eBay

biglittleape · ‎05-03-2022

For those selling on eBay.com how accurate are your delivery estimate dates? I'm getting annoyed at how wrong they are for me.

My listings are set to same day handling/shipping with UPS 3-Day shipping. All my orders to US get delivered in 2 business days, from time to time 3 days if there's some issue on the way. But, eBay is showing all my listings as about 10+ day delivery which for sure is costing me sales.

Even using the shipping calculator, entering a US zip code it still shows that silly date range:

(Today is May 3rd)

------------------

Free shipping

Free

United States

Expedited Shipping (UPS 3 Day SelectSM)

Estimated between Wed, May 11 and Mon, May 16 to 90210

------------------

Like what the heck, May 11 to 16 delivery date from May 3rd order date using 3-day courier service? If I shipped a package today it would be delivered on May 5th.

Any ideas how I can correct this? I tried chatting with eBay but they were totally useless. Kept telling me because it's international delivery even though its listed in US and the shipping settings come from "Domestic" section and I'm picking a 3 day courier delivery service.

biglittleape · ‎09-08-2022

No matter what site a listing is on, if the seller selects "3 business day" service for shipping to a specific country, any buyers from that country should see 3 days as the estimated delivery time. Period.

If the seller does not deliver on time, that's what reviews are for.

marnotom! · ‎09-08-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

No matter what site a listing is on, if the seller selects "3 business day" service for shipping to a specific country, any buyers from that country should see 3 days as the estimated delivery time. Period.

You don't go to an American McDonald's and expect poutine to be on the menu. Similarly, you don't use an American website and expect it to cater to Canadians. The fact that the Calculated Shipping page asks for a ZIP code for the point of origin and--as far as I can see--rejects a Canadian postal code if one is typed in means to me that the .com site's Calculated Shipping feature doesn't support shipments from Canada.

The shipping options you see with Calculated Shipping on the .com site are American-based services only. eBay could and should make this point clearer.

devon@ebay · ‎09-09-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

I just tried "Expedited Shipping from Canada" and it didn't work, delivery times are longer than UPS options:

(my handling time is same day)

Hi @biglittleape! I have reached out to the shipping team to see what may be causing the issue for the longer delivery dates. They asked if you can share a few item numbers for when this is happening as well ask your ship-from postal code.

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

I wouldn't, I would ask for a Big Mac because it's the same like in Canada and I hate poutine.

Are you telling me eBay shipping estimator is correct and I am wrong? Really? You want to see hundreds of my UPS Expedited shipping tracking numbers? Good luck finding one that is over 3 days delivery time. Are you telling me eBay does not have the ability to modify it so that packages shipped from Canada using courier services, which have extremly accurate delivery times, show correct delivery estimate? Please.

Why are you excusing eBay for a poorly implemented feature? It's obviously not working correctly for everyone and needs to be fixed.

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

How can I send you a msg? I would rather not post listings here.

devon@ebay · ‎09-09-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

How can I send you a msg? I would rather not post listings here.

@biglittleape I do not have private messages turned on but what I can do is send an email to the address on file for the username from our community email if that works.

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

Yeap

marnotom! · ‎09-09-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

I wouldn't, I would ask for a Big Mac because it's the same like in Canada and I hate poutine.

I asked if you'd expect to see poutine on the American menu, not if you'd actually try ordering it.

@biglittleape wrote:

Are you telling me eBay shipping estimator is correct and I am wrong? Really? You want to see hundreds of my UPS Expedited shipping tracking numbers? Good luck finding one that is over 3 days delivery time. Are you telling me eBay does not have the ability to modify it so that packages shipped from Canada using courier services, which have extremly accurate delivery times, show correct delivery estimate? Please.

You'll probably be able to give Devon more info to help you with this, but with the information you've provided here it looks as though you're trying to use a service intended for American eBay users and when you (somehow!) provide your Canadian postal code in an input box that's expecting an American ZIP code, it messes up the delivery time calculation.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying that it appears as though you're trying to order a Canadian Big Mac with Canadian-sourced ingredients from an American McDonald's that uses American-sourced ingredients.

@biglittleape wrote:

Why are you excusing eBay for a poorly implemented feature? It's obviously not working correctly for everyone and needs to be fixed.

As far as I know, the Shipping Calculator on the .com site is currently not intended to work for everyone. It's just intended to work for US-based sellers.

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

I've been on eBay when ebay.com was well just eBay and there were no country specific sites.

