What’s wrong with this screen shot taken of an item offered for sale on eBay yesterday evening? Yes that’s right, the seller is on holiday but eBay are still offering Fast and Free shipping with a delivery date of the 28th May.
There are two issues here – firstly the holiday notice is simply a small orange strip above the picture if you’re buying on mobile. I have to admit not spotting a holiday setting last week and then wondering why my purchase took a week to arrive – not the fault of the seller, it’s the way eBay display the message.
It’s not much bigger if you’re buying on the main eBay site (see image below). Having hoped that your potential buyers have spotted your holiday settings notification, eBay are now promising Fast and Free shipping with delivery by the 28th May.
The real problem here is when we check on the full eBay site and see what date this particular seller is returning from their holiday. They’re not due back from holiday until the 3rd of June, but eBay are promising delivery by the 28th of May.
If you are about to take some time off over the Bank Holiday and School Half Term in the UK, or Memorial Day Weekend in the US, check your eBay holiday settings but also check your listings and see what eBay are telling you customers.
At a rough estimate 40% of eBay customers are now buying on mobile devices. They see your fast and free delivery promise but even if they notice a tiny orange message at the top of their screen, there’ll be nothing to indicate the promised delivery date isn’t the date their purchase will arrive.
14 Responses
This is what happens when you try to micromanage your sellers.
You always miss something.
This new one day shipping estimate has caused us to have the most ebay messages/cases in one day ever! People are really expecting a next day service and it is killing our customer service department! Our products currently show delivery on or before!!!!29th May. Its a bank holiday weekend, even if we did come in on Monday and pack the orders they are going no where till tuesday afternoon when Royal Mail come, that’s if we can pack all the back log. We all know (except ebay) that there will be delays because of the holiday….so next week will be even worse.
It’s really killing us, normally I am fairly OK with what ebay change and just go along with it, but this really is a bad move you never over promise and Christmas will be a chuffing nightmare!
Simple solution. Remove listings from sale over a holiday period and take a break. You will discover that sales double on the day your listings reappear as buyers/watchers panic that the item might vanish again forever!
When we set our holiday settings,
we also change the ‘Handling Time’ on all Listings to match the time away on Holiday, so the delivery date is correct.
This should be automatically done by eBay, although eBay are too lazy to code this
Promise late….send and deliver early.
Can’t go wrong then !
I’ve been complaining for years to ebay that their banner advising buyers the seller is away is far from conspicuous. They don’t do anything about it – just like they have never done anything about New Zealand and South Africa missing from their drop down list of countries for postage. They’d be better fixing these issues first tham focussing on debatable future changes. Fortunately most buyers are understanding.
What would be nice, one day, is if you were able to give buyers ADVANCED notice.
If I want to go on holiday and shut down my ebay site for a week, I want to make buyers aware a week or two before.
At present people come back to me after my holiday and say “I couldn’t buy and had no notice otherwise I would have purchased before I closed”. Another problem is E-CHEQUES.
I give people a generous 2 weeks ish to pay before ebay opens an auto dispute (or whatever they call it now).
As we might be closed, when it clears, it would be wonderful if the customer got some indication that dispatch would be delayed when it’s cleared, AT THE CUSTOMERS INITIAL CHECKOUT.
At least it gives the customer an idea of what’s on the cards.
Maybe that’s a little too complex for Ebay coders B-).
ebay had this same issue only last Bank Holiday Monday. Also, does anyone know when the 0 day dispatch will be available?
This is really bad.
Ebay is rapidly becoming more stupid and more expensive by the day. They create new rules which are not clear and often unfair on Sellers , which means more phone calls to Customer support.
They are slowly creating a market for big sellers, as small sellers will often flip between TRS and non TRS.
Small sellers cannot rely on Ebay anymore.