eBay

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

A long-standing glitch and personal pet peeve on ebay.ca has been fixed. I don't know precisely when this happened, I only noticed it yesterday. It used to be that if you lived in Canada, regardless of what postal code you entered into the shipping estimator, you were shown the same one to seven business days for Expedited Service. That is, the seller's handling time plus a delivery estimate that didn't actually take into account where you lived, regardless of whether it was across the street from the seller or Nunavut. And there are dozens and dozens of northern, remote or rural postal codes within Canada where 13 business days (or more) is the norm from any major city. In short, it was designed to work heavily flawed.

No more.

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

For the first time, this is almost correct. The oddity to me is that I have a same-day shipping policy and the Calculator adds an extra three to estimates now. Like, in the lower example, shows four business days from my postal code to my postal code where it is actually one business day as a standard.

So, the problem is fixed except that instead of being too short, it is now too long.

Is it too much to hope to actually see that accurately reflected? Or is ebay trying to save us from impatient buyers?

I haven't checked this against domestic lettermail yet.

lady.stark · ‎11-12-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
So, the problem is fixed except that instead of being too short, it is now too long.

Is it too much to hope to actually see that accurately reflected? Or is ebay trying to save us from impatient buyers?

Do you really consider this a problem: the estimate being longer? I don't. In fact, for once, eBay seems to care about us, which is a good thing IMHO.

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

Domestic lettermail is still unchanged. I switched my handling time to lie about taking five business days to ship my times by domestic lettermail because I was getting defects on these with the same-day handling time displayed. As in, I was shipping them same-day by 5 pm and Canada Post was taking longer than they were supposed to take to deliver them, and I was being penalized by buyers leaving feedback. So I increased the handing time to buy time on delivery. This display is unchanged and does not take into account the destination postal code.

That is, I don't expect Canada Post is able to deliver lettermail in 11 business days to Nunavut from Winnipeg when it takes 13 to send a parcel, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

@lady.stark wrote:
@mjwl2006 wrote:
So, the problem is fixed except that instead of being too short, it is now too long.

Is it too much to hope to actually see that accurately reflected? Or is ebay trying to save us from impatient buyers?

Do you really consider this a problem: the estimate being longer? I don't. In fact, for once, eBay seems to care about us, which is a good thing IMHO.

I do consider it a problem the estimate is not accurate because I practically kill myself to ship same-day so that my customers know that they get their stuff from me FAST as opposed to ever-so-slowly like my more cheaply-priced competitors. There is much competition in my category, I know where my strengths and weaknesses lay.

lady.stark · ‎11-12-2017

Well, I don't consider this a problem. Because, if, for some reason Canada Post takes longer than usual to deliver, it gives us a little more wiggle room and saves us from an automatic defect. Everything that will save me from a defect is welcomed!

Especially when I ship within 1 business day. Except sometimes, life happens. Like, I can forget my package when leaving from work. Or I'm sick and can't go out. That's why I usually enter "ship within 3 business days". Most of the time though, it is only 1.

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

In fact, this should worry all Canadian sellers because it looks as if you can get something shipped from the USA as fast as you can from next door, if that Canadian seller has a handling time of up to two business days, it shows as nine business days within Canada whereas the American seller promises it in the same amount of time. Example:

Gone is one of the most significant advantages for a buyer to see of buying within Canada.

momcqueen · ‎11-12-2017

@lady.stark wrote:
Well, I don't consider this a problem. Because, if, for some reason Canada Post takes longer than usual to deliver, it gives us a little more wiggle room and saves us from an automatic defect. Everything that will save me from a defect is welcomed!

Especially when I ship within 1 business day. Except sometimes, life happens. Like, I can forget my package when leaving from work. Or I'm sick and can't go out. That's why I usually enter "ship within 3 business days". Most of the time though, it is only 1.

There is no defect when you upload your tracking that shows you shipped within your handling time.

My concern is that this change, while good in some respect because it finally shows an accurate estimate for remote and rural locations, eliminates the appearance of speedy delivery as being an advantage of buying from within Canada if the buyer is a Canadian. Not that I have anything to worry about, I ship same-day, my estimates will always show as faster than anyone who doesn't, even with the extra four days added to tracked parcels. There is no change to domestic lettermail where the defects are REALLY out of a seller's control. I don't get defects for tracked items, if I did, it would be because I blew my handling time and therefore I would have no one to blame but myself.

simeovivia0 · ‎11-13-2017

Hi @momcqueen and @lady.stark,

So glad you noticed! This is something that we've working on and have been rolling out over the past few weeks. As I'm sure Rodney had mentioned in the past, this is something that he was very passionate about improving. We don’t anticipate making any more changes in the Holiday period, but we will be evaluating these new estimated delivery dates in the New Year.

Thank you and happy selling!

momcqueen · ‎11-16-2017

My 'four days too long' statement is incorrect. There was a stat holiday for Canada Post on Monday that was being taken into account which I had forgotten about. (Either that, or it was displayed as four due to it being viewed on the weekend.) Three days versus four days does make a bit of a difference to my mind. I realizer that I am being fussy but I would genuinely like to see the actual delivery date displayed on the listings that have Calculated Shipping. There's really no guesswork when you ship within your handling time and Canada Post has a 'money back' standard for delivery. the most I could see adding is one extra business day to cover butts.