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Ship once a week gang!
I put it in my listing description and I have 5 business day handling time on all listings. I’ll usually even sneak out a second shipment most weeks so the average buyer probably sees a 2 business day turnaround and I still get messages a couple times weekly. Funny thing on the buying side I leave feedback 100% of the time but it usually takes me a week or two as I do it in batches… I get so many sellers messaging me asking for feedback multiple times in that timeframe.
I’m planning to up shipping to 3x weekly soon but I’ll probably leave my listings as 5 day handling to keep away as many cry babies as possible but you can seen the ingrained entitlement of some people saying it’s unacceptable right in this thread… lol.
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im sympathetic. sympathetic that people cant be patient and need everything NOW. Other people have different lives and im certainly not stepping out of my way for someone i dont know. If it wasnt acceptable it wouldnt be an option. As a buyer anyone should be educated as to what the terms of a sale are. It happens in many other different industries and shouldnt be any different in this one. Not to mention ebay was founded on “people emptying crap from their houses” and a lot of sellers are just average people that want to have a side endeavor. If a seller want s to be a wanna-be Amazon and make shipping everyday, go for it but dont place blame on people that dont and are actually adhering to the terms they are able to select.+1 for 100% the buyers fault
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No issue, set it up online or just call your post office. I am a regular so my mailman just knows. Now if you don’t even have time to package your orders at night then that is a different story. I realize selling is more of a part time hobby or side business for most people and not a full time job so I don’t ever message asking when items will be shipped. If you don’t have a lockbox, safe neighborhood, front desk to leave packages at then obviously this wouldn’t work for you which is also understandable.
Long story short, you can spend less time setting your packages out 2-3 times a week to be picked up rather than going to the post office 1 time a week.
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I would send a message after someone purchases an item just reminding them that you will ship the card on your selected day.
That way the buyer knows they haven’t been forgotten when they check their eBay order statuses, if either they haven’t read the description, or perhaps they have 10+ other packages on the way and had forgotten about the delivery timeframe.
I personally don’t have an issue with sellers shipping once a week, I can see it being a turn off for some though. If you can manage to make more posts in the week it might attract more buyers.
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That’s a really crappy customer experience. You seem to have a problem with actually listening to the market feedback. No one wants to wait one week …
On the contrary, I’m more than happy to wait several weeks for a seller to ship – as long as the package arrives within the buyer protection window. Why do people need to receive a Pokemon card within 3 days of ordering it? I’ve placed thousands (probably tens of thousands) of orders for cards and I’ve literally *never* messaged a seller to bug them about shipping. If the item doesn’t arrive by the day before the buyer protection window expires, I open a claim. Simple as that.
We’re not talking about essential goods here – we’re talking about collectibles with zero practical utility, most of which are being sold by hobbyists (as opposed to professional vendors). People need to be patient. If you desperately need your cards shipped within 24 hours of ordering them, message the seller beforehand and ask about it. Otherwise, just relax; you have all the buyer protection in the world – regardless of how long it takes the seller to ship, you’ll either get the card or get your money back.
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I have sympathy for the seller. I think most people are too impatient, plus the seller stating they only ship Saturday goes to show how dumb buyers are
While there’s nothing “wrong” with shipping once a week, it’s also not an ideal customer experience. While Ebay may allow this timeframe, they also reward sellers with faster shipping times.
It is also not the norm. If you break a norm for your own convenience, don’t be surprised if people inquire about it. If you’re not going to be respectful of the buyer’s time to receive the package, why should they be respectful of your time?
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@amcgl58 a long time member here always shipped once a week. He made it explicitly clear as well. No one ever gave him flack for it, as it was known he is just a collector, not a business. That was the price of buying from his eBay store. Sorry people are shitting on you because you are less popular.
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Show me the thread where they complain about the buyer messages, I’ll post the same thing there.
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@pkmnflyingmaster touché, I agree with you there. But this is not bad customer service.
