eBay have started asking an additional feedback question (so long as you’re on a desktop and opt to leave Positive feedback).
The question reads “Did the item arrive on or before Friday, 17 July 2015? Estimated Delivery Date: 17 July” with radio buttons for a simple “Yes/No” answer.
There are a number of comments we’ve heard from sellers regarding this extra feedback question, not least of which is don’t buyers have enough to fill out anyway with selecting a rating, leaving a comment, selecting stars for four detailed seller ratings and now another question to read and answer.
Let’s not forget that there’s also a Detailed Seller Rating for buyers to rank you asking “How quickly did the seller dispatch the item?”. We all know that buyers often can’t tell how quickly sellers despatched an item and answer this based on how quickly the item was delivered.
The new question is interesting however, firstly it enables eBay to measure how good couriers are at keeping their promises. If sellers despatch promptly the same day or next day and then the courier takes two days to deliver that’s a problem outside the seller’s immediate control (barring changing courier).
It also gives sellers with a longer despatch time some flexibility – for instance if you have a one day handling time and 24 hour courier, perhaps you can save some money if you can ship same day on a 48 hour service. Equally if you have items which should be delivered on the third day, but you’re late despatching you can upgrade to a 24 hour service to keep to the commitment you made to the customer.
My real surprise is that if you answer the new question as “Yes”, why doesn’t it automatically award a five star detailed seller rating for the “How quickly did the seller dispatch the item?” detailed seller rating? So long as the promise was kept and the item arrived on the estimated day, who cares how quickly the seller did the picking and packing? It’s irrelevant so please eBay… don’t bother asking the despatch speed question.
33 Responses
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eBay is not entitled to ask this question unless the buyer has paid for a guranteed delivery service.
takes no consideration if the customer was not at home the first two delivery attempts, which ebay will punish the seller for, of course.
What it forgets is that most eBay customers do not provide feedback straight away, most leave it days or sometimes weeks. A customer could easily respond ‘no’ when they aren’t completely sure (or think that delivery took longer than it did). Right now it doesn’t have any detrimental effects on sellers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is used against us before long.
I do no keep a log of what time my purchases arrive as I’m sure many others don’t. This question will only lead to false responses.
The underlying premise is that buyers are fair and /or competent. Not a sound argument.
Around 25% of my parcels end up carded as out.10% end up being re-delivered a week later sometimes (when the buyer chooses a re-delivery).So 25% can say “no” because they were out.I hope if this is ever a defect then “attempted delviery/carded) will count to get the defect overturned.
Before we hang ebay out to dry over this, perhaps it could be they are going to use this to change the estimated delivery times? So if loads of people say no they may change it?
I can only wish….
It’s not always the carrier nor the unavailability of the Buyer to receive. There is still a problem with some Sellers that can ONLY be addressed by using the DSR.
Example. I recently purchased some items from a private but commercial Seller with immediate PayPal checkout. Roughly 24 hours after that I got two emails, the first the standard eBay system message from the Seller saying “Your goods are despatched” and the second from his chosen carrier, Hermes Tracked, saying “Pending”. It stayed “Pending” for nearly three days as, in detail, Hermes Tracked web-page said “Awaiting collection or dropping off at the ParcelShop”
I messaged the Seller who replied they would give Hermes a call but it was another two days before Hermes Tracked stated “Dropped off at the ParcelShop”. Then Hermes took another three days to deliver making two attempts despite us being available in our industrial unit.
Amazingly, technically, the goods arrived in time as the Seller had put a date for delivery at almost two weeks. So I had to answer “yes” in the new box . . . but I did use only one star in the DSR for “How quickly did the Seller despatch”.
No matter what system eBay want to use there are some Sellers who try to simply get around them by quoting huge delivery times. Typically they may also be the laziest in sending out your goods too. This is one reason why the DSR system is a valuable tool for the Buyer to use, despite some Sellers hating it’s presence.
I buy regularly on ebay but like sarah mentioned further up I tend to leave all my feedback and do it all in a big block of a dozen or more at one go sometimes a couple of weeks later or longer so I wouldn’t always remember whether they arrived by that date or not. Having said that I did by default tick yes to all the ones I left at the weekend except 1 item which got a no because I know it was slow delivery but I have no idea if it arrived by the date or not.
Not sure that Chris Dawson hasn’t had enough of replies to my posting as not only has the “reply” button vanished but also the last response too, I only have that as sent to my email address. Once again though the two replies have missed the point and not either fully read my responses or simply don’t quite understand the finite limits of the Feedback/DSR process.
Which means that the “new question” might actually be a heads up that eBay are considering changes to the system. With more information being provided by carriers/couriers these days for the customer to access themselves on-line this has meant that it’s much easier to confirm or at least predict a “delivery date” than when the DSR phenomena was added to the eBay feedback system in that all that could be used was a “despatch date” and then only if the Seller chose to send the Buyer a message. Whilst it still holds true that a Seller showing how quickly he has DESPATCHED your goods indicates his care of attention and you can reward them for that to by far the greater majority what actually matters is when the goods are DELIVERED. As Chris’s words in his thread say, and my own example goes on to prove, so many truly get “despatched” confused with “delivered”.
So, eBay? Get on with it and try not to take your usual six months plus? Think of the time you’ll save me in having to respond to erroneous answers on Tamebay!
Hi Roger C.
Yes you may be the only one who was involved with this purchase, however it doesnt mean you’re the only one with the facts.
one interesting fact; ebay dont let you stipulate a 2-week courier time within the UK.
a fact: the only way to display a 2-week delivery estimate on ebay (within the UK) is to have a 5-day despatch time plus 3-5 day or 5-day courier time.
somebody is lying, i still dont think its the seller.
by all means carry on your rant as if nobody here has a clue how ebay works.