When setting up a listing shipping details on .com, the item location info has a country list, it's even smart enough to auto populate the Canadian city and province when entering the postal code in the "zip" field.

So yeah, it's fully capable of providing accurate shipping time estimates, it's just broken.

Why do you keep arguing against having something working correctly? If you don't sell on .com it doesn't affect you, I do and it affects me so please stop! Thank you!

marnotom! · ‎09-09-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

I've been on eBay when ebay.com was well just eBay and there were no country specific sites.

That's when my wife and I did most of our selling, too. I like referring to that period as eBay's "Bronze Age."

You'll probably have noticed that over time, eBay.com became less of a "universal" website and started becoming more US-focussed as the number of country-specific sites grew. The addition of a few country-specific flat-rate shipping options on .com was a surprise to me, quite honestly.

@biglittleape wrote:

When setting up a listing shipping details on .com, the item location info has a country list, it's even smart enough to auto populate the Canadian city and province when entering the postal code in the "zip" field.

So yeah, it's fully capable of providing accurate shipping time estimates, it's just broken.

To me, going from auto-populating the city and province fields to providing accurate shipping time estimates based on that info is a bit of a stretch. I think we're looking at two different functions here.

What I was playing around with was this "informational" page, and I get a "Please enter a valid ZIP code" error message when I enter a Canadian postal code into the "Your details" section:

https://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

@biglittleape wrote:

Why do you keep arguing against having something working correctly?

I'm not arguing against having something working correctly. I'm saying that from what I've observed, the .com site isn't set up for calculated shipping for non-US-based sellers. If it were, wouldn't Calculated Shipping offer options for other countries' postal systems in addition to USPS?

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

The reason why the estimated delivery time is wrong is not important. The whole point of this thread is that it's wrong and needs to be corrected so that it works for all sellers that ebay.com supports.

Simplest would be for eBay to give us the option to specify delivery time window manually for each listing per country (state/province). I would love to be able to set this manually because I know exactly how long my packages take to get to their destinations. Not everyone needs/wants this automated hand holding, especially when it's providing wrong information to potential buyers.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-09-2022

@marnotom!

@biglittleape

From my personal testing of transit times on both sites using random shipping locations I've found for the last several years that those times were very generic. Same window if you were shipping from or to a major point or a outlieing one.

That carries on to the eBay calculator showing those "suggested" transit times for services the CP does not (hasn't in years) provided a delivery estimate. I would never suggest anyone use Small Packet surface Internationally but ebay displays 4 weeks when anyone that has used in the past knows it can routinely take 8 weeks or longer. Situation made worse where after 2 months you cannot file a claim and the biggie there is nothing in place to recharge the customer within eBay.

CP just recently brought back service guarantees for Canada. At last word they are still not applicable to the USA/Internationally. See below. Yet rate inquiries include the guarantee.

We suspended on-time delivery guarantees on March 18, 2020 due to the unique circumstances we are operating in. The suspensions remain in effect for XpresspostTM -USA and PriorityTM Worldwide. Mexico states 18 days guaranteed for Xpresspost. One of my urgent packages took over 30 days by Xpresspost to Mexico City proper. Guarantee was tough noogies. Customer was extremely miffed. All I could say was I have no control once parcel leaves my hands. Unfortunately that does not match eBay's promises.

Even requesting/paying for a signature, there are no guarantees a package will be signed for.

-Lotz

marnotom! · ‎09-09-2022

@biglittleape wrote:

The reason why the estimated delivery time is wrong is not important. The whole point of this thread is that it's wrong and needs to be corrected so that it works for all sellers that ebay.com supports.

The reason why the delivery time is wrong is and isn't important. What I'm worried about is a "careful what you wish for" scenario where the website code is fixed so that your postal code is no longer accepted in the ZIP code field, leaving you unable to use Calculated Shipping on the .com site, period. I suspect that nobody has dealt with your query because ( 1 ) You're probably the only Canadian seller on eBay shipping by UPS 3-day to the United States, and ( 2 ) it would really mess up your business to get shut out like this.

@biglittleape wrote:

Simplest would be for eBay to give us the option to specify delivery time window manually for each listing per country (state/province). I would love to be able to set this manually because I know exactly how long my packages take to get to their destinations. Not everyone needs/wants this automated hand holding, especially when it's providing wrong information to potential buyers.

I'd say a lot if not most of the "hand-holding" measures that eBay has enacted since the Bronze Age are the result of seller abuse and misconduct, and I can see some "sellers" using inflated delivery time estimates in the hopes of snaring buyers who might forget about their purchase and not know about the protection measures available to them.

