How is everyone handling new "late shipment" metric?

phaz0rz · #1 03-05-2016

I know I'm not the only one who's being eaten alive by eBay's new "late shipment" standard. I just checked my dashboard on my most active account and my late shipment rate is now at 3.02%. Meaning I have 15 days to bring it up by .02% or I will lose TRP status and benefits. I know that doesn't seem like much but I get 100+ orders per day on this account, so even raising the % by .02 will be challenging.

I'm just curious as to what the other powersellers around here are doing to maintain Top Rated Plus on your accounts?

I just went into my business shipping policy and changed all of my listings from "USPS First Class" to "USPS Retail ground". I don't even know how to print postage for that mail class but I'm hoping since the delivery time is slightly longer, this will help me bring up my late shipment rate in 2 weeks.

I know this new metric has already been extensively discussed on Aspkin. Just looking for any useful advice I can use to maintain my account's status.

Thanks in advance for any input. This officially sucks, eBay.

newjerseymax · #2 03-05-2016

Shipping has always been one our biggest challenges... Pricing, speed, accuracy, lost, stolen, etc... The list goes on and on...

That is my 2nd biggest peeve besides wrong item packed...

phaz0rz · #3 03-05-2016

I have an employee who does nothing but package my orders all day, so I've never had a problem getting orders shipped out on time. In fact all of my listings have a 1 day handling time but 98% of orders are shipped the same day. I get commercial plus pricing from stamps.com and all of my listings have free shipping, so everything is competitively priced.

I can say for a fact that 3.01% out of that 3.02% is due to things being lost by the postal service. I do absolutely everything I possibly can to give my customers the best service, which no longer means anything to eBay.

I mean, seriously eBay, what am I supposed to do? Ship all my orders Priority so they will arrive by your deadline? Even then things get lost, and there's nothing we can do as sellers to prevent it.

This "late shipment" thing is just very frustrating. I seriously hope they are still working on their new standards because they are becoming increasingly impossible to meet :(

MM78 · #4 03-05-2016

This is how I'm handling it:

#5 03-05-2016

This is how I am handling mine:

eBay can suck it

But in all serious, I am getting pummeled. I had USPS lose 2 of my packages this week. >=(

MM78 · #6 03-05-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nephilim

This is how I am handling mine:

eBay can suck it

But in all serious, I am getting pummeled. I had USPS lose 2 of my packages this week. >=(

Same here, I'm literally now taking all my packages in and having them scan them all!

phaz0rz · #7 03-05-2016

My "lost shipments" are always scanned in and lost somewhere in transit. Which didn't used to count as a defect, but now it does.

jeanbean0109 · #8 03-06-2016

Simple, I have 2 day handling on all my items. Theoretically my ass is covered even know I ship same day as payment as received or the very following day. Done, no issues. Plus my post office is exactly a half mile from my house and I go to the store another half mile past that every day for coffee and smokes. So everything is handed in in person and scanned.

Then I hang onto all reciepts. If a item comes up late, I can forward the reciept to ebay proving the post office ****ed up. And then they elimate the ding in most cases.

Just wish I could figure out how to get around ebay mentality the buyer is always right when they are wrong lol.

phaz0rz · #9 03-06-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeanbean0109

Simple, I have 2 day handling on all my items. Theoretically my ass is covered even know I ship same day as payment as received or the very following day. Done, no issues. Plus my post office is exactly a half mile from my house and I go to the store another half mile past that every day for coffee and smokes. So everything is handed in in person and scanned.

Then I hang onto all reciepts. If a item comes up late, I can forward the reciept to ebay proving the post office ****ed up. And then they elimate the ding in most cases.

Just wish I could figure out how to get around ebay mentality the buyer is always right when they are wrong lol.

I've kept 1 day handling on all my listings because I don't want to lose the 20% discount I get on FVF for being Top Rated Plus.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you forward those receipts to eBay? I was looking through my "late shipment report" yesterday, and a good bit of them were fraudulent purchases which were later chargebacked in Paypal. I don't know why those show as a "late shipment", but they do, and I know I can get at least 25 of them removed if I find out who to talk to.

Please let me know, thanks.

phaz0rz · #10 03-06-2016

*BUMP*

I was hoping for some serious replies...

yaBeh8ater · #11 03-06-2016

its not even a deal to me. i offer same or next business day shipping and always get stuff shipped in that timeframe. granted im not shipping lots every day.

phaz0rz · #12 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by yaBeh8ater

its not even a deal to me. i offer same or next business day shipping and always get stuff shipped in that timeframe. granted im not shipping lots every day.

Re-read the thread bud. I have no problem at all getting orders shipped within my handling time.

ass11078 · #13 03-07-2016

I lost over 15 packages during Christmas holiday till this day no word on what happened

newjerseymax · #14 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

I have an employee who does nothing but package my orders all day, so I've never had a problem getting orders shipped out on time. In fact all of my listings have a 1 day handling time but 98% of orders are shipped the same day. I get commercial plus pricing from stamps.com and all of my listings have free shipping, so everything is competitively priced.

I can say for a fact that 3.01% out of that 3.02% is due to things being lost by the postal service. I do absolutely everything I possibly can to give my customers the best service, which no longer means anything to eBay.

I mean, seriously eBay, what am I supposed to do? Ship all my orders Priority so they will arrive by your deadline? Even then things get lost, and there's nothing we can do as sellers to prevent it.

