Question For Sellers About Delivery Times

No. Marking an item as shipped means nothing. The tracking has to show an acceptance scan within the seller's stated handling time.

Of course, ebay's guidelines are based upon the premise that EVERY shipment has tracking. What's unclear is what happens if you sell in a category (like stamps) where the majority of shipments don't have tracking. Does that mean that all shipments without tracking can be considered "late" by default?

The only items that I have received after the estimated delivery dates have been shipped from outside the U.S. On these instances I have been assuming that there are several factors outside the control of the seller that may have contributed to the delay and did not check off any box - not comfortable saying "yes" if that was not in fact the case. Does ebay ignore my nonresponse, or does a nonresponse still count as a "no" for their purpose?

Wheelman:

I do the same. I don't care how long delivery takes as long as it is sent when it should be.

It is absurd that ebay can punish a seller who does everything right, but shipment is delayed or Customs is slow which they have no control over.

And a further comment to Don - can we also pick a different Customs?

Oracle: A non response means nothing and counts towards nothing.

The biggest issue is for non tracked items as the % is calculated on the number of answers, not sales or feedback.

Theoretically if only one person answers the question and marks it late, you are at a 100% irregardless of the number of sales you have.

Understood but I can pick how it is shipped which can affect how it goes through customs.

I can also pick to not ship internationally at all.

And lastly, I can pick to not sell at all and do go do something else, I understood ebay's system before I decided to participate.

I have posted before that the rating system is so badly flawed (in other ways) that it is just about meaningless.

A far stronger criticism of the rating system is that anyone can go buy an existing ebay account, complete with Top Vender rating and 100% feedback. This is a rating system 'loophole' big enough to drive a truck through. It means that the buyer with Top Rating and/or thousands of feedbacks may actually have done zero ebay transactions, the exact opposite of the purpose of the system. This ought to cause more heartburn for good sellers than anything else.

Frankly I do not participate in the ebay feedback system (in either direction) because of this issue.

When I sell, I ship for free. Every thing goes 'free ship' and the buyer cant even rate the ship time.
Don

"I understood ebay's system before I decided to participate.", says 51studebaker.

If only ebay would correctly and fairly follow their own rules...
If only ebay wouldn't move their goalposts during the game...
If only ebay's support personnel would have a clue about what they are doing...

51studebaker's argument is akin to saying "Being a citizen of this or that country, you must agree with all its laws." No, you have to obey the law but you don't have to agree with all laws, you don't have to like all of them, and you have a right to argue against them in the press and in court. There are stupid, wrong, even criminal, anti-constitutional laws. Lawmakers are human. Many of them are subhuman, I would say.

The same goes for rules of any larger-than-life corporation like ebay or Amazon. With age, these overgrown, shareholder-oriented organizations become bureaucracies, inefficient, incompetent, self-indulgent, condescending toward their clientele, and outrageously dishonest.

Once upon a time I won an ebay case against a UK customer who requested rfund for non-delivery, received a refund, and then received the merchandise according to the tracking records (the letter was held ny the UK customs, without explanation, for 2 months). ebay people confirmed that I should get that payment back. And what they did? They refunded my money to the complaining custommer again, the second time! It took several hours of heated phone conversations, and a couple of weeks of paperwork exchange between ebay and PayPal for me to get my money back, and even then that UK customer continued to stink to the high heaven, and I had to ban him to get rid of this annoyance.

When you "decide to paricipate" in a game, you expect that all players would follow the rules. But they don't. That's why real life and chess tournaments are very different things. It's a jungle out there.

How long before they expect us to offer overnight delivery for free?