listings to 2-day handling, but didn't get around to all of them, so it's likely the 1-day discrepancy was due to that factor. I chose pattern items to compile my chart, which ship by Light Packet, so I don't think that would be the reason for the time frame differences.

If you compare the early 2016 chart from 'poco' you posted and compare it my (fairly limited) chart above, you'll notice that "Economy" to Denmark, for example, now has a specific time frame indicated, whereas it used to be "Varies...". EBay must be filling in some of the blanks in their delivery estimates -- although I see NZ now has "Varies..." for "Economy". EBay just can't seem to make up their minds.

This isn't particularly good news for sellers, as eBay has said they take those estimates from their own data on delivery (from where, i.e. U.S. or Canada, they don't say), not from the actual carriers. So who knows whether those time frames represent reality for Canadian sellers. I'd rather have an international buyer see "Varies..." than have a specific expectation of delivery.

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-07-2016

Denmark shares varied for economy on both chart but yes, NZ is different. It's possible that NZ was changed but if it's the only one that was changed then it's also possible that the wrong info was entered on poco's chart.

cooltoyzncomics · ‎12-07-2016

This is just fraudulent on Ebay's end to screw sellers out of their top rated status. I just had a buyer in France buy a small package international air item on Nov 17, mailed on Nov 18, and it arrived on Dec 5. That is 11 business days, 12 if you count the Friday it sits in the post office until being picked up in the evening.

Ebay has the arrival date between Nov 23 -29. So I end up with a ludicrous late strike. Where is the right person or dept. we need to scream at because I'm happy to tear the hide off of the Ebay brain trust making the decision that a package could arrive from Canada to France in 3 business days.

rose-dee · ‎12-08-2016

I brought this issue up at today's session with Raphael, but I'm not sure we got a very conclusive (or satisfying) answer. I'll quote Raphael's answer below, but you can read my entire question and his response in this thread (Post #7): http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/December-7th-2016-Weekly-Session-Raphael-s-Finale/m-...

"Regarding the EDDs attached to listings created on eBay.com, I just want to reiterate that generic services such as "Economy Intl Shipping" have EDDs set with US sellers in mind (as they should). There may be some wiggle to adjust the estimated dates if the system can differentiate between US and non-US items for that particular service, something I'm not sure of, so I'll ask the team to look into it. Forgive me in advance if I can,t get a solid response in time to be able to communicate it back to you, but I'll it on the master list so that it doesn't fall through the cracks."

So, as usual, it's the U.S.-centred explanation.

However, what I don't understand is why Raphael was able to get the "Economy" shipping timeline for U.S. deliveries by Canadian sellers extended so urgently and quickly (see the Wed. session a couple of weeks ago), but he seems less positive about this problem. Hopefully someone will take action on this once he's gone.

If there is still time, and he's not too busy to return to the discussion today, I'm going to ask him about this apparent contradiction. Otherwise, we're on our own.

pjcdn2005 · ‎12-08-2016

@rose-dee wrote:
I brought this issue up at today's session with Raphael, but I'm not sure we got a very conclusive (or satisfying) answer. I'll quote Raphael's answer below, but you can read my entire question and his response in this thread (Post #7): http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/December-7th-2016-Weekly-Session-Raphael-s-Finale/m-...

"Regarding the EDDs attached to listings created on eBay.com, I just want to reiterate that generic services such as "Economy Intl Shipping" have EDDs set with US sellers in mind (as they should). There may be some wiggle to adjust the estimated dates if the system can differentiate between US and non-US items for that particular service, something I'm not sure of, so I'll ask the team to look into it. Forgive me in advance if I can,t get a solid response in time to be able to communicate it back to you, but I'll it on the master list so that it doesn't fall through the cracks."

So, as usual, it's the U.S.-centred explanation.

However, what I don't understand is why Raphael was able to get the "Economy" shipping timeline for U.S. deliveries by Canadian sellers extended so urgently and quickly (see the Wed. session a couple of weeks ago), but he seems less positive about this problem. Hopefully someone will take action on this once he's gone.

If there is still time, and he's not too busy to return to the discussion today, I'm going to ask him about tjhis apparent contradiction. Otherwise, we're on our own.

In the shipping from outside the US it was a matter of fixing a glitch. They decided long ago that service would show a specific number of days. The international economy times are not something that was entered in by mistake..they are apparently the times decided on long ago so so it isn't as simple as fixing a glitch. American sellers also use those generic international choices so unless they figured our another way to do things, they would be changed for US sellers too so of course it's a US centered explanation.