eBay

island_engravers · ‎02-27-2016

I have had it with this late shipment Defect. This is going to be a rant so my spelling might not be to good. I ship all my products out within 24 hours.

Ok I have a ton of issues with this.,

1. It clearly states that delivery times are estimates. The delivery times can vary. Example holidays, weather, where you are located etc.

Ebays Solution is bump up handling time. This is absolute non sense..

2. A buyer leaves positive feedback over a month after purchase but gives a late chipment check. Then i email the person to ask why and the buyer is completely apologetic and asks if she can change it cause she messed up.

Ebay Solutioin. Cant chage it she needs to specifically say she received it on time... And once she leave positive feedback the late shipment defect can be changed.. The only way to send a feedback revision is if the buyer leaves neutral or negatvie feedback.

3. The late shipment defect question is totally voluntary. For example. i have 0 defects out of 500 or so transactions. I have 2 defects out of 135 late shipment transactions.. So ebay rep says over 300 people didn't answer the question. I say well that is a joke im not getting credit for any of those on time deliveries..

Ebays solution to this....... This Blowssss my MInd... He says well you might be lucky cause those 300 people that didn't answer might have helped you out cause those could have all been late defects.... Grrrrr

4 Why would i leave anyfeedback for any purchaser anymore... It seems to me buyer wait for the sellers to leave feedback first.. So maybe i wont leave anymore feedback this might minimixe the buyers leaving feedback and causing a late shipment defect..

SO many ways this is flawed, It might be good for sellers who regularly use tracking but i have heard of some very frusterated sellers who yse tracking as well.

Whats stopping people from screwing with an account by just clicking no. There is no protection.. Only ptotection is tracking.

China China China

We all no of those items on china that are 3-5 diollars with free shipping... Well USPS/Canada post has a contract with them to provide Free Tracking.. I am not in competition with china as some other sellers are but i think this is going to hurt alot og businesses on ebay..

widgetc · ‎02-27-2016

" Well USPS/Canada post has a contract with them to provide Free Tracking"

Actually under UPU rules each country sets its rates and keeps the proceeds. Canada delivers and tracks these items for China and China delivers and tracks items for Canada. There are agreements to compensate for gross yearly tonnage differences in mail volumes called reciprocal agreements but the payments per ton are not big. China chooses to set rates very low to increase exports. Canada chooses to set rates high to subsidize domestic letter rates.

island_engravers · ‎02-27-2016

Thats correct all i am saying those as no one can provide tracking in north america as cheap as china sellers can provide it.. And if you can provide tracking that cheap how can anyone in north amercia compete to sell the same item.. That being said the shipping times are much quicker if you buy an item off someone in north america but more and more buyers are beginning to see buying items out of china is not as much as a risk now as it was in previuls years..

widgetc · ‎02-27-2016

Unfortunately we live in a big country with a low population density. Trade offs are made. Were politicians to direct Canada post to stop subsidizing domestic letter mail from the proceeds of exporting parcels it might then cost a few dollars to mail a letter. That would lose many more votes than would be gained by making exporters happy by charging low parcel rates.

We simply cannot compete with China on many items. We have to find a niche that works for us. Unfortunately eBay is making this even harder with pressure to track everything to avoid delivery time defects since we do not have tracking options nearly as cheap as in the U.S. let alone the China rates.

As for long delivery times from China...I have notice items often arriving much more quickly than in the past. Also with buyer protection there is not much worry about not receiving items. This competition will only get tougher. It becomes even more important to find a special niche that works for each of us.

ypdc_dennis · ‎02-27-2016

@widgetc wrote:
Unfortunately we live in a big country with a low population density. Trade offs are made. Were politicians to direct Canada post to stop subsidizing domestic letter mail from the proceeds of exporting parcels it might then cost a few dollars to mail a letter. ...

The proceeds from exporting parcels from Canada DOES NOT subsidize our lettermail rates. It subsidizes the parcels being shipped into Canada.

A shipper from outside Canada using the mail system gets one flat rate for all of Canada, something your average Canadian does not get when they ship a parcel inside Canada.

widgetc · ‎02-27-2016

"It subsidizes the parcels being shipped into Canada.

A shipper from outside Canada using the mail system gets one flat rate for all of Canada, something your average Canadian does not get when they ship a parcel inside Canada."

That is not how the UPU agreement works. Each country initially was to deliver all the mail from any other and in turn get theirs delivered in the other country. Each country would keep the entire proceeds it charged. Because of imbalances in mail volumes there are reciprocal volume adjustment payments but they are small. The idea is a trade of services. China chooses to keep rates low to subsidize exports.

An outside shipper does not get a flat rate for Canada. He gets whatever his postal system decides to charge him just as we get whatever Canada post decides to charge us to send items to other countries.

It is well know that one cannot deliver a letter anywhere for $0.85 in Canada without subsidy. No company would even try to do so. Funds from parcels make this possible.

That situation will not change. Canada is a small player in the UPU and the rules are not about to change.

widgetc · ‎02-27-2016

If I remember the foreign mail delivered by Canada post is about double that sent out to other countries which is why we receive more in reciprocal payments than we give out. The foreign mail though is only about 2% of the mail volume if I remember correctly.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-27-2016

@island_engravers wrote:
Thats correct all i am saying those as no one can provide tracking in north america as cheap as china sellers can provide it.. And if you can provide tracking that cheap how can anyone in north amercia compete to sell the same item.. That being said the shipping times are much quicker if you buy an item off someone in north america but more and more buyers are beginning to see buying items out of china is not as much as a risk now as it was in previuls years..

