If you’ve been browsing eBay today, you may have noticed that the Fast ‘N Free badge has officially been replaced with a shiny new shipping estimate badge.
Back in February, eBay announced that they would be scrapping the outdated Fast ‘N Free badge. (Hurrah!) This was good news because the Fast ‘N Free badge signified 3 day shipment time in the UK and 4 days in the US, and so, seeing the badge on a Friday meant delivery could be any day up until next Wednesday, so not necessarily fast.
Goodbye Fast ‘N Free, hello “Free x day shipping”
So there we have it, we’ve seen the back of Fast ‘N Free and can welcome a new “Free x day shipping” badge which simplifies how eBay highlights shipping speed and cost. This change removes the ambiguity of the previous badge. The transparency of “Free 2 day shipping” or “Free 3 day shipping” helps customers know when to expect their delivery and makes it easy to compare similar listings’ value proposition with shipping from different sellers.
This prominent display of shipping speed also incentivizes sellers to offer faster service. eBay’s retail standards threshold is four days in the U.S. and three days in the U.K. and Germany. Since the listing clearly states the number of days it will take for buyers to receive their items (unlike the ambiguous Fast ’N Free badge), sellers who offer faster shipping enjoy the highlight and it motivates them to offer the quickest possible shipping to keep their listings competitive in the modern world.
The new shipping signals are live in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, and all global regions will soon follow.
5 Responses
Sent an item the morning after the night of purchase with 3 day free postage. However it arrived on the 4th day and the customer complained. As a seller you can choose a specific turn around time with in this case was 2 days, so the item arrived a day early. This new label is cery misleading if buyers dont click on it as once clicked it does clearly state expected delivery time including your processing time.
Ebay are crap! My sales have died, support is awful, been graded as below standard and financially penalised without clear explanation. closed my ebay account today.
I have had a lot of sellers lately mark items as shipped, i expect it, nothing. I then find they posted up to 3 days after they marked it as posted. They get 1 star FB for delivery, but ebay don’t care and why open a dispute after it has arrived, albeit way later than it should have been.
eBay still can’t get this right. I put a 3 day handling time on my items, I was previously at 5 days due to Covid delays.
As soon I put it back to 3 days, my items showed ‘free delivery in 3 days’ and the estimate was 3 days from ‘today’, where it should have been 2-3 working days PLUS the 3 day handling time.
A few weeks later it’s still the same, if a seller puts 3 day handing time, eBay show a 3 day delivery. It’s basic maths but it seems beyond eBay to get it righ.
@Dave. Are you sure the *seller* marked it as ‘dispatched’?
eBay have had a nasty practice of sending ‘Your purchase is on its way!’ messages when the seller has only bought a postage label from them. The promised dispatch date may be days away.