Anyone else notice that New Year's Day wasn't factored as a Stat in Delivery estimates?

[momcqueen]

Well, it was bound to happen.

I got my first defect ever from a buyer in France who says his order didn't arrive on time.

Same-day dispatch on December 29 by Small Packets Airmail to France. The buyer left this feedback yesterday, January 14. Assuming the feedback was left on the same day it was received, this means he would have gotten the item on the eleventh business day.

Here's the thing, though: ebay's delivery estimates stated Monday, Jan 4, 2016 - Sunday, Jan 10, 2016 in the Order Details which is a bit ambitious given that first date in the range is the THIRD BUSINESS DAY because they missed somehow not-counting weekends and that no-mail moves statutory holidays in Canada like New Year's Day, January 1. The delivery standard for Airmail to France is eight business days. Xpresspost International is five. Small Packets Airmail when you go to print the label through paypal shipping says six to ten business days. 

By my understanding of this, that means the date range that should have shown would be Thursday, Jan 7 - Wednesday, Jan 13, 2016. And then I thought ebay added a buffer range to the question to cover a modest number of business-day delays. No? 

I know I should accept this gracefully but I cannot escape the suspicion it was marked late before it should have been, regardless of whether it was a mess-up with estimates on the ebay display of dates or sour grapes from the buyer who is a competitor of sorts. 

Close but, I guess, no cigar. 

[momcqueen]

Exactly! 

[rainbow71113]

I just tested a listing without any shipping charges and it flags me saying that the shipping cost is missing, it will not let me list the item. 

[rainbow71113]

I use sellersourcebook to list items and if I understand you correctly you said to put in a domestic shipping and then just mark it as worldwide resulting in one of those listings that says contact seller for shipping- and I assume that after payment it still doesn't give them an eta so you don't get the question did it arrive on time during the feedback process...however it doesn't let me do that on sellersourcebook, if I click worldwide it makes me put in a shipping method and price and that would apply to all countries

US and international which is not an option since I would be refunding US buyers and that's the bulk of my sales.

[hlmacdon]

I've glossed over it a bit previously so here is a more detailed overview with a few options for you to consider

- Set your domestic shipping option as normal

- For the international set a custom location for the US, using a method of your choosing, as these are more reliable than the international ETA's they are a safer option to leave unchanged. You could switch to Small Packet International Air if you wanted to give yourself  some additional padding days on the ETA as it currently tests as the longest "long date" ETA while keeping a short "short date" ETA.

- After setting up one international rate, under additional ship to locations - buyer contacts for costs select will ship worldwide. Down below there is an option to exclude shipping locations based on a profile you setup up in your seller preferences, should you have the need to restrict countries.

In this scenario the international buyer would be able to add to cart/buy it now, but would have to request total/wait for invoice based on their commit to buy. You can select a chosen shipping method in the invoice with a corresponding ETA as appropriate, while at the same time you can send them a message stating the shipping times/confirmed mail out of their item. I haven't fully tested the workflow to see if this translates to an ETA that shows up for the buyer to rate as late or not when they leave feedback. The downside of not setting a price is it may effect indexing of your listings on some of the international ebay sites, not all of them behave the same in this case.

Another option to consider is using the small packet international ground which shows "Varies for items shipped from an international location" as an ETA for a wide number of countries outside of North America that I tested. Theoretically this should prevent the ETA question from populating on the buyer side when leaving feedback as there is no assigned date range. Again theoretically with no acceptance scan, an no dated eta, this should prevent a defect scenario arising. I can't see what they have programmed on the backend for this so I can't tell you what happens on the ebay side in this scenario. What I can tell you is that since we started using a mix of the two mentioned methods, we've not seen a single late shipment defect and 99% of our shipments are outside of Canada.

[rainbow71113]

thanks for the further clarification, I was selling at a time when we didn't have to put in shipping and got tons of emails daily asking did I ship to such and such and how much does it cost....I still get those even though it's marked.  I do like getting the faster payments, however it would also provide the opportunity to combine shipping which now is chaotic at best, I've had buyers overpay shipping by as much as $84.  It all started when ebay had that wonderful button to link the buyer's ebay with paypal and what people didn't realize is it also made it impossible for them to purchase without paying and the only way to sever the link is to call paypal and it takes a few days to go through. 

have you had any issues with buyers seeing ground international and having it arrive by air?  I would think there might be a possibility of a negative with the buyer saying I paid for ground ...I've seen lots of negatives for similar silliness...one said the seller put lower value on the outside of the package...normally that would be a good thing but the buyer apparently didn't appreciate the seller's efforts or honest mistake.  I've even seen a negative where a buyer got more pages in a book/magazine than was quoted in the listing...and we've noticed the possibility of a negative increases with the lower priced items, if you sell something for $1.00 people seem to be more annoyed with their transaction for some reason.

[rainbow71113]

LOL..just saw this response to negative feedback

Are you crazy? Leaving me neg fb for fast delivery? Whatever??

buyers are not always on the ball 

[rainbow71113]

just tried to do what you said and sellersourcebook does not have that option to add US and one international and then put worldwide,

if you chose worldwide it still insists on a shipping method and price so it looks like that's not an option for me.

[pocomocomputing]

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@rainbow71113 wrote:

just tried to do what you said and sellersourcebook does not have that option to add US and one international and then put worldwide,

if you chose worldwide it still insists on a shipping method and price so it looks like that's not an option for me.

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On eBay using the Sell Your Item form, it only shows one International Shipping option by default. You have to add more (up to 5) and there is a link to add another shipping option.

Seller source book might do the same. Look for a link or button to add another International shipping option to use for the USA. Make sure to use the first option for USA and the second for Worldwide.

[rainbow71113]

hello,

yes, I already do that, the first is US, the second is worldwide but I have no way to submit the listing unless I put in a method of shipping and a rate, it gives me error messages. 

[hlmacdon]

If your template is setting the second option as "offer additional service" that would be why. It has to be setup via the "additional ship to locations -buyers contact for costs section", which may or may not appear on that listing template/service you use.

[pocomocomputing]

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@rainbow71113 wrote:

hello,

yes, I already do that, the first is US, the second is worldwide but I have no way to submit the listing unless I put in a method of shipping and a rate, it gives me error messages. 

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Add a custom shipping option for the USA and choose a shipping option and cost.

Add another shipping option for Worldwide with no counties and select a shipping option and cost. This will be the default for all countries. The USA may be duplicated with two entries, one you made for the USA and one for the worldwide. Make sure the USA shipping service is before the Worldwide when you create a listing and it will force the USA with lower price to show first.

The second worldwide will get rid of the ask the seller for a shipping cost.

This works for me using Flat Rate shipping. I do not know about calculated.

I would suggest using the country exclusions to block some countries. Use the site preferences to choose which to block and which to ship to.

[pocomocomputing]

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@pocomocomputing wrote:

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@rainbow71113 wrote:

hello,

yes, I already do that, the first is US, the second is worldwide but I have no way to submit the listing unless I put in a method of shipping and a rate, it gives me error messages. 

---

Add a custom shipping option for the USA and choose a shipping option and cost.

Add another shipping option for Worldwide with no counties and select a shipping option and cost. This will be the default for all countries. The USA may be duplicated with two entries, one you made for the USA and one for the worldwide. Make sure the USA shipping service is before the Worldwide when you create a listing and it will force the USA with lower price to show first.

The second worldwide will get rid of the ask the seller for a shipping cost.

This works for me using Flat Rate shipping. I do not know about calculated.

I would suggest using the country exclusions to block some countries. Use the site preferences to choose which to block and which to ship to.

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It looks like you are doing this. So I do not know why.