New Year Day Shipping Dilemma
Summary: gauld raised concerns about eBay considering New Year's Eve and Day as shipping days, which is causing complications with shipping companies closed over the holidays. lotzofuniquegoodies provided insights about how eBay handles shipping based on label creation rather than physical scanning, which may provide some flexibility. mrdutch1001 suggested extending handling times, though sin-n-dex noted this doesn't always alter eBay's delivery estimates. Participants discussed using alternative shippers and credit card strategies to manage cash flow for postage. The conversation highlights a common issue with eBay's shipping expectations during public holidays.
Has anyone else noticed that Ebay has counted New Year'ss Eve and New years Day as shipping days? I'm going to have about 20 itens to ship on New Years Day or more. My Shipping company I deal with have told me that they aren't shipping on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That's really going to complicate things since 90% of my funds made this week and weekend won't come until Monday afternoon and my shipping company cuts off shipping at 3:30pm.
What's with that? How am I going to get around that without shipping my items late. I'm going to have 20 to 30 or more ittems to ship out on Monday if all goes well for sales this weekend. I'm surrpised that they didn't add a day for anything that normall woould ship on New Years Day,
Is that an Ebay glitch?
timelesstechtrove
·1 year agoYeah, I noticed this as well. Came here to see if it was just me. I find it bizarre that they holiday wasn't factored in.
gauld
OP1 year agoWhat sucks is that they want me to ship stuff out on Januarty 1st and on top of that they only sent me $58,00 which it should have been at least another $100 and took out my Enbay store amount today before I go that and charge me for 2 items that shipped on Friday by Canada Post labels. They take fees off the totals right away al lthe time and are very slow to send out money that you need to do shipping then give you a hard time if you don't ship on time ... when it's impossible to ship on that date.
I did up my labels for Janauary 1st but won't be able to shop those items out on Friday dur to no shiping on Friday for Chit Chats, Dropping stuff off won't make any diifference anywys. I'll have to delay paying my bills another day until my funds are in my bank account and do my shipping on Friday for what I can and do what is lefy over on Monday. I'm just glad I have it set for 3 days or I would have had me shipout 30+ items with no funds. I set it to 3 days because I have to travel 45 minutes to get to where I do my shipping each day each way, I could ship by Canada Post but my shipping cost would be about $10.00 more for many items and i'd lose a lot of sales because of that,
femmefan1946
·1 year agolatlely Ebay has been waisitng 5 day to aweek to send me the funds ... so I don't have enough funds always to ship the 20 items I have to ship.
You should be able to print shipping labels with the funds eBay has on Hold for you.
Have you tried?
EBay usually counts printing the label as shipping.
Tracking is another question, but that is for your security, not for the buyer.
gauld
OP1 year agoI can't ship it that way if the shipping is twice what the ship I quoted is ..... Chit chats shipping is cheaper for many items. Sometimes my shipping quote is about $10.00 or more higher on Ebay.then what it would be to ship by Cht Chats. I ship some stuff by Canada Post if I have to or if it's cheaper through Ebay but I don't aways have the option.
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoI suppose if you don't buy postage on eBay, you need your actual funds to pay for postage.
Have you thought of saving a float or hooking up a credit card you pay weekly when you get your eBay money? I have a credit card specifically used for postage, I buy postage as needed, and when the Tuesday deposit of eBay funds happens I pay the card off in full. I don't use it for anything other than postage and shipping supplies (and it's tied to my eBay account to pay my store fee if I happen to be in away mode when the fee comes up).
C.
hansatrade
·1 year agoYou are using your CC to pay for your postage purchased on Ebay? How?
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoWhen I paid for my postage on eBay, it was through Paypal (and my credit card was attached to that).
Now I buy my postage directly from Stallion (which is similar to Chit Chats), so I use my credit card to load up my account with credits and pay from that. When I buy postage directly from Canada Post, I use my credit card to pay for the label.
C.
hansatrade
·1 year agoSure. I thought there is away to pay with a CC for the postage purchased from Ebay. BTW, is Stallion cheaper than Ebay? I pay here 7.20 and 8.00 for US TP 100g/250g.
