I woke up to two emails this morning and it’s given me a bit of a buzz that eBay have got a relatively new site feature very nearly perfect. The first email read:
Dear Sir/Madam
Can you please confirm this item has been despatched?
Thanking you in advance.
Kind regards.
This was followed five minutes later with another email:
Dear Sir/Madam
Please disregard my earlier question regarding the product. Using your link to the tracking number (a very useful tool) I can see that the item has arrived in Scarborough and is ready for delivery.
Kind regards.
I’ve routinely been scanning tracking numbers into eBay for several months now, but this is the first time a customer has told me that they’ve found it useful. Entering a tracking number also marks the item as despatched and triggers a Selling Manager Pro email to let the customer know that the item is on it’s way. It also (for Royal Mail Hermes, HDN and DHL) gives the customer a web link from the order detail page that they can click to go to the carriers site automatically displaying the tracking information for their shipment.
The one thing that eBay’s shipping team could do to improve this feature is to automatically add the tracking number to the SMP despatch email so that it was sent to the buyer. If you’re entering tracking numbers the one thing I would recommend is to invest in a bar code scanner to save typing the numbers in.
I’m finding entering tracking numbers into eBay is working well, it would also assist in any eBay/PayPal disputes. Are you using this feature and if so what enhancements would you like to see? For instance would you like to see an import feature where you could upload tracking numbers in bulk?
14 Responses
the need to enter a tracking number at all is what bugs me, a basic auto email saying
your items sent and should be with you in a day or so or week or so depending on your country and location
should be enough for the untrusting sods
rather than buggering about with scanners bar codes etc etc
There is an issue with customers actually finding tracking numbers. I get a few a day, and its a pain to have to retrieve them and re-email it to them. Amazon has a great system – ebay need to look at the mechanics of this and improve seller efficiency
I never send tracked.
What scanner & software do you use Chris?
Please explain!
just thought i will put my 2 pennies worth in here, just in case no one knows – Royal Mail offer a tracked service now NOT recorded by the way – its called “Royal Mail Tracked” ask your account managers about it.
They send a IT engineer to your site who then installs the software and printer (which you have to buy)
You can send upto 5KG in weight for a fixed price with full tracking
Price depends on volume, avg weights and where you send orders too – eg scotland england wales etc etc and they do some sums and give a price – we pay £3.80 – but we do send a lot of stuff which is near the 5kg mark – our price went up from £3.16 when we put the heavier parcels with them – but twiddle with the weights and you can get the service from £2 to £3 ish
Just thought someone mind find this usefull
My experience is completely the opposite to the one described by ‘JO’. I sell a product that costs slightly more than £15 and always send it by standard first class mail (not recorded signed-for) and I’ve only ever had a couple of packages go missing (lost or stolen?) out of a couple of thousand! A lot of my customers are in their late teens too. I’m really surprised more haven’t gone walkabouts. I know this isn’t the case with everyone but just thought I would say something positive (for once;)
Regarding scanning in barcodes, Royal mail on their “proof of postage” reciept slips dont actually give you a barcode, but give you the tracking number which contains numbers and letters so it’s not as simple as getting a barcode scanner, you need one with character/number recognition. doh!