eBay appear to be listening to buyers and sellers and testing an express delivery option on the mobile app. For far too long, retail standards have been next day delivery but eBay have offered not easy way for buyers to search listings to find items that can be delivered next day – we’ve written about this at length over many years on Tamebay.
Now, spotted by eBay expert Jane Bell, some buyers are seeing alternative Postage Options on the eBay app. Instead of the normal ‘Free postage’, ‘Click & Collect’ and ‘Collection Only’ options, eBay have replaced the second two with an ‘Express delivery’ option.
When we snagged the screen shots before the weekend, it didn’t work perfectly – on the first listing we looked at that was filtered as an express delivery option it turned out that the seller was on holiday!
We don’t want to be too hard on eBay as this is obviously new and isn’t rolled out to all users but when it goes live for real eBay need to filter our listings with holiday settings. We’d also love to see this feature combined with data from eBay sellers’ cut off times as an express delivery option only works if the seller can actually despatch quickly, preferably the same day.
Other listings that we checked gave better results although the user experience could be tweaked slightly. When the express delivery option was enabled, listings were filtered that offered fast delivery, but the default postage shown was still the economy option. It would be very cute if when buyers expressed a clear intent to purchase a product with fast delivery if eBay defaulted the seller’s delivery option to their express delivery offering.
In the instance shown in the images, the default delivery was a 3 to 4 day service with Royal Mail 2nd Class post but a 2 to 3 day Service was available with Royal Mail 1st Class. The upgrade was a very reasonable 30p and with a clear choice by the buyer to look for an express delivery option it would make sense for eBay to automatically select the premium option on their behalf. It saves that bit of extra work by the buyer of having to dig into delivery options and manually select an express delivery option before making the purchase.
For a first iteration of offering an express delivery option filter in search results this is pretty good. There’s still work to be done, but I for one can’t wait for this to be rolled out and live for all buyers. I’ll certainly appreciate the ability to buy from sellers who can deliver fast and it’ll convince me to shop more on eBay instead of Amazon and I’m probably not the only one.
We’re hoping that this will also roll out on eBay on all other platforms including Android and Apple devices as well as the desktop experience.
7 Responses
Ok so this is problematic for us.
eBay, please if you’re listening… take note.
We offer Next Day delivery on a Shipping Profile that also has an economy option. The profile has a 1 business day dispatch time and therefore makes us ineligible to be included in the “Express Delivery” search results.
The problem with this is that if a customer selects Next Day Delivery, we WILL and DO dispatch the same day.
So, why can’t we set a Same Day Dispatch for our Next Day Option and a 1 Business Day dispatch time for our economy option on the same profile?
We don’t want to have to offer same-day-dispatch on an economy option. Too many orders makes this impossible for us to guarantee, so we offer 1 day dispatch for our economy option instead.
Fact is that most customers prefer ecconomy delivery as oposed to paying even a small amount extra for express delivery.
We have put express delivery option up front in our item description and in the item specifics for several years and almost nobody opts for it.
eBay and amazon are educating buyers to have unrealistic expectations.
Our custimers who get royal mail 2nd class are always saying our delivery is fast!.
All I want is an option to search that excludes ‘collection only’ items
We need the option to filter out all the sellers sending 2nd class postage. Far to many pile it high cheap scate pile it high sellers.
To compete with amazon buyers should be able to have the option first class postage only as well as next day delivery.
The app is crap for sellers trying to resolve problems with buyers.
1. I had a message this morning from a customer, the button that states quite clearly “View Order Details” takes me to the “Active listing” page, not the order as you would expect it too.
2. I had a return request, the button that states quite clearly “See request details” takes me to a log-in page, when I am already logged in to the app. As I do not carry my log in details when I am out and about I can not deal with this problem on the go.
When will they spend some time fixing what already does not work before introducing new ideas.
Tyler… you are not alone! Another issue is you can’t amend quantities in multiple variation listings on the app!
Anyway…back to delivery.
What i would like to see is the option to display postage by item in a multi variation listing. We have some listings where things are bought by weight…. up to 2kg can go by royal mail, so we can send via rm 24 for alot cheaper than our courier, yet often arrives just as quickly and for many is more convenient. However once we move to the next size – 5kg, it has to go by our courier and so hits a different price band. Even on my own website i can set postage by weight… As such i am now scrapping multi variation listings which ebay encourage us to have, simply because the postage is inflexible.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE !!!
with sales crashing through the floor and the new 30 day returns policy being forced on sellers its no wonder we have seen huge drops on eBay but massive growth on other platforms that are just and good. Oh and cheaper yes you heard it cheaper!
Not out to wring every last penny or take their pound of flesh from every aspect of your sale. We have calculated only another 4 months and we will be able to move solely to other platforms.
There are so many now and they are all helpful to list all your items in just minutes.