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoOn Stallion I ship with UPS Mail Innovations and spend $5.50 to $6.50 CAD to ship up to 4 oz. The weight for 8 oz is only a bit more, and it's a couple dollars (maybe 20-25%) cheaper than Ground Advantage with USPS.
C.
gauld
OP1 year agoI have a crdit card for that and a line of credit but i've been using most of it lately becausei've been selling a lot and the funds coming to me is almost a week delayed .. not to mention I do have to make sure it to pay bills too and November and early December were really slow for me ... it wasn't untul the Canada Post Strike that my sale really started to go up because I had to put my promoted listings up to 12% to get my sales back and I swtucjed to Chit Chats which is alot cheaper for shipping then Canada Post especially to the US and central Canada. I was able to drop my shipping prices down quite a bit and that heleped my sales a lot.
tryubik-useonlyasdirected
·1 year agoNo excuses. eBay is well aware it is rare for shippers of any type to be open January 1st. It is their requirement to update their automation. Its basic, 101 type stuff. Sellers should have zero obligation to go into work today to pack and purchase postage for an item that requires next business day handling. This gigifying the world for profits nonsense has to give. Wanna bet the CEOs aren't going into work today?
gauld
OP1 year agoLast week(even though I have set 3 days for shipping) it wanted me to ship everything by Friday .. then they paid me for the items on the Monday and Tuesday following. How are we suposed to have the fiunds to ship 20+ items early when they can't even send up the fudns we need to do it until 5-7 days after teh items are paid for.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoself-deleted>posted to wrong thread Happy New Year everyone!
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoNot New Year's shipping related, but related to the Canada Post Strike...
Of the four lost letters, the first one that was mailed 3 days before the strike arrived today. He left feedback. So all is good, I think that means stuff shipped before the strike is starting to arrive. (This letter was mailed from Ontario and shipped to rural Manitoba).
C.
hansatrade
·1 year agoI cannot believe my eyes! It seems someone started to drink far before the New Year Eve .... 🙄
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoYou're not alone. My shipping company (Stallion Express) was closed yesterday, today and will be on Dec 31 and Jan 1.
I just got an order after I left to go visit family telling me to "ship it right away", but by the time I'm back, Stallion will be closed again (because I didn't get it dealt with in time for tomorrow since I'm with family right now), but for me they reopen Jan 2. I presume you don't have access to your shipping company on Jan 2 because you are in Quebec.
C.
dinomitesales
·1 year agoOutlet post offices will almost all be closed on January 1st. It's one of a handful of days during the year that the outlets are allowed to be fully closed. For many other holidays they're required to be open a minimum of 4 hours, or the hours of the host business (whichever is less).
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoWhen I managed an outlet (at a 7-Eleven, 2003-2007) we were only fully closed on Dec 25 and Jan 1. All other holidays we were open noon to 6pm. 7-Eleven is a 24 hour store, our normal Post hours were 7am to 11pm.
C.
byto253
·1 year agoMy Shopper's outlet staffed the 4 hours with an employee that was also trained to assist pharmacy, which is where they spent most of the day on the last stat holiday. They carry a buzzer/buzzer and postal customers buzz for them if nobody is there.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoalthough maybe too little too late now, but an option during the holiday season would have been to extend the handling time to allow for additional shipment processing time for these holidays...Perhaps, something to keep in mind for the future.
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoI have 5 days handling. That doesn't stop eBay from telling customers IN MY LISTING that they will get their item 4-7 days from now. How can they get it in 4 days if I have 5 days to mail it? (I was pretty sure Saturday didn't count as a business day, but I'd have to look and see how long I have to mail things when I get my next sale).
Also having 5 days handling doesn't stop some customers from demanding I hurry up and send their item right now, even though the purpose of 5 days handling was because I have other commitments other than eBay, and I extended my handling time to meet my other commitments without neglecting my deal with eBay (which is to get things mailed in 5 business days).
C.
mrdutch1001
·1 year agoRe: "That doesn't stop eBay from telling customers IN MY LISTING that they will get their item 4-7 days from now.">>>> When I check "Delivery" on your listings all I see is "varies"; whereas on my listings there is a specific date range. So perhaps it is the details /method of shipping .....
On my current listings, I have 6 business day handling time but I am shipping those particular items with Purolator until mid-January and then I will go back to Canada Post...
