Ebay sellers share concerns about ebay on-time delivery metric

Reaching the pinnacle of being among the top sellers on eBay is something that many people strive for, especially when the success of your business depends on the results you achieve. All kinds of ratings go into to determining top seller status on eBay, including the on-time deliveries of your products. February 20th, 2016 can be a crucial day for you, as that is when eBay plans to roll out its new performance standards for sellers, making many people concerned about the use of the on-Time Delivery Metric currently in place. It is important to know that late delivery of a package based on the metrics is not automatically a strike against you; you can remain a Top Rated Seller (TRS) and have four percent or less of late deliveries. Based on the new On-Time Delivery Metric, sellers have many concerns.

• No Signature on Delivery – Many times a carrier will only leave a package or note for delivery without obtaining a signature, meaning there are times where there will be no online record of delivery.

• No One Home – When a recipient is not home to sign for a package this can sometimes lead to a recording of a late delivery, even though the package arrived on-time. There is work going on to allow an on-time attempted delivery to be recorded as delivered on-time.

• Late Scans – Sellers are reporting that sometimes items sent on time are not being scanned the day they are posted, causing packages to leave later or arrive later even though they were posted on the right day of dispatch. This flaw is often in the mail system, as some mail offices do not scan any items, leaving items to be scanned when they arrive at a local post.

• Shortage of Carriers Integrated with eBay – While the Royal Mail may be integrated with eBay, as well as many of the most common carriers, there are still some that don’t, which means there will be no record of an acceptance scan or a delivery scan, leaving no way to track the package. This shortage leaves the seller at the mercy of the buyer to perform feedback promptly or not at all.

All of these issues have caused many traders to start adding an extra day to their handling and delivery times or just not putting in the tracking information at all. This is a detriment to the buyer that wants to know when their package has shipped or only wishes to buy from a seller that has a proven track record of shipping items quickly.

While eBay’s On-Time Delivery Metric does have its good points and continues to work well on most occasions, there are still issues that need to be addressed in order to get the best results for both the seller and the buyer. Until these problems are ironed out there may be continuing instances of sellers underestimating delivery times or not providing tracking information in order to avoid possible less-than-stellar feedback.