I know many buyers don't read listing descriptions all that thoroughly, but do you have a note in your listings that states that the delivery time estimate given by eBay may be wack?

biglittleape · ‎09-09-2022

OMG, please stop posting in this thread, it's nothing but arguments and negative posts from you.

I'm trying to get eBay to fix something that affects people outside of US who sell on .com Obviously this issue dose not affect you so please stop. You're not contributing anything useful to this thread.

snidley7 · ‎09-09-2022

Hi, I also use UPS shipping and sell out of Canada on the US site.

Shipping estimate times have never been correct for the UPS options. I have used them for the last 4 or 5 years. In the past, I have used the generic shipping names (expedited shipping from outside USA) instead to get a more accurate estimated delivery time. But it is not perfect.

Some of the UPS options will show delivery time as "varies", which in my opinion is better then showing an extra long and wrong estimated time.

It is even worse when shipping in Canada by UPS. I'm constantly getting messages from customers asking why shipping is showing such a long time, and I have to tell them to ignore the eBay estimates.

I agree that this probably leads to many lost sales.

Unfortunately, I don't expect eBay to fix this. You might just have to find a workaround.

Couple of options: You could put a shipping time chart in your description, or try different shipping "names" that more closely match the UPS delivery times. Play around with the different options to see what will be closer. Also fill out your shipping FAQ to state the correct delivery times.

Again theses are not ideal. But it probably will never get fixed.

I appreciate you making the effort though.

snidley7 · ‎09-09-2022

I'm not arguing against having something working correctly. I'm saying that from what I've observed, the .com site isn't set up for calculated shipping for non-US-based sellers. If it were, wouldn't Calculated Shipping offer options for other countries' postal systems in addition to USPS?

I believe the OP is referring to "fixed rate" UPS options on .com. It is indeed intended for international sellers. In fact there is a whole drop down section of shipping options just for international sellers. Some of the options are country specific, such as options just for China.

The problem is the UPS international estimated delivery times on eBay are inaccurate. UPS 3 day shipping should be 3 days. UPS Express should be 1 day... etc.

marnotom! · ‎09-10-2022

@snidley7 wrote:

I believe the OP is referring to "fixed rate" UPS options on .com. It is indeed intended for international sellers. In fact there is a whole drop down section of shipping options just for international sellers. Some of the options are country specific, such as options just for China.

Is there a "UPS 3 Day Select from Canada" flat-rate option? I haven't been able to find one.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-10-2022

@marnotom! wrote:
@snidley7 wrote:

I believe the OP is referring to "fixed rate" UPS options on .com. It is indeed intended for international sellers. In fact there is a whole drop down section of shipping options just for international sellers. Some of the options are country specific, such as options just for China.
Is there a "UPS 3 Day Select from Canada" flat-rate option? I haven't been able to find one.

@biglittleape

@marnotom!

There are similar services on ups dot ca just have different names:

A is next day

B is next day

C is 2/3 days

D is 2/3 days

E is 2/3 days

Depends on drop off cut off time.

So it is possible. It's similar to Canadian sellers using generic services because they are selling using dot com. Basically shipping using a white lie to cover ones tushie. As the OP mentioned they just have to use the correct matching service and the transit time would be correct as per UPS.

-Lotz

marnotom! · ‎09-10-2022

@lotzofuniquegoodies, I interpreted @snidley7's post as a reference to the flat rate shipping options available to non-US sellers on the .com site. The only "name brand" option I can find on .com for flat-rate international shipments originating from outside the US is a FedEx service, nothing for UPS.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎09-10-2022

@marnotom! wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies, I interpreted @snidley7's post as a reference to the flat rate shipping options available to non-US sellers on the .com site. The only "name brand" option I can find on .com for flat-rate international shipments originating from outside the US is a FedEx service, nothing for UPS.

I believe the OP's concern is the fact that in choosing a specific option...3 Day Service...the info proceeding(delivery window) does not correspond to the service when their transit times do...consistently. As for the service types, they have always varied from country site to country site with couriers. One would think eBay would want any information they are displaying to be correct and accurate. All we as sellers can do is point these concerns out and hope they are fixed in a timely manor.

Just very discouraging the number of other "known issues" from buyers/sellers and then confirmed by eBay that are out there but have not been addressed/resolved.

-Lotz

In most countries it's called a washroom. In European countries it's called a wash closet. Both used for the same purpose. Apologies. **bleep**py example!!