After I went to all the trouble of changing my shipping I had another thought. I print postage through PayPal for 95% of my orders. I typically use light packet for both the U.S. and overseas on lower cost orders. Because I do my buyers get an email from PayPal when I ship. The dates on those are usually around 4-7 business days for light/small packet. Did I just waste all my time? I truly wouldn't be surprised at this rate. I am getting beyond fed up.
Here is a table I made comparing the eBay estimated times with the shipping option chosen. The countries with a shipping option for the generic Standard International Shipping on eBay.ca has been selected in my spreadsheet. It may not include all countries with a value in days for eBay Standard Int'l shipping on eBay.ca as I only did the tedious testing to figure it our for the countries I was interested in shipping to.
I created a test listing to get the above information. I used a 1 day handling time in the listing so the times above show the eBay estimate plus the 1 day handling. AS you can see, there are more countries with an estimated time defined for Standard Int'l shipping than other services.
CP Lm = Canada Post Lettermail/Letter-post
CP LP = Canada Post Light Packet USA and International
CP SP = Canada Post Small Packet Air USA and International.
varies = no number given just says "Varies for items shipped from an international location"
On the far right you will see times for ebay.com generic option Standard Int'l shipping and Economy if you list on ebay.com. Different times from eBay.ca.
PS I made this table 3 years ago and check it occasionally to make sure it is correct. It has not changed in the 3 years. According to Raphael in a weekly session or in the 2015 Seller Update forum, these times will change and be revised. I never saw it change in 3 years. I have not checked the above times in the past 3-4-5 months. I should but it is really a tedious job to test and check LOL.
If you list on ebay.com and use the Std Int shipping, here is the same table as above but showing all countries with a number of days showing. You can see that there are more estimates than Economy.
@pocomocomputing wrote:If you list on ebay.com and use the Std Int shipping, here is the same table as above but showing all countries with a number of days showing. You can see that there are more estimates than Economy.
By the way, green is for countries I ship to and tan/yellow is countries I do not ship to. In case anyone was wondering.
@gemaddict wrote:
After I went to all the trouble of changing my shipping I had another thought. I print postage through PayPal for 95% of my orders. I typically use light packet for both the U.S. and overseas on lower cost orders. Because I do my buyers get an email from PayPal when I ship. The dates on those are usually around 4-7 business days for light/small packet. Did I just waste all my time?
This could possibly be a problem in some instances, but on the other hand I wonder how many buyers actually look closely at the eBay delivery estimate at the time of purchase? How many of them will even remember what estimated delivery dates they were given by Paypal or by eBay when they go to answer the on-time question?
If buyers are presented with the question by eBay: "Did your item arrive by _____________ [exact date]", they'd have to do a lot of back-checking to determine whether that date was really correct. I suspect most people won't bother.
Besides, although my listings may say "Light Packet USA", there are times when I may change that service -- so which delivery estimate does the buyer (and eBay) rely on in that case? The original listing estimate, or the Paypal actual estimate for the enhanced service?
This whole thing is just one big migraine.
P.S. I can't believe the work 'poco' did with those charts -- somebody with more patience than I have. 
@rose-dee wrote:
@gemaddict wrote:
After I went to all the trouble of changing my shipping I had another thought. I print postage through PayPal for 95% of my orders. I typically use light packet for both the U.S. and overseas on lower cost orders. Because I do my buyers get an email from PayPal when I ship. The dates on those are usually around 4-7 business days for light/small packet. Did I just waste all my time?
This could possibly be a problem in some instances, but on the other hand I wonder how many buyers actually look closely at the eBay delivery estimate at the time of purchase? How many of them will even remember what estimated delivery dates they were given by Paypal or by eBay when they go to answer the on-time question?
If buyers are presented with the question by eBay: "Did your item arrive by _____________ [exact date]", they'd have to do a lot of back-checking to determine whether that date was really correct. I suspect most people won't bother.
