Hello everyone,
Welcome to our weekly session. The thread will remain open all day and I'll come in to respond as time permits.
Here are the issues I'm currently tracking:
- Wrong tax rates applied to PayPal labels
-
Missing Tracked Packet destinations
- Odd missing gallery picture in search results
Updates:
- Estimated Delivery discrepancy between View Item page and Order Details page - Ticket open, team is investigating
- Sold items going into Unsold container - need live examples to be able to troubleshoot
- Hard block on non compliant images only on relist/sell similar - Selling team is on this
- SYI: Form resets IS when switching currencies. - Problem identified, Dev team is working on a fix
- Safari browser SYI exhibiting erratic behaviour when trying to select text in description in Revise - under investigation
- Combined shipping offers not shown to international buyers- under investigation with shipping team
It is probably NOT ebay's intention to encourage sellers to ignore the required customs declaration on exports to achieve faster delivery,
yet, sellers who follow the LAW and declare for customs purposes:
b) will ALWAYS have their packages be the ones that are subject to customs delays that could result in late delivery defects (and also compare poorly to sellers who might choose not to declare for customs so that their packages, which are NEVER subject to customs delay); and
a) will ALWAYS have a slower delivery time than ebay's expectations would indicate (because the customs process ALWAYS adds time).
Are sellers who declare for customs being forced to choose between:
- following the LAW and risk the good standing of their ebay account; or
- change their business practices, ignore customs LAW, in order to avoid late delivery defects.
These are two very poor choices.
It probably is not ebay's INTENTION to encourage sellers to ignore the required customs declaration on exports to achieve faster delivery but it could be the RESULT. 
See post #53 above for an answer to your question.
"as long as 2 listings from the same seller for the same item don't show side by side in the same search results (the ways to list you describe would ensure that was the case), they won't be considered as duplicates."
@hlmacdon wrote:
Good to know. I didn't want to keep spamming the report item if it was potentially seen as a "cry wolf" type situation with too many reports of a particular seller being sent from one ID. Regarding what would constitute "enough" reports, would you have to have received multiple reports from multiple ebay IDs before it was triggered to look at? I was sort of surprised to see that the subtitle field was influencing best match results, I would have thought that loophole would be filtered out from best match.
Don't worry about spamming the report queues. For the reasons mentioned in my last post on this subject, eBay relies on user reports for many policies, better safe than sorry.
Unfortunately we don't disclose the details of how many reports are needed before action is taken and what that action is because that could provide the necessary information to side step our policies.
Lastly, the subtitle field influences the search results, not Best Match specifically. The difference is, keywords in the title or subtitle determine whether a listing will appear at all in search results, and Best Match ranks the results based on a plethora of criteria, keyword match being only one of them.
" eBay"
I noticed that you still use eBay instead of the new ebay
Even the spellcheck corrects ebay to eBay!
@pierrelebel wrote:
" eBay"
I noticed that you still use eBay instead of the new ebay
Even the spellcheck corrects ebay to eBay!
Only the new logo uses all lowercase. The correct spelling is still eBay.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Raphael, sorry this is a long one:
Shipping
- Canada Post doesn’t count the day something is mailed in their calculations, does ebay?
Yes. The day something gets put in the mail is counted as Day 0.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Handling Time
- Does it start when the buyer pays? For instance: Buyer purchases and pays for item on Feb 1/16, there is a 3 day handling time, so the seller needs to get it in the mail by Feb 4/16. The estimated delivery time to the buyer shows Feb 10 to Feb 16/16 (4 to 8 days).
- If the item is shipped the same day on Feb 1/16 and the seller marks the item as shipped on Feb 1/16, does that change the delivery date that the buyer rates the seller on? Does it all of a sudden change for the buyer to Feb 5 to Feb 12/16?
1. Yes, a seller cannot be expected to start the shipping process (which starts with handling) until they get paid.
2. No. The delivery date is only based on the payment date + handling time + estimated transit time.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Statutory Holidays
In BC, Feb 8/16 was a Statutory Holiday where postal outlets were closed, Canada Post was working but the postal outlets were closed. In Ontario Feb 15/16 was a Statutory Holiday where postal outlets were also closed.
- How exactly does eBay handle different statutory holidays in their estimating of business days? I am from BC where there was a holiday on Feb 8/16 and a lot of my parcels were going to Ontario or the USA which has a holiday on Feb 15/16. That is 2 business days that are lost for those parcels. How does ebay handle this calculation and does it put those days as non business days?
I asked the shipping team to confirm this before I write down an answer. I'll update here when I know for sure.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Small Towns international shipping
- A lot of my buyers live in really small towns where mail delivery from a major centre in that country is about 4 days. For example: Buyer from a small town (POP 850) in Australia purchased a CD from me just before Christmas. Again, gave great feedback 5 stars all the way but answers No did you get the CD by this date. I checked the Australian postal service and it is 4 working days to get it from Melbourne to this small town. The ebay expected date didn’t take it into consideration that it was going to a small town.
