There definitely seems to be something wrong with the delivery estimates being shown to buyers for flat-rate shipping options.
I list on dotCA and always use flat-rate "Economy International Shipping". I remember when I started doing this it would give me a long time frame for delivery (2-3 months if I recall correctly) which was helpful because it provided additional cushioning against potential Item Not Received claims from impatient buyers. Now it seems to be consistently showing delivery within a matter of weeks instead of months.
As a specific example I sold an item to Mexico on October 19th. I have one business day handling. According to the order details the "Estimated delivery date shown to the buyer" is Oct 31 to Nov 10. That is 7 to 15 business days. This is entirely unrealistic; "Economy International Shipping" should be the cheapest and slowest option, not 7 to 15 business days. It takes longer than 7 business days for some domestic Canadian orders to be delivered, let alone orders to other countries.
To put this into perspective Canada Post's delivery estimate for Xpresspost International - a designated EMS service, and the second fastest option offered by Canada Post - to Mexico is 18 business days. So based on eBay's estimated delivery my parcel could be shipped via Express Mail (at a cost of nearly $80 CAD) and still be considered late for "Economy Shipping".
This must be a mistake, no? Has something changed? Where is eBay getting it's delivery estimates from? devon@ebay ?