My upcoming scheduled listings of pattern books which will be shipped Canada Post (oversize lettermail here in Canada) and Tracked Packet for USA) will have 7 business day handling time until mid-January when I will go back to 3 day handling time.
recped
·1 year agoI like this......
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@gauld
Re: Shipping dilemma...From my personal testing, eBay goes by label created/marked as shipped. As long as it is within your posted handling time. I have dropped stuff off in bin and sometimes they don't see scans for several days...way past my handling time. You "should" be fine as long as you don't modify after the fact. That procedure WILL make anything late. It's a built in defect with eBay's shipping systems. eBay is aware but refuses to address.
As a side note eBay often does not factor in some provincial holidays that may be a holiday and not in another. They also rarely address weather issues like they do next to immediately in the USA.
Opinions may vary on what I have posted but this is what I have determined is the safe way to do things. When I had 1 I had to modify and was dinged as shipping late when it wasn't ebay was able to remove when I contacted them about it. The actual scans confirmed it was processed as per my handling time.
One other thing to take into consideration is usps has Sat delivery in the USA. eBay then thinks everywhere else does too factoring it into their "math".
lotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@gauld
When it comes to scans and even tracking, that has become totally hit or miss since Covid reared its ugly head. Scans get missed for various reasons. Volume, internal short cuts, bad scans, sync'ing between systems...the list goes on. All you can do when dropping off is try to get item scanned into the system whenever possible. Sadly that's all we have right now.
gauld
OP1 year agoYewh like many parts of the Ebay site that have gotten buggier with time.
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoStallion sent me an email this morning telling me I have "three more days to post my items or postage will be expired". I went and looked on the portal and it was received at the branch where I dropped it off, but no scans in Mississauga or tendered to USPS. I had followed up on this a couple of weeks ago when I first noticed it was taking too long to process and was told "they went to USPS because we don't have them, but we must have missed the Mississauga batch label scan".
I replied to the email "why is my postage expiring in 3 days when you received my letters? Did you not mail them with USPS like you were supposed to?"
C.
gauld
OP1 year agoWhen I bring stuff in to ship I equest they scan it in right away. I always fear that it won't get scanned in or that my label won't work. They don't want me there for teh day talkiing to them so they scan it in asap.
Shipping Labels are great in theory but latlely Ebay has been waisitng 5 day to aweek to send me the funds ... so I don't have enough funds always to ship the 20 items I have to ship. I'm doing up the lqbels for as mnay as I can, They won't get dropped off until Friday though .... Thursday at the earliest ... but won't ship until Friday. Holidays always screws up everything.
gauld
OP1 year agoThat's makes sense .... i'll just have to ship with labels vy the date it's expected to be shipped on I guess and drop it offw when I can. If Ebay has an issues with that then what can I do but complain to them about making me ship on days the shpping places are closed and tmaking me wait 4 to 7 days to get payment .. which is what i use to ship them out. When you're selling online full time you have to use the money you get when you get it at times.
reallynicestamps
·1 year ago.. i'll just have to ship with labels vy the date it's expected to be shipped on I guess and drop it offw when I can.
Or change shippers.
If they are going to be closed from Saturday the 28th to Thursday the 2nd, there may be another company which will be moving.
Canada Post will be closed on January First only.
To be fair, the post OFFICES will also be closed on Dec 28 and 29, which is the weekend, but postal OUTLETS are likely to be open if the store they are in is open.
Which may include January first.
And while eBay was not printing Canada Post labels, Shippo and SnapShip were.
sin-n-dex
·1 year agoSome of us ship with Stallion Express or Chit Chats to get discounted shipping rates (or perhaps they are US bound which makes more sense to use these companies).
My relatives from Iowa are visiting family in Canada and I went there for a couple of days to visit with them... as such anything paid for after 11am this morning won't go out until the New Year since Stallion is closed Dec 31 and Jan 1 (when I'm back).
I wouldn't be concerned, but someone who bought an item pretty much demanded I mail it immediately. I have 5 days handling specifically so I can have a life other than eBay and not be required to mail things 1 hour after they're paid for.
Of course it had to be the item that sold less than 2 hours after I go away for three days (and then have two days where my shipper is closed).
C.