eBay UK Seller Release: Integrated Tracking

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Courier hmeBay are to make it easier for buyers and sellers to follow the progress of deliveries.

More importantly the tracking integration will help eBay protect you from certain delivery-related defects. It’s an empirical objective measurement that eBay can use to rate you as a great seller.

From September 2015, when you add tracking data shipments eBay will display ‘Courier’ and ‘Status’ information for selected couriers. Items will be displayed as ‘Accepted’, ‘In transit’ or ‘Delivered’.

Buyers and sellers will have greater visibility of an item’s delivery status – and eBay will use the data for the new on-time delivery metric, which will measure delivery performance based on what you control – posting your items on time.

eBay UK Courier IntegrationsSupported Couriers

Most of the major couriers are on board and should be supported by the end of 2015 (though one or two may take slightly longer).

Why you need to add tracking

It will become more important than ever to upload tracking to eBay if you use a supported service. Firstly if you despatch the item on time and eBay picks up the acceptance scan you’ll be protected for the new on-time delivery metric. That should be reason enough.

However having the tracking information at their fingertips should allow customers to become self service and they’ll easily be able to track their own items reducing customer support requirements.

Once the item status shows as ‘Accepted’, eBay will know that you posted the item on time… hello auto 5-star rating for dispatch time. As an added bonus you won’t to worry about incurring an ‘item not received’ delivery-related defect if something goes wrong such as the courier delivering your parcel late or the buyer not collecting it on time.

10 Responses

  1. What I would like to know, and I’m surprised I haven’t read / found the answer yet, is…..
    Will the Royal Mail “barcode ready” initiative from October (possible start) / April (info available) count towards the tracking acceptance that eBay require?
    I appreciate that barcoded parcels with Royal Mail (excluding TRACKED services) will not be tracked. I understand that they will be scanned at point of receipt (sorting office rather than at my collection) and then only rescanned at point of delivery.
    But will this count?
    I can’t see why not.
    And for INR cases, will this information also count to prove that the seller has dispatched an item – hence giving the seller protection from a defect / refund?
    Perhaps the answers to my questions are out there somewhere and I just haven’t looked hard enough but if someone knows the definitive answers to the above would they kindly share the knowledge for the benefit of those in the dark?
    Thanks in advance

  2. What about couriers like APC and XDP etc who arent covered but provide tracking?.Will putting the tracking in still protect us?,or will we have to appeal any that come when a buyer clicks not delivered on time,but tracking shows dispatched on time?.

  3. You say “However having the tracking information at their fingertips should allow customers to become self service and they’ll easily be able to track their own items reducing customer support requirements.”

    It would be interesting to know what percentage of buyers ever check the tracking on their items. I suspect in the main buyers and sellers alike only look when something goes wrong.

  4. Tracking will help Ebay sellers for couriers and other carriers, but not Royal Mail, as their services are not reliable enough.

    We used to see RM Signed For items delivered but not signed. Customers would then claim for not received.

    I’ve lost count of the number of items I had conversations with Ebay CS, with me pointing out delivery had been confirmed, but Ebay insisting that as there was no signature they had to reimburse the customer.

    As I mentioned in another post, we have seen “losses” in the post drop by 90% since leaving Ebay and using other sites. Losses have actually been zero on one collectables site.

    Draw your own conclusions – same items, same delivery services.

    By the way, the claim form for Royal Mail has a separate section for Ebay items – not for Amazon or other online sites (!) Stephen at RM customer services told me they believe most claims of “not received” on Ebay are bogus.

  5. The Hermes integrated link takes people to the European Hermes website for tracking which is totally useless for UK users where the site is different and known as MyHermes. I had someone send me a parcel via Hermes (actually MyHermes) and clicking on the tracking in eBay took me to the European site where there was no tracking information for my parcel but when I manually went to the MyHermes website, the tracking was available. eBay need to sort out where the integrated tracking link goes to!

  6. What is the cheapest way to send items tracked and EBay compliant which I now send ‘large first class’ (untracked) via the Post Office for 96p. They are low value items which I advertise as ‘Post Free’ on EBay. Any answers?

  7. Hi

    We use RM DMO, does anyone know of an easy way to get the 2D barcode tracking out of the RM DMO system and uploaded to ebay?

    Thanks

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