eBay in the US have changed the delivery date for listings carrying the Fast and Free designator from ‘Estimated’ to ‘Guaranteed’. Buyers now will start to see the new Fast and Free logo carrying a guaranteed by date instead of an estimated date.
On eBay.com, Fast and Free listings are qualified as:
- 4-day or less delivery
- Free shipping
- Shipping within the 48 contiguous US states
- No local pick up or freight as default shipping option
- Isn’t in Classified Ad format
This isn’t a significantly challenging delivery promise to guarantee – in the US where the retail standard for a fast delivery is a 2-day delivery, a 4-day delivery would be classed by most people as relatively slow. The good news for sellers is that as eBay place the Fast and Free designator on your listings, if the delivery is late eBay will make it right with (under most circumstances) no penalty for the seller. Buyers will be offered a choice of a voucher for a future eBay purchase or a free return label if the sellers accepts returns.
“We agree to cover the liability of these listings because we’re confident in our ability to calculate your delivery time. If a delivery is late, we promise to make it right for customers.”
– eBay.com
If a guaranteed delivery item arrives late even though you met the stated handling time, eBay will remove any negative or neutral feedback left by the customer regarding late delivery, and at this time, will provide the buyer recompense for their inconvenience. eBay will not protect against late shipment defects, and a seller’s listings can be deactivated from the program if they fall below the performance requirements. eBay reserve the right to rescind this seller benefit at any time.
13 Responses
I was going to jump in and say very few couriers Guarantee next day delivery even on a next day service, but is ebay maybe realise this and are offering some protection. I still think that there will be agro from those who leave things until the last minute and then when it is one of the small percentage that doesnt arrive on time… demand to send it back for free. Then again they do that now! So will be interesting to see how this pans out. It is atleast a step in the rtight direction with some thought towards the seller too…. Which is a blue moon event for ebay!
Hope this crappy idea doesn’t spread to ebay.co.uk. It’s another burden for sellers, who will have to write off yet more shipping costs.
Wrong again eBay, if I want something “Next Day” I expect it to the arrive next day, as Gav said, I would be very disappointed if I was let down regardless of the compensation, like free return etc.
A survey many years ago showed that far more people would tell friends, family and anybody they knew about a bad experience than a good one.
Don’t see why everyone is moaning, i’m loving this idea from ebay, it’s the only time recently i’ve seen them back their own guarantees, rather than forcing the seller to pick up all the costs.
I assume they’ve picked a 4-day guarantee because it’s easily achievable, rather than the current UK regime, of ebay de-facto guaranteeing to customers better delivery than the couriers/RM actually offer, and punishing the seller when the two don’t match.
if you don’t want to be highlighted as fast & free, with ebay backing your guarantee, you don’t need to be on the program, but i’d certainly be taking part in this if they offered it in the UK.
Great more badges from ebay that most buyers would not see anyway seen as ebay has a badge for everything it seems. If buyers can search for this then that would be much better.
Would be much better if you could find the item you are looking for in a search then narrow it down buy delivery dates like next day, 2 – 3 day etc.
NDR – How do you give a customer a refund once they have returned an item? They did not create a return through eBay it was agreed through the messaging system.
Usual eBay Merry-Go-Round;
From the message they sent me I clicked the “View Order Details” to be taken to the listing, clicking on the xx sold takes me to view the buyers, then under Action click on the “View Order Details” and get taken to a “variation” of the order page. Nothing there.
From the Seller Hub I locate the order but still see no way of giving a refund.
I have done it through my own system and could have done it via Paypal, but see no way of doing it through eBay.
Tyler don’t refund through PayPal first- eBay will count this as a ding on your DSR. We had the same thing, in error we just refunded through PayPal. eBay then counted this as “out of stock” refund and we couldn’t get our selling fees back either.
You need to find the “resolve a problem” page but that’s easier said than done !