eBay

flyhooks4less · ‎01-08-2021

Hi All, I wanted to post about a less than favorable experience with eBay defect resolution I had yesterday.

I currently have a 1.33% "Late Shipment" rate on my account. This is due solely to Canada Post issues this season, likely due to the Christmas Rush and the Covid19 pandemic. They delivered 2 of my orders very late and lost another. I attempted to get the marks removed from account for the following reasons.

1. The orders were not late shipments, they were shipped within 24 hours, but rather they were late delivery, or lost.

2. All the buyers left positive feedback.

3. They were all letter mail which has no tracking so I cannot provide a tracking number.

Below is eBay response after I painstakingly used the horrible online form to inform them of the issues with the 12 items in question and request it be removed.

"We've reviewed your request to remove the late shipment rating related to this transaction.

We cannot remove it in this instance, as it is an indicator of a less than positive buying experience. We understand you may feel that you did everything to take care of your buyer.

Please note that this decision is final and cannot be changed or escalated.

Here’s how to avoid issues like this in the future:
- Make sure you ship within your stated handling time and ensure that your item will arrive by the estimated delivery date.
- Always upload your tracking to eBay as soon as possible, and definitely before the estimated delivery date. When possible, we'll use this to automatically give you credit for shipping on time. Uploading tracking also gives your buyer confidence about when their item will arrive.
- Communicate with your buyer so they know when the item was shipped and what to expect. "

The bad part is I have no ability to provide tracking for letter mail, and the buyers and eBay know it. I always inform the buyer when the item is shipped and I mark it shipped in eBay.

At this point it is obvious to me that eBay simply does not care about its sellers, or it would remove these defects as the orders were shipped on time. The buyers know it. For a seller like me I wish there were other platforms, but alas I like my eBay store and there is not really an alternative for me as my orders are made up of many small items that are low cost. Letter mail and Small Packet are the only viable options for most of my orders. Regular Parcel ranges from $15 to 24 in Canada and when the orders are small it is not cost effective, and in many cases it is slower than letter mail.

I am now a disgruntled seller. its sad really.

ricarmic · ‎01-08-2021

Mine, domestic (which is US since my store is .COM), and international (which has Canada) are also the highest ever for the same reason.

However, if I recall, even if they end up being higher than the limit the wording says "eBay MAY take action (ie restrict the account)", I don't think they ever would, especially in this current situation.

I could be wrong but I don't think late shipping has nearly the effect (or any?) on the search algorithm that defects or escalated items do.

At least in my case, I do not see any impact any of the things like negatives, neutrals, late shipping on my search results placement, nor so far sales.

Whilst they all still bug me, I'm making the effort to "not worry about them" and focusing on continuing to list as much as I can.....this of course is very much easier said than done.

The problem eBay has, is that there is no way they know you actually shipped it, unless it was tracked, all we have to do is mark it as shipped. This doesn't mean we actually did anything aside from marking it shipped. Of course you and me and the vast majority of sellers are honest people, but it is that blasted 1% that aren't that cause all these cockamamie rules.

As I understand eBay's goals they are to try to make sure the buyer ends up happy. Late deliveries don't make the buyers happy irregardless of who's fault it is. Trying to accommodate weird situations like COVID or emergency situations or even seasonal like Xmas into some sort of measurement system is very hard. The only things they can do are raise or lower the standards or wave problems, which is how they've been handling things like emergencies or COVID.

For sure it is frustrating, all of the online platforms I sell on have their own frustrations, these ones are annoying, but so far they haven't slowed me down. If I can just not let them bug me so much I'd be better off.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎01-08-2021

@ricarmic

@flyhooks4less

Early in Covid I received an email from eBay stating that eBay had removed defects from profile. It arrives in my gmail mail promotion folder but nowhere else that I can see. The past 2 months (Dec/Jan) I've received an identical email. It's titled Top Rated Seller protection eligibility. Both note that 3 defects were removed. Nowhere does it state what the defects were and there is no way to check. It also states that a percentage of listings do not have 30 day returns but does not specify which ones. Both of these short comings would be helpful information for sellers to protect their account and prevent future problems.