I've never ordered anything from China but I see many posts from buyers waiting for items from there and they don't have tracking numbers so some of them are not using services with tracking. However, eBay does seem to give Chinese sellers some very generous delivery times on some listings.

hlmacdon · ‎02-27-2016

@island_engravers wrote:
Thats correct all i am saying those as no one can provide tracking in north america as cheap as china sellers can provide it.. And if you can provide tracking that cheap how can anyone in north amercia compete to sell the same item.. That being said the shipping times are much quicker if you buy an item off someone in north america but more and more buyers are beginning to see buying items out of china is not as much as a risk now as it was in previuls years..

The system actually works fine for the US market, which is part of the problem we are experiencing, being the low volume squeaky wheel in the North American equation. The issue of no acceptance scans for light/small packet is on eBay's radar in terms of their ongoing discussions with Canada Post, whether there is enough of a business case to justify both sides pushing that forward remains to be seen but at least they are discussing the issue. In the meantime, the system works fine for ebay's primary North American market, the US.

For those fortunate enough to live in a border area, or in an area near the border with businesses that forward packages via USPS you can be quite competitive in the US market, and in international markets if you have a higher attach rate (bundling shipping costs into the price of items to add free shipping kills Chinese sellers on multi-item transactions). Terminal rates were raised for China at the tail end of last year following US congressional pressure and in my niche I've found that you can pretty much sell into the US via USPS for the same ball park as any seller in China, provided your sourcing is competitive on the product front. Unfortunately it is only an option for a percentage of Canadians.

As mentioned, the issue here is the terminal rate agreements that are in place. Epacket for Chinese sellers is actually at a higher compensation level than USPS would otherwise have received for small packages from China, which would have been charged at lettermail rates. That is an example of the sort of agreements that more countries need to look at. They should be trying to incentivize and capture more of the smaller package market, while leaving the heavier items for the couriers, as that is a money loser for postal services based on existing terminal rates.

Unfortunately if China choses to subsidize the domestic side heavily to boost export numbers there is nothing anyone can do. Even for shipments inside China you are looking at 15-20 Yuan ($2-3 USD) to ship express across most areas of China. Different priorities for the government there.

hlmacdon · ‎02-27-2016

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@island_engravers wrote:
Thats correct all i am saying those as no one can provide tracking in north america as cheap as china sellers can provide it.. And if you can provide tracking that cheap how can anyone in north amercia compete to sell the same item.. That being said the shipping times are much quicker if you buy an item off someone in north america but more and more buyers are beginning to see buying items out of china is not as much as a risk now as it was in previuls years..
I've never ordered anything from China but I see many posts from buyers waiting for items from there and they don't have tracking numbers so some of them are not using services with tracking. However, eBay does seem to give Chinese sellers some very generous delivery times on some listings.

There are still some who were trying to use registered mail, but USPS has killed visibility (tracking) for that, and I believe other UPU countries have as well, so the Chinese sellers may not be bothering entering or option for registered.

recped · ‎02-28-2016

@hlmacdon wrote:
@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@island_engravers wrote:
Thats correct all i am saying those as no one can provide tracking in north america as cheap as china sellers can provide it.. And if you can provide tracking that cheap how can anyone in north amercia compete to sell the same item.. That being said the shipping times are much quicker if you buy an item off someone in north america but more and more buyers are beginning to see buying items out of china is not as much as a risk now as it was in previuls years..
I've never ordered anything from China but I see many posts from buyers waiting for items from there and they don't have tracking numbers so some of them are not using services with tracking. However, eBay does seem to give Chinese sellers some very generous delivery times on some listings.
There are still some who were trying to use registered mail, but USPS has killed visibility (tracking) for that, and I believe other UPU countries have as well, so the Chinese sellers may not be bothering entering or option for registered.

I buy from China very frequently, the only shipments from China that have "tracking" are the ones that are drop shipped from California. Regular orders from China never have any tracking or delivery confirmation and they usually arrive during the delivery estimate.

FYI - The estimates I see from China are not very much different that the delivery estimates my own items have for shipping to Asia.

One thing Chinese sellers do (and North American sellers can do the exact same thing), when an id gets into dangerous ground on standards you simply start a new seller id with a clean record. Actually most smart sellers have a number of selling id's going at the same time so that switching is a pretty minor issue.

Personally I have a half dozen selling id's, if one were to run into trouble I can just let it slide until time heals whatever problem it might have had.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-28-2016

FYI - The estimates I see from China are not very much different that the delivery estimates my own items have for shipping to Asia.

When you list on .ca, there isn't a shipping estimate to China on the listings but for listings that originated on .com, there is a difference, especially if you are looking on the .com site.

item 231860094113 Shipping from China to Canada

Free shipping

Canada

Standard Int'l Shipping

Estimated between Tue. Mar. 22 and Fri. Apr. 8

Seller ships within 2 days after receiving cleared payment

item 351663093523 Shipping from Canada to China (my item)

US $6.99

US $1.00

China

Standard Int'l Shipping

Estimated between Thu. Mar. 10 and Wed. Mar. 30

Seller ships within 1 day after receiving cleared payment

The seller in China has one extra day of handling time but their latest estimated arrival date on .com is a week later than the estimate for Canada to China.

One thing that is odd is that if you look at these listings on .ca, the number of days don't match the actual dates given for arrival on.com On .ca it says that the item from China to Canada will arrive in 12 -23 business days but the estimated time given on .com of March 22 - April 8 is actually 16 - 29 business days. (give or take a day)