Many of you who know me here understand how twitchy I am about Defects and Feedback. Allow me to preface this all by admitting that.
I recently received a Late Shipment Defect (my first) for an item mailed by Canada Post domestic lettermail to a repeat customer on June 21 (mailed at the postal counter before 5 pm same-day as per within my handling time and within five hours of payment) just as things were coming to a head with Canada Post and the tensions with the union lockout-strike.
The item was supposed to arrive no later than June 29. On or about July 4, my buyer left me positive feedback but indicate the order didn't arrive on time by answering The Question with a 'no'. Voila defect but obviously due to it being my first, it still left me within the acceptable range.
I called Customer Service to appeal the Late Shipment Defect based on the lockout/strike (as ebay Canada had assured us that sellers would not be punished for mail delays due to that) but learned I would have no luck as only orders sent with tracking be between July 2 and July 18 would be eligible for feedback or defect removal. Mine fit neither criteria. I lost my appeal. I was not happy about this. I complained to Raphael at Board Hour. He was sympathetic but agreed that I was not eligible for defect removal.
The stain would remain. I couldn't fix it.
Then I thought a little more about what I could do to ensure this didn't happen again: adjust handling time. This I have been vocally resistant to doing since the very day that new seller standards were introduced. Same-day shipping is a large part of my appeal as a Canadian seller. I cannot compete on price but I can on fast delivery to fellow Canadians so lying about how quick I ship always seemed counterintuitive to me... unless I started having problems with Late Shipment defects. I pro-actively eliminated all service via Small- and Light-Packet so, for a time, that seemed enough. But not if my domestic lettermail would get me into trouble, as it still represents a good portion of my sales.
So if this late-reported item was supposed to arrive no later than June 29 and the buyer left feedback on or about July 4 saying it was late, then I would have to assume it arrived as late as July 4. So, I added five days of handling time to everything I ship as free domestic lettermail.
But is that the right amount? Like the right number of extra days of handling time? A fellow seller cautioned me that adding too many extra days of handling time would result in my listings being flagged by ebay and then potentially dropping lower in Best Match results. Right. So.... realistically speaking, how many days of handling time to add? No sense in adding only three if it was five days late because it still wouldn't be enough to help and no sense adding five days of handling time if it was only three days late.
I would have to reach out to the buyer to learn when he got it. How best to do this.... hmmm.
Thank them again for their purchase. Explain I realize the order was marked by the buyer as received late and apologize for the postal delay. Reiterate it was shipped same-day as promised. Explain that I want to assure all buyers are receiving the excellent service they expect so may I ask exactly how late it was received? As a quality assurance issue. Sent that message Aug. 4.
No reply.
Wait eight days and sent another message, similar to the first but with more substantive explanation as to the reason it is important for a seller like me to know exactly how late his order is reported to have been received so that I can be certain to provide a more accurate delivery estimate for future purchases. Remember, it is not my intent to bully or badger the buyer, I only want to honestly know how many days this was late so that I can fix delivery estimates for the future.
Overnight, I hear back. The buyer replies (paraphrased) that he doesn't remember when he got the order but that everything is good, not to worry.
On this basis, and because the messages were sent vie eBay Messages, I am successfully able to have the Late Shipment Defect removed without any kind of hassle from Customer Service. I prefaced my request to have it removed by explain the reason I had reached out to the buyer was to learn how many days it was late so that I could adjust delivery estimates, and that since he admit that he could not remember when it arrived, I could have it removed as it may have been left in error. Also, he had clearly indicated in the message that he was perfectly happy with it all.
I thought I would share this experience so as to provide some insight to other sellers with pending Late Shipment Defect appeals.
If you can politely reach out to your buyer to determine exactly how late your order was received, it may be in your better interest to do so. If nothing else, you will have an accurate picture of how many extra days of handling time are required to cover the actual delivery dates for your buyers. At best, you may be fortunate enough to be able to appeal your Late Shipment Defect altogether.
Politely, of course.
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