-Lotz

PS. Yes I could use bulk edit to update 30 day returns if I wanted. Problem being with this EVERY time you edit or use sell similar it causes missing item specifics that you are unable to spot within the physical listing causing a great deal of wasted time for sellers.

ricarmic · ‎01-08-2021

Yes I had several removed as well.

If you look at the details under the Late Shipment Report, it shows the deleted ones in the "transactions removed" row and the actual transactions still show with greyed out circles instead of the usual orange ones.

Normally it takes quite a while for them to be removed sometimes a few weeks..... I'm thinking some of my current ones will be removed but none have left recently.....

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎01-08-2021

There was a mention a few weeks back of an future announcement regarding Delivery Delays and Seller Protections similar to the one released on dot com Dec 19. Putting this off on dot ca is like telling the country we will be beginning snow removal sometime this spring. Not very helpful for all the sellers currently having problems with this ongoing issue which is not getting better or for the folks stuck in their communities.

-Lotz

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-08-2021

I agree that it is frustrating to receive a late shipment ding (it's not really a defect) through no fault of our own although I can understand why ebay can't change it when they have no proof if the item was mailed when it was marked as being shipped. When you receive a late shipment and there was no tracking the buyer would have had to mark the item has late when they went to give you feedback. In my experience I think that a lot of buyers ignore that question or don't bother to give feedback so in those instances the shipment is not considered late.

The percentage you have now is still quite a bit below the 5% which would put your TRS in jeopardy.

flyhooks4less · ‎01-08-2021

I think the problem lies with the wording.

Late shipment is not late delivery, I can understand a buyer being asked if the product was delivered on time, and understand why they would answer no. However just because a product was late does not mean that it was shipped late, that's the frustrating part. the Ding is for late shipment, not late delivery. which is just wrong.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-08-2021

They aren't necessarily saying that it was shipped late. They are saying that there is no proof that it was shipped within your handling time and that the buyer said it arrived late. A seller can mail an item late but if it arrives before the estimated delivery date then it is not a 'late shipment'.

Perhaps it is a problem with the wording but you need to read what ebay considers as a 'late shipment. A shipment is not considered late if:

There is a scan within the handling time OR there is a delivery scan within the estimated delivery date or if there are no scans and the buyer says that it arrived on time. I'm just paraphrasing, if you want to see the exact wording.......

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/selling/seller-levels-performance-standards?id=4080&st=3&pos=1&quer...

sunraycity · ‎01-09-2021

I just had an example where am buyer opened a case for non receipt. It was a low value item sent by letter mail with USPS. Whenever I get an item not received and there is no tracking I always reach out to the buyer to ask them to reconfirm their mailing address. This will buy you time and goodwill. If they provided the wrong address then you have some sort of explanation of non receipt. If I do get any sort of response from the buyer I would simply provide a full refund and ask them to contact me if the item ever arrives (yes, some people are honest).

In this instance the buyer with less than 10 feedback did not respond and simply escalated the case and it went in their favour. When they do not respond I get concerned that this is a dishonest buyer. Anyways, I made an appeal and explained that there have been cases that the buyer provided an incorrect address... I further mentioned that I was fine with the involuntary refund but not getting a defect. The good news is that they reversed the defect.
It boggles my mind how time we and eBay spend on this minutiae but that is the system.

gymleadermomma · ‎05-10-2022

A late reply but I wanted to commiserate. I have sold 20K items and this is a repeated issue as we do not have tracking in Canada unless you insist on prohibitive tracked/expedited parcels. Another ding I could not win was that my post office did not scan an expedited US parcel on drop off. It was scanned at the international forwarding depot a 48hrs later and was scanned in for the first time then. It arrived a day late per eBay timelines. Common sense indicates it was shipped in time to get to the international forwarding centre 100s kilometres away, so it must have been dropped off on time. The customer did not complain. Three eBay agents all refused my request to get the ding removed. I always ship in next mail, disappointing but not the end of the world. Canadian sellers do get the rough end of the Canada Post stick.

joels-retrocade · ‎05-12-2022

I had a few of these early on when I started selling. I changed my handling time to 10days (Excessive I know lol) but I havent had a single one since because it adds that time to the estimated delivery date. Shipped plenty of lettermails too. You will still get 10% discount for top rated seller status if you're selling on ebay.ca. I strongly recommend this to any seller to stop these kind of headaches.

Cheers,

Joel