Bad customer service would be failing to meet the criteria of the services they offer i.e. not shipping within the timeframe the seller has stated. If the buyer is that impatient, they should’ve gone with a seller that ships sooner
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Hilarious, people having nothing better to do than complain about something that is accepted as soon as they make the purchase. It´s not like they can´t see the description or handling time, and not opening the description because you´re in the app is 0 excuse for this behaviour.
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People are inherently lazy and they assume quickly. You’re not wrong for doing so, the downside is receiving messages of buyers and I think you just have to accept that if you don’t change anything. We can discuss about the rights of buyers and what ebay allows all day but that is not going to change the fact that many of your buyers are going to ask you where there order is.
I like the suggestions of either messaging the buyers to be patient after ordering, explaining them your shipping time, or shipping more than once a week.
Good luck either way!
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“Ideal customer experience” lol. That is 100% entitlement and nothing else. You are entitled to what you ordered in the stated terms and nothing more. Do you go to a normal pizzeria and get mad about them not having “hot and ready” pizzas like little Caesars? Well maybe you do… because that’s the “ideal customer experience” right, walk in walk out no wait.
You’re right ebay does reward those with fast turnarounds too… so customers looking for the Amazon experience can easily click that filter button to show only those with same day or next day handling and 30 day returns. Filter that way if you expect that experience. Those filtering by lowest price will find my items and
5 day handling time. Honestly given ebay rewarding the faster turnarounds you likely won’t won’t find many of my items that have search ranks pushed down by my slow turnaround unless you specifically sort by low price.
I 100% understand that people are wired to Amazon prime these days and entitlement runs rampant. I’m not surprised at all by people expecting it or asking about it, but they’re still acting entitled by doing it. How a slower turnaround becomes “not being respectful of their time” though is the crazy leap I don’t get lol. Expecting businesses or more often individuals to sell the way you want them to is pretty entitled. The option to not shop there always exists. Like international buyers complaining about GSP sellers where the other option is the item being completely unavailable to them at any price.
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Entitlement is not always unjustified. If you paid for an item, you are in fact entitled to that item and the shipping within a reasonable timeframe.
While ebay defines 1 week to be within a reasonable timeframe, that is far longer than the industry standard. I’m not talking about Amazon. I can’t think of a time outside Ebay where an online retailer took a week to ship. I personally don’t bother to keep track of when the seller ships on ebay and I get that Ebay messages are annoying but if you’re performing under the standard expectation of the industry, of course you will have to deal with people that are also annoyed.
If we’re going to compare to pizza, no the standard is not set by Little Ceasars because people understand their pizza is not made to order. Just like no one is expecting one day delivery from an Etsy store just because Amazon does it. But when you order a pizza for delivery, there’s a justified entitlement that it arrives within a certain timeframe. If it arrives cold 2hrs after you ordered, sure you eventually got exactly what you ordered. Sure you could pop it in the oven and reheat it yourself and move on with your life but also I don’t think people would find it unreasonable if you went on Yelp and put in a negative review. Even if there is a little asterisk on the site saying the delivery could take up to 3 hrs
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@pfm the proper analogy would be ordering your pizza on the phone and they tell you up front they are backed up and so delivery will be 2 hours and then you still order it and leave a negative yelp review about them being slow. Maybe call them an hour later asking where the pizza is.
Is it ideal to have delivery take two hours? No. But during graduation weekends, the superbowl, or other high demand times it can happen and all the place can do is be up front about it.
I guess agree to disagree. I know you’ve bought from me and not complained I just don’t know why you are defending those who do lol.
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The only point I’ve made is simple. If you consistently underperform relative to the customer’s reasonable expectation, then expect messages like this. There’s a reason I’ve never gotten a message like this but apparently it happens to OP 10 times a week.
On a side note, I don’t think the description is as transparent as people believe it to be. The Ebay app UI completely obscures this information. If this was a negative feedback situation or the buyer wanted to file a return about something mentioned in the description, I would generally side with a seller. But I think it’s an unreasonable expectation to think that every buyer reads the description and I blame this on Ebay. To minimize problems for yourself, you should operate assuming people don’t read the description. Either that or be prepared to repeat the information there to people who send messages, as I’m sure @gottaketchumall does
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