Besides, although my listings may say "Light Packet USA", there are times when I may change that service -- so which delivery estimate does the buyer (and eBay) rely on in that case? The original listing estimate, or the Paypal actual estimate for the enhanced service?
This whole thing is just one big migraine.
P.S. I can't believe the work 'poco' did with those charts -- somebody with more patience than I have.
Yes patience but more curiosity. eBay does not give you enough information to evaluate how to do things.
Way back in June 2012 ?, eBay lowered TRS to $1000 sales and 100 sales in a year but you needed 1 day handling. (Raphael say it was never a requirement on eBay.ca and only on ebay. com but that is not what I remember at the time.) I was using 3 day handling back to pad Lettermail and Light Packet times.
I complained in the forums that the delivery estimates were too short with 1 day handling and PJ suggested to use Standard shipping as it had 1 to 10 days instead of 1 to 6 days for Lettermail within Canada. I then was curious to see how estimate times for Std Int'l compared to named services (Light Packet, Small Packet, Letter-post) and started my table. Once done, I would check once in a while to see if the estimates change. They never did. I think Brazil and Russia were added when they added them to the Shipping options for countries with a check mark.
Maintaining the above is easy now that I have all the work done. It takes a couple of hours to check. I already did the eBay.ca check last night and they are the same as years ago except for Russia and Brazil have estimates. I never checked them before because I don't ship there. So they may be new or always there. I do not know.
By the way, I checked all countries with a test listing for eBay.ca and checked calculated as well for Light Packet and Small Packet and Tracked Packet. The same estimates are used for Flat or Calculated shipping for Light or Small Packet. Tracked is the same estimate for all countries.
The USA has two different estimates showing. One for Light Packet USA and one for Light Packet International. Same for Small Packet. USA shows up under USA and International as a know glitch in the eBay.ca listings.
The USA also has another little quirk. If you list with a named service like Light Packet USA or Small Packet USA, the eBay Shipping system knows that Puerto Rico, Guam and other territories are part of the USPS coverage and shows those prices (but not delivery estimates). If you use the Generic shipping Options of Standard, the shipping program has no idea what service you will using and Puerto Rico and territories show up as International options.
I used to have buyers in Puerto Rico (5 or so over the years) so when I use generic Standard shipping option, they do not see the lower USA shipping cost but the International shipping cost. I often have Free Shipping for the USA and the buyers in Puerto Rice see my international cost instead of free.
@rose-dee wrote:
@gemaddict wrote:
After I went to all the trouble of changing my shipping I had another thought. I print postage through PayPal for 95% of my orders. I typically use light packet for both the U.S. and overseas on lower cost orders. Because I do my buyers get an email from PayPal when I ship. The dates on those are usually around 4-7 business days for light/small packet. Did I just waste all my time?
This could possibly be a problem in some instances, but on the other hand I wonder how many buyers actually look closely at the eBay delivery estimate at the time of purchase? How many of them will even remember what estimated delivery dates they were given by Paypal or by eBay when they go to answer the on-time question?
If buyers are presented with the question by eBay: "Did your item arrive by _____________ [exact date]", they'd have to do a lot of back-checking to determine whether that date was really correct. I suspect most people won't bother.
Besides, although my listings may say "Light Packet USA", there are times when I may change that service -- so which delivery estimate does the buyer (and eBay) rely on in that case? The original listing estimate, or the Paypal actual estimate for the enhanced service?
This whole thing is just one big migraine.
P.S. I can't believe the work 'poco' did with those charts -- somebody with more patience than I have.
I think that there are a lot more customers paying attention to delivery times. I have nothing to base this on except my recent experiences..sigh. You are right though, when presented with the question most won't remember or want to be bothered checking. Unfortunately with the luck I have been having the answer will always be no just for the heck of it.
You raise a good point about the type of shipping as well. I have upgraded shipping more then once, especially lately, so I wonder what they use as an estimate?
I am in awe of 'poco' as well and very grateful for the charts 🙂
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