This "late shipment" thing is just very frustrating. I seriously hope they are still working on their new standards because they are becoming increasingly impossible to meet :(

I have 1 day handling also and often ship same day. However I have started changing the "shipping date" to 1 day forward and still shipping same day. This moves the whole timetable one day forward giving you one extra day buffer. Naturally this only works with same day shipments that have 1 day handling.

phaz0rz · #15 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by newjerseymax

I have 1 day handling also and often ship same day. However I have started changing the "shipping date" to 1 day forward and still shipping same day. This moves the whole timetable one day forward giving you one extra day buffer. Naturally this only works with same day shipments that have 1 day handling.

I appreciate your response but I'm a bit confused.

How can you modify the "shipping date" without changing your "handling time?"

I may be missing something obvious here but I've never seen any option to specify the shipment date. Do you mean that you post all your orders the same day, then upload tracking the next day?

oompaloompa · #16 03-07-2016

could you just mark as dispatched and add tracking later, when you actually send it?

phaz0rz · #17 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by oompaloompa

could you just mark as dispatched and add tracking later, when you actually send it?

I think that would do the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish. My problem is eBay's estimated delivery date not my handling time. If I were to mark orders as shipped before I uploaded tracking I think eBay may start estimating an ever shorter delivery time frame for my orders.

Just to reiterate, what is killing me is eBay's new late shipment metric. This is an entirely different animal from the old "tracking uploaded and validated by carrier" metric, which I am at 100% for. It now counts as a defect if you ship with tracking and tracking shows the order arrived after the date eBay estimated for your customer. USPS losing orders or delaying delivery for seemingly no reason has caused me to drop to 3.02% on the new late shipment metric, while 3% is the threshold for being Top Rated.

So I'm doing everything I can to get eBay to estimate longer delivery times, even though I know it will have an impact on sales.

aking · #18 03-07-2016

why not just change your handling time to 2 days instead of 1 to give you an extra day? I don't think buyers see this or pay attention to it, but buyers diffinitely look at your shipping method to see how fast an item will come, so be careful.

A potential buyer may shop with someone shipping Priority rather than First Class or slower.

phaz0rz · #19 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by aking

why not just change your handling time to 2 days instead of 1 to give you an extra day? I don't think buyers see this or pay attention to it, but buyers diffinitely look at your shipping method to see how fast an item will come, so be careful.

A potential buyer may shop with someone shipping Priority rather than First Class or slower.

The 20% discount I get on final value fees is part of what allows me to stay a major player in a highly competitive niche. You have to have 1 or same day handling in order to be Top Rated, and if I lost my Top Rated plus badge on this account, I'd lose half my customers or more right off the bat.

I've definitely considered increasing my handling time but that is a last resort. This account is a Gold powerseller and has been TRP since it was 3 months old. It would be detrimental to lose that top rated status on this one. :(

In regards to the shipping method, I know, but my hands are pretty much tied. It's a highly competitive niche this account is involved with and if I started including Priority shipping costs in my prices, I'd lose ALL of my customers, LOL. I've started to implement the best thing I can think of, which is telling eBay I'm using "economy shipping" but making a note in my listing that all orders ship first class with tracking. This way eBay estimates a later delivery date and hopefully less orders are considered late. It will have an effect on mobile users buying from me since they rarely take the time to look at a listing's description. But I don't know what else to do. I'm open to suggestions.

Dmshark25 · #20 03-07-2016

Have you tried a different post office? I realize orders do go missing but it shouldn't be so frequent where its effecting your business. If items are disappearing that often file a formal complaint because someone is stealing at your post office.

I also been using USPS the last 5 years, the only time i had items not even scan and just disappear was two week period a couple years ago where i tried their pick up service, I had like 6 or 7 orders disappear in that 2 week period. I quickly ended that.

Now every once in a while an item will show in transit and just be stuck for a week and finally start again and get delivered.
But this is like 1 every 1500 orders, an amount that doesn't effect business.

You sound like your dealing with russian post or something, i would change post offices if i were you

EWHendo · #21 03-07-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

I appreciate your response but I'm a bit confused.

How can you modify the "shipping date" without changing your "handling time?"

I may be missing something obvious here but I've never seen any option to specify the shipment date. Do you mean that you post all your orders the same day, then upload tracking the next day?

If you ship using the eBay shipping page, there is a drop down menu at the bottom center of the page, under where you select the shipping service, that let's you select the shipping date from one of the next three - four days. I don't know how this affects the expected delivery date though.

phaz0rz · #22 03-08-2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dmshark25

Now every once in a while an item will show in transit and just be stuck for a week and finally start again and get delivered.
But this is like 1 every 1500 orders, an amount that doesn't effect business.

This is what is often happening with my orders. It's only maybe one out of every 300 orders or so but it's happening enough to have an impact. I go out of my way to help those customers and end up taking a loss most of the time be reshipping the order.

Everything is always scanned in. The ones getting lost will be scanned 3 or 4 times, then they'll sometimes be scanned again in a few weeks like you mentioned, and sometimes they just disappear. So unless someone at a sort facility is targeting me I don't know what's up. But I don't think my mail carrier/local post office have anything to do with it. Her and I have a great relationship. She's actually the one who requested that I started scheduling carrier pickups because she gets credit on her route for my mail (whatever that means, lol)