Just wanted to throw this out there as some food for thought…
The ebay app does a very good job at hiding the description and unfortunately the user experience is designed to make it very easy to ignore/miss the description completely.
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I would’ve honestly cancelled the order. You could’ve just said “I’ll ship on x day, sorry for the inconvenience.”
Can confirm the mobile app is garbage for reading the descriptions
I bought my item on Friday 3AM, can you ship on the same day? JK. it’s not rude if you’re pointing out the obvious.
If you have everything written in the description (which i suppose you could say is a reflection of a reputable sellers experiences) You shouldnt have to explain yourself again. I agree that the multiple ways and forms of ebay are not linear and dont enable the buyer to achieve what these parts are there for.
Considering you are a high volume seller and the time you could unwillingly invest due to these types of people is more than the average seller, I would just copy and paste your ‘polite’ description into your reply. Then you cover everything needed presuming they have not read your description. Any subsequent emails regarding anything within your initial reply, just ignore them. When it comes to a buyer cancelling because they dont agree with your terms after the fact, well, make that decision on a case by case basis. You know how skewed the system is so most of the time the battle isnt worth it.
As Scott said, buyers are used to quick shipping because they normally get quick shipping from other eBay sellers and Amazon et all. It’s to the point where it’s now assumed automatic.
It’s tough to overcome that and there really may not be a good solution other than shipping twice a week or simply accepting the buyers disappointment.
An added thought, maybe putting the shipping day info as the first line in your description. Even just “WILL SHIP FRIDAY”. Even the laziest normally get to the first line of the description.
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+1 for Dan, good guy would recommend 
As for your message, I didn’t think it was rude but it wasn’t super friendly either. Like others have said I have a word document full of typical responses to questions I get, because I get grumpy replying when I get stupid questions. I make my template responses come off as super friendly like … ‘Hi! No problem thanks for contacting me about X, this is because Y. I hope that helps resolve your issue, if you have any other questions feel free to contact me again and I’ll do my best to help! Cheers! ’
Because there’s no tone in text and people usually contact regarding a problem/concern, they could be in a negative mindset when they read your response and internally could read the response with an unfriendly tone … so I go a bit over the top to come off as happy to answer them and that it’s no problem in my templates. Keeping people happy and making them feel valued even if they’re idiots just helps not get negative feedback and having them cause more trouble, plus return buyer potential etc.
tl;dr I’d probably spice up your responses to sound happy & pleased to help them even though you probably aren’t lol
I wish eBay would allow tipping, for extra good customer service. Good customer service is underrated a lot of times.
In this scenario, there is no right or wrong, as it is all perspective. The way you responded, based on your personal experience, expectation, and operation is fine. The customer complaining about the extended shipment time is, quite honestly, very understandable if you’ve ever spent some time in customer service. You will realize the average person is dumb and does not ever act according to your high ideals. 
It is all about communication. Anyways, positive attitude can only help. Just don’t let this little dipshit ruin your day.
The argument that one sells by volume and thus has a lower patience level can apply to people who also buy by volume. They probably don’t bother reading everything and make some assumptions. It’s what makes us humans, right?
As an Elite Buyer™ on eBay for over 25 years now I expect service that wows and shocks me leaving me with a sense of wonderment. That is what eBay is about - the sheer thrills of customer service quality.
When I handcraft and deliver each message to a seller or ‘buyer satisifiers’ as we Elite™ call them, I hope to receive eloquent and individualistic responses. eBay is not the place for canned responses oh no sir, would the Queen’s Guard respond to their vassal in such a manner? I most certainly hope not.
One of our favourite tools here at the Elite Buyers™ Council™™ is to test the mettle of our buyer satisifiers by having one of our many children buy items in our stead only to quickly (or sometimes not at all) cancel the purchase
Thank you ever so much,
Always Yours and Elite™:
I***3(12)
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Rusty @thecharizardauthorty do you actually stand by this from your listings? :
“Before buying, MAKE SURE you know what you are buying. If you do not agree to the price or shipping charge, DO NOT BUY. If you commit to buy, you are expected to pay and transactions will not be cancelled.”
This is where the big issue often comes from me. I try to not cancel their transactions either especially when they are rude about it after not reading the description to begin with. Mine is a bunch shorter than yours too haha. Idk how you manage only 1 negative on 25,000 transactions. I will take the advice of creating a better form with a few answers instead of my single “read the description” reply.
Basically where I stand on all of it is that I am not top rated anyways, so <0.5% negatives don’t hurt me anyways and I just see them as a cost of doing business. When they pop up they still annoy me though. Overall not enough to bend over backwards though and drastically change to coddling all those needy ignorant impatient buyers. As it has always been 99.5%+ of my transactions are amazing and have no issues.
I didn’t read every reply or post on here, but I am more or less curious if you have ever tried shipping more regularly?
I understand you do this part time, and have a full time job, but would just be curious if you ever did try and it was too time consuming or hectic?
Also, I think your response was fair, but it depends what your goal is. If you don’t mind getting negative feedback then that response was fine. If you are trying to avoid negative feedback, even though you did nothing wrong in the first place, then sometime you have to bend with some “gobblydeegook.” 
No, that’s just a common term for passing the buck.
" Please read the listing description thread for that and other useful info regarding your purchase. post. Thanks,
Dan" 
Ha! Only kidding. This has become quite the thread now with several walls of text.