- How does ebay calculate going to Australia, does it look at just the big cities or the small communities in this huge country? There is quite a difference.
I think the estimates shown to Australia buyers would be the same no matter where they live and only vary according to the shipping service chosen on the listing.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Customs
- Every international parcel goes through customs and for the most part may have to go through an x-ray machine. Customs also looks at the declared value and shipping cost to consider it for VAT. How many days does eBay add to the shipping time to allow for customs inspections?
I asked the shipping team to confirm this before I write down an answer. I'll update here when I know for sure.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Weather
- How does ebay adjust the expected delivery dates when there are storms in a certain region? How many days extra does ebay give? http://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/winter-storm-live-updates-millions-brace-major-snowstorm-n500421
As far as I know, delivery estimates aren't adjusted in real time according to weather events.
@musicyouneed wrote:
Delivery Notices
- (No Tracking) If the item is too large for the box or no one is home, Usually they try to deliver if you are not home, the next day they give you a delivery notice to pick up at the PO for the following day after 1PM. That is 3 days later. I do know this for a fact as my post person does this and I have seen other postal workers do the same. When the buyer looks at the question was the item delivered by, they pick it up 3 days later. How does eBay handle that.
For example: This question was posted on the .com board. 'Notice Left' was on February 10, 'Delivered' on February 12 (when buyer picked it up) and ebay says 'estimated delivery until February 11'.
What happens then: On Time, Late, Not counted ?
In this particular case the buyer would see the question: "did the item arrive by February 11" and provide their answer. eBay would collect the data based on the answer (late or on time) or lack of answer (not counted).
@musicyouneed wrote:
Appeal Process or Special considerations
- Is there an appeal process for the seller to appeal the late delivery date set by ebay? If the buyer states fast shipping and gives 5 stars for shipping. Why wouldn’t a seller be able to appeal an unreasonable delivery date set by ebay?
There are no provisions to appeal the estimated delivery dates per se, however late shipments can be appealed if proof of mitigating circumstances are provided, for example if the buyer requested for the seller to wait before shipping the item after they paid for it.
@ight.coin wrote:
For non-tracked items. How can a delivery to a PO BOX ever be counted as late?
How can the buyer know what day the item has arrived at their PO BOX? For some rural folks that could be 10 or 20 miles away and mail is not checked every day. (the item could arrive on time bit is not checked for a couple days it could be incorrectly reported as late)
Or how the buyer know what time the item has arrived at their PO BOX? (if they visit their PO BOX at 11 am and the postal clerk places the mail at 2 pm, the item could arrive in time, but be incorrectly reported as late)
There is no way to know what day, OR what time an item arrives. How can a delivery to a PO BOX ever be counted as late?
The reason we don't hold sellers responsible for flawless 100% on-time shipments is specifically to cover for more blurry cases like this example.
@ight.coin wrote:
Am I to believe that Ebay's delivery estimates are country-to-country derived?
A packet delivered from Ottawa, ON to Boston, MA (Canada to USA) has the same delivery estimate as one going from Thompson, MB to Kanab, UT (Canada to USA)?
Wouldn't it make sense to take into account the place of origin AND the destination, instead of taking ebay's lazy approach and saying that every package from Canada to USA is the same?
Until ebay refines their delivery estimates, delivery estimates are just lazy, junky estimates.
Yet, Ebay now treats these delivery estimates as Gospel and bases their largest metric for seller standards upon flawed estimates.
Am I to believe that Ebay's delivery estimates are country-to-country derived? Shame.
It depends if you use flat rate shipping of calculated. Calculated uses seller and buyer location to generate the rate and delivery estimate, but for flat rate all we can do is use date ranges based on payment date + seller handling.
@ight.coin wrote:
What about the issue of customs requirements for packets, Canada to USA or international.
I feel sorry for any Canadian sellers who do a lot of business to USA or internationally as those packets are subject to customs requirements and delays (that are completely out of the control of the seller).
A Canadian seller may have 80%-90% exports that are subject to delay at customs.
A US seller may have 10%-20% exports that are subject to delay at customs.
Which scenario would you rather have (when delays that are completely out of your control, and delivery delays are the greatest factor in the basis of your performance evaluation, and you usually ship same day as purchase or occasionally next business day)?
Are Canadians being treated fairly vs US sellers since demographically more of our packets are subject to customs? (Seeing that Canadians have 400-900% more opportunity to be penalized by flawed delivery estimates.)
Average custom delays are counted in the range of dates provided as estimates.
I feel like I've addressed most of this already, so I'll concentrate on this:
ight.coin wrote:So how would you like to be a Canadian seller who exports 80-90%, who follows the customs laws, who is based in a rural locale and who has the type of products (say for example, saddle wax or country music CDs) that primarily are sent to rural customers?
That particular seller should be able to adjust their handling time to match the average delay their shipments get based on their historical data.
