eBay add tracking feature for selected carriers
by Chris Dawson
eBay have enabled tracking numbers in Selling Manager Pro (SMP)which is great news for both buyers and sellers. Hopefully it’ll cut down on the “where’s my item” questions as buyers are able to track the item themselves.
Click to embiggen
Once you enter the tracking details for your
Click to embiggen
Overall I’m impressed with this new feature. I have a barcode scanner and I’d recommend if you’re shipping large numbers of trackable items you invest in one too. It enables you to simply scan the tracking barcode directly into SMP without having to waste time manually typing it in. Adding a tracking number also automatically marks the item as dispatched. The one feature I would like is to be able to specify a default carrier rather than having to select the drop down for each shipment as that’s what’s currently slowing the process down.
Thanks to Suz of Designer Clothing 4U who spotted the new feature. I’ll be using it as of today, but what do you think? Is it too much trouble to enter tracking information? Do you already send tracking details via another method? Or will you start adding tracking information even though you may not have in the past?
22 Responses on "eBay add tracking feature for selected carriers"
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I noticed this today, but it whilst it works fine in Explorer, when I try it with Firefox, it does not display any items on the page.
That may be because the carrier’s websites don’t support the browser?
I had a conversation with Parcelforce months ago about the site not working in FF. He said it was being looked into…
I’ve been using it in Firefox today – just click the check boxes for items you want to leave tracking for and then click tracking and the box pops up.
I spotted this a while ago but I was put off by having no way of uploading the tracking details.
Scanning them in sounds okay but matching the parcel to the userid will not be straight forward when 200 parcels are on the floor.
Anyone know a way to upload in bulk?
I use FF, I have to enter the parcel info twice on almost every parcel/shipment I enter, so there is definitely still some glitches. Also when I click through on the DHL tracking link that is generated it takes you to the DHL homepage, where you have to navigate to the tracking page, this is pointless and annoying rather than being a help. It’s a shame that a potentially useful feature is let down by not being fully operational.
even more data overload ,our staff wander around going
click click click clickty click most of the time now, enter this, enter that, upload the other click click clicty click
what part of a simple you will receive your item in 1 ,3, 10, or 21 days or less
do people not understand !
tracking numbers usually tell you where the package is not, not where it is, and you know that anyhow as the buyer has contacted you saying so
to us the admistration and hassle of entering tracking numbers for thousands of items
would be far more troublesome, than the occasional request of where is my item
Of course if you use Royal mail signed for, you could always use the same number for every package ,as that is not trackable at all, until its delivered
We use DPD for some of our courier deliveries and put the buyer’s email into their website when booking. They then email the buyer and update them with tracking information.
I’d like this to be all integrated into eBay as well, but having the courier do this is even better as a push service. (email: Your item has left the depot and is on its way to you), than the buyer needing to look at eBay / tracking info online.
ParcelForce can also do this, but I suspect in the long term having the tracking information on eBay might be preferable in the event of any claims – especially since these are now likely to be handled by eBay and not PayPal.
Parcel2go have got it sussed you download your items from ebay click ship and they do the rest they inform the buyer just about every time the parcel its scanned if you wish,
so why cant Royal mail/ebay/paypal do something similar, pay via paypal using Royal mail and the buyer gets an automatic email when Royalmail scan the barcode
Intersted to here that you use DPD. In my experience they seem to be miles ahead of all the alternatives in terms of consistent reliability (outside of Royal Mail).
Hi, Chris
Thanks for this information, would you mind telling abit more on Bar-code scaner, which one to buy and any software to use with it which is compactible with SMP.
Thanks, Roger
I use a Welsh Allen barcode scanner – manual at http://www.timeclocksoft.com/2380TechnicalManual.pdf
To be honest I need to reprogram as it has a “return” at the end of each scan which annoyingly doesn’t move to the next field (as a tab would do) but clicks the enter button! Doh! Just haven’t had time to piddle around with the programming but I’ll get it done one day (soon!!)
No software needed – just sits inline with keyboard as data entry device. Computer doesn’t know I didn’t manually type the letter/numbers in
So Chris a barcode scanner saves you the time of typing in the code but you still have to link the parcel with the user and select add tracking number etc.
Do you know if they are planning a simple upload process from a csv?
Thanks
So far no CSV as far as I can see, also no *useful* information on the page to enter the tracking number. Would be a lot more useful to have the SMP invoice number or record number.
One tip… if you print out labels using software such as Aimco packing partner you can add the record number to the address label which helps link the item with the tracking number.
I do use aimco but only to produce picking lists now. I use royal mails despatch express which is excellent although not very user friendly.
I tend to double label – slap an Aimco packing partner label on as I pack, print out Parcelforce etc labels, scan em into SMP and then slap them onto the parcel.
It’s not too bad if you’re only doing a couple of dozen parcels, but it’s not a solution for anyone shipping large numbers of items/day
I ship about 80 a day and about 150 on a monday at the moment. It is a good idea but would add a lot of time.
Not sure what’s happening with “Project Echo” in the UK. But a CSV barcode import function could be useful.
This is the barcode scanner I use.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-USB-Barcode-Reader-Cue-Cat-CueCat-UPC-Scanner_W0QQitemZ380181455494QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item588494a286
They must be getting rare since I got mine for around $5 three years ago. No software needed since it just emulates a USB keyboard. Keep in mind that it types the barcode number and then presses the ‘Enter’ key when it is done so make sure whatever you use it on can work like that.
Points of note. On Firefox, sometimes your have to submit them twice for them to appear.
Interlink are not included – would be nice to add them!