Question
okay...maybe not over night, but darn close.
Seems like since right after Christmas bidders buy then email 2 days later wanting to know where their package is........and they live half way, or all the way across country from me!
I state in my auction I ship on Tuesdays & Fridays. If they pay with PP I confirm payment with an email saying "Thanks for the quick contact & payment. Your package will ship on xxxxx. Have a great week & Thanks for shopping with me! (The xxxx is filled in with either Tueday or Friday.)
If they pay on wednesday, they get an email saying blah, Blah...ship on Friday. So WHY do they email me on Thursday or Saturday & want to know WHERE their package is?????
Can you tell I've had more than my share of these questions lately??
Sorry, rant over........
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On the flipside, I've waited 10 days now for an item which I don't think will come, from the US...makes a buyer kind of onlywant to deal with specifics in mind. ...
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I state in my auction I ship on Tuesdays & Fridays. If they pay with PP I confirm payment with an email saying "Thanks for the quick contact & payment. Your package will ship on xxxxx. Have a great week & Thanks for shopping with me! (The xxxx is filled in with either Tueday or Friday.)
If they pay on wednesday, they get an email saying blah, Blah...ship on Friday. So WHY do they email me on Thursday or Saturday & want to know WHERE their package is?????
Is the date included? Example: Package will be shipped on Friday Jan 26th.
Why not use the emailed question as an opportunity to communicate with the buyer and market your brand? The effort might payback big time by referrals or repeat business.
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It's the d*mn Transit Time that Ebay added.
I changed all of my listings to Standard Flat Rate shipping and put the REAL shipping method in my template. But I understand that buyers are still getting unreasonable expectations due to listings that do have Transit Times included.
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This may sound silly, but maybe it is a terminology issue. You and I both know that ship means send out or mail. Your customer may not fully understand that the ship date is the day that you give the package to the post office or other carrier and instead think that the ship date is when they should be getting it. You may want to consider saying that you will be mailing or sending the package on (day).
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Hazel......I talked to Karyl about loaning you our official eBay teleporter but damn if it isn't being borrowed by Gabsy right now and who KNOWS when she will bother returning it! Course with it that far west in Canuckland already, ole Doofy may want to sneak out HIS annual 3 sales on it, so you may have to wait on him too....but we can put you in line after that if you want.
I too use the "normally ship Tuesday & Friday" method but I remind them that they can watch their feedback because I post a + the same day it DOES ship out so they know it is "on the way." So far so good and figure I will keep using that method....at least until the transit time crap bites me in the butt.
Would be willing to bet that at least 50% of your problem is thanks to eBay "helping" you by telling them 2-3 days (or less) at every turn.
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I forgot about the transit time thing ebay is being ever so helpful with.........
Add me to the list for the teleporter use....if nothing else I have a friend who may want to ship off her (not so these days) DH.
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Our auctions state we pack Sunday and ship Monday or Tuesday. Our EOA say the same thing and promise an email when their package ships. We've been forced by buyer expectations and failure to read to add at least one mid week post office trip and that still doesn't seem to be enough to suit people.
Just this week we had someone make a purchase late Wednesday (25th). On Thursday (26th) I sent them our EOA. Their response was they were really hoping to have it on the 31st. My response was somewhat unprintable (g).Having already been to the post office Monday and Wednesay I got to go again Friday (with no guarantee she'd have it when she wants it).
I don't think there is any stopping this trend. I have real questions about how long I can keep doing this. I have a full time job. I run a medium size non profit in my "spare" time. I simply can't be going to the post office even 3 times a week and think it's ridiculous for people to expect it. I purrsonally think it is especially ridiculous to expect it from a charity auction.
Used to be I could just drop off packages at the post office but with all the 9-11 stuff our post office here won't let you do that any more. Do any of you still have that arrangement with your posties? I can't afford to pay for pick ups. Profit margin too slim as it is.
Maryanne
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Ebay has attempted to change the face of mail order, by discouraging realistic shipping times and succumbing to the unrealistic expectations of buyers. The "estimate" of shipping times at the bottom of the listings was the final nail in this coffin, and it effectively says "Screw You" to sellers who are selling part time, or doing it for charity (as in the case of Maryanne). Long established mail order houses have survived on taking six weeks to deliver for a century, and probably have a good reputation if they deliver within three weeks. Ebay, though, can't see this - and can't see the fact that most sellers are way above average, or that their own terms if they ship a couple of times a week are refuted by the addition of meaningless shipping times, that the postal services can not even honour.
Ebay by now probably curses Pierre for his intuitive method of creating auctions. Ebay does not want items stagnating on their site for 7 or 10 days, even when that can mean a serious increase in commissions (final value fees) when the item attracts competitive bidding. What they DO want is a conveyor belt of sellers, getting instant payments, sending items instantly and listing the next sale immediately, so that Ebay can cream a commission off both the listing and the payment constantly. The fact that sellers are humans with lives is a real inconvenience to the process. There is a belief that instant gratification will keep buyers coming back for more, and to cater to this, Ebay has set up the illusion that the buyer will be instantly gratified, by making faux promises (complete with caveats) that delivery may be made in a day or two if you bid now.
In this scramble for instant sales, buyers forget that they are buying from either individuals or seperate businesses, and in many cases are frustrated that different sellers are arrogant enough to have different payment methods, different terms of sale and different rates of shipping...... and (unknowingly I suspect) Ebay has only encouraged this frustration.
All of that said, I have personally been lucky (so far). I very rarely get a "where is my..." email, even though international shipping, by nature, will almost always take longer to arrive. As InquiringMinds mentioned above, using the "Standard Flat Rate shipping" in the listing process does seem to help in this aspect.
Welcome to the production line, Kevin
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My considered opinion having been on AuctionWeb/eBay for (yikes!) a decade now:
What they say is not what they mean.
When you get a WISMO* that seems unreasonable, fLufF will bet you a doughnut that what the buyer is really saying is "I'm uneasy about this transaction. I need reassurance."
Of COURSE you haven't given them the slightest REASON to be nervous. It's not you. It's them.
I have gotten a lot fewer WISMOs since I started putting my phone number in my auction listings. No, not my home phone number! My business cellphone. Just the fact that they have a number they can call seems to be making a difference, even if they don't call it.
And if they do call it, that's when you upsell them. Heh-heh!
fLufF
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* WISMO = Where IS My Order?