I used to ship every day. Back when I had the time to put 30-40 hours a week into eBay alongside my 40-60 hour a week job. Then I got a house and it became harder. Then two cats. Then I got married and it became harder yet. Then a puppy. Then a masters program. Work got busier. Life in general is busier every day and things are looming on the horizon that will make it busier than I can likely ever imagine. 
So I went from daily, to every other day to twice a week and have found a nice balance now shipping once a week. I can keep up with it while keeping my sanity and having a night a week unencumbered. I basically came to the same conclusion you pointed out. I need to try to make my canned replies a little “nicer” I guess by adding in a few other copy/paste options that sound friendlier and more catered to the individual question. On a case by case basis I will also need to decide if and how much I need to bend in order to avoid a negative.
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SPOILER: Click to show
Just thought I would finish out our messages here. May the buyer be lurking on the forums? Lol.
{Beginning of conversation for anyone who missed it and cares to catch up}
Buyer1 :“Hello, I was wondering if my item was shipping today? Thanks very much!” Me1: “Please read the listing description for that and other useful info regarding your purchase. Thanks, Dan” Buyer2:“Thank you very much. I assumed it was three days shipping but didn’t realize you ship every Friday morning. " Me2: " No problem” Buyer3: “But I do suggest being a little nicer to buyers. Just telling me to read the item description when you could also shoot me a quick message back with that info too. I just spent XXX USD (hid for their privacy). I would expect a little more customer service just like it says in your item description as well.” Me3:“I said please and thank you. I simply pointed you there as only answering your single question may have left you with more questions that were easily answered in the listing… which you were supposed to read in the first place. Again, thank you for your purchase. This will be shipped out as detailed in the listing. Dan”
Just thought I would finish out our messages here. May the buyer be lurking on the forums? Lol.
Buyer4:"I’m a power seller too, I had no additional questions. I’m not upset or anything.
I was making a suggestion because i haven’t had a seller point me at the item description when I’m spending over 100 dollars. I spend thousands on here as I’m a (redacted for privacy) collector.
5 star customer service would be making me feel like a valued customer, in your response, I did not feel like a valued customer.
I will leave you good feedback once I get the card. Everything is fine, it was just my opinion"
Buyer 5:"And I do apologize for coming off harsh or rude myself Dan. I know you deal with a lot of customers and eBay buyers well… you know.
I can’t wait to get the (redacted) and I promise to leave you great feedback once I get the card. I should have read the item description. That is my bad and I want to take accountability."
Buyer 6:“You are still sending me the card on Friday correct?”
Me4: “Yes”
Buyer 7: “Thanks!”
I’m sure I was “short” or “abrupt” or “rude” in “Me4” as well but I figured the less words I used the less likely I was to get in trouble again. There was actually a larger than normal delay in my reply and I did it while I was in an online class so needed to be quick with it anyways.
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I have purchased from you before, and agree that you are a GREAT ebay seller. I wouldn’t say you were rude, but perception is truth. If a buyer is off-put by you directing them to the listing for shipping details and perceives you to be rude, then that is the reality. I agree with what many have said though, it definitely can be annoying to be directed elsewhere when asking a straight forward question. I understand it is also annoying for you as a seller when you have outlined the shipping details, but the buyer holds the power of feedback. Easiest to just adjust your template to keep them happy and make them feel appreciated.
“Thank you for your inquiry! I apologize for the confusion. As stated in the listing, I ship all items on Friday. Rest assured, your item will arrive to you just as ordered! Any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! Thank you, Dan.”
This way, you don’t straight up tell them to go back to the listing for the information. You simply mention it is in the listing while also being apologetic (doesn’t matter if you are or not), reassuring, and polite. All the while, making the buyer feel like you truly value their business.
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Hold on, so the buyer is also a power seller. They should adequately know then that all shipping and the terms are within the listing…but yet rather than choose to spend the time reviewing this information they spend the same amount of time (or more) writing the seller a message and then having a go at them for (in their own perception) using the time to politely point them to the description and saying they should have used that time to relay the information that was already available. Give me a break!
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It’s not that what you wrote was rude. It was just a little impersonal and some people can take offence to that. I can understand both sides, Buyer3 went completely over the line with their message and congrats to you for keeping your cool. With Me1, Add a “Hello ” at the start and it could possibly help
a good thing to keep in the back of your mind is, to get the average iq you have to have people under if you catch my drift? but… your reply is a copy and paste? in the time it takes to do that you could have also just typed yes/no + a short something like, yes was sent today thanks, no will be sent Friday thanks. these people dumb or not are the people that keep you selling so its always worth to add a personal touch
Like people have said before, the Amazon phenomenon has truly increased the expectations of the shopping experience. Remember when Amazon’s two day delivery became the greatest thing ever? Now in Orlando, we do Same Day Delivery and Two-Hour Delivery with Amazon. Not only that, people get messages of when their order is being prepared, when is out for delivery and unfortunately this has spoiled us as consumers. We want you to know the “HEY U KNOW I JUST PAID YOU AND I’M WAITING AT HOME FOR THAT ITEM”. I know communication can be difficult, especially business or a store on eBay; I myself have messaged sellers and when they explain it to me in a nice way, usually I just reply with a “Oh crap i didn’t see that lol”. So as long as you send a good response everything should be fine!
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I only ship a couple items every so often and I find it tough to find the time to do it sometimes. Many people do not realize how time consuming it is. Just gotta smile and nod sometimes.