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@ricarmic wrote:
Hi Zee! Personally (if I said anything at all) I would wait until they buy again then send a message advising of the time it takes and the impact on you of the late rating.... when you ship the item....
Yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do. If he chooses to buy from me again I'll message him about that "late shipment" thing and hope he be nice and not mark it as late next time. Posting here did help get the matter off my chest yesterday 
If I lose my TRS because of this then that's just how things are I suppose. I'm still profiting and I'm doing better this year than last year that's for sure. At least 90-95% of my sales are still problem-free 
Like you said, I think we'll just all have to wait and see how things goes with the new defect system next year. So far with my whole selling "career" here, I got one defect from INR and two defects from late shipment and they are all within the past 6 months.
Thanks
@ricarmic wrote:
Hi Zee, if it is any consolation, my recent "late shipping" defect came from a fellow who said in his feedback something like very fast shipping... and it looks like I also will be losing TRS status come February.... it will be interesting to see if it has any significant effect, $$$ wise it is marginal difference anyway, I am more worried about the search impact, although I don't think I rate very highly as it is....
If I go by this screen from my seller's dash board, it looks like only 8 people answered the "late shipment" question over the past 12 months? I have over 170 transactions during this period. And I assume for me, if 6 people answered "no" then I might get followed up with my handling time of my items? It's just dumb really, it looks like less than 5% of my buyers cared to answer the question and I'm gonna get dinged because 6 people thought it's too slow... it's international delivery, come on!
As mentioned previously in other threads, I set my handling time as 5 days anyway because of my full-time job, but realistically I ship in 2-3 business days... and in very rare case scenario I might need that whole week but it's very rare (maybe a couple times a year, but when that happens I usually message the buyer to tell them why I had to ship late). For the INR defect and the late shipment defects I got, those items were all physically shipped in 2-3 business days.
I wonder if it would help to change my future messages to include the bold part. Below is a standard message I send to all buyers after I shipped their items.
Hi, thanks for buying from me! Your [item] has been mailed from [location] with [shipping service] on [date]. It should take around 2-3 weeks to arrive, but can take up to 6 weeks on the rare occasion (local delivery delays that's outside my control) ^_^ If there is any problem with this sale, please feel free to contact me. If everything is fine, I would really appreciate a 5 stars positive feedback from you and I will do the same. Also, please do NOT mark this shipment as a "late shipment" as eBay will give me a defect on my account for slow postal delivery, which is unfortunately something out of my control with international sales. The defect could impact my future ability to sell to wonderful buyers like you. If you need help in finding [similar items] that I didn't list, please feel free to message me and I can see if I'm able to find it for you. Thank you and have a great Fall! ^_^
I mean, that message up there works well so far. My DSR are all 5 stars this whole year...
Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to reply to my messages ricarmic I think I just needed to vent a little bit, that's all. It has been a stressful month with a wonderful mentor of mine suddenly passing away... 
