What To Do If An eBay Buyer Requests Delayed Shipment
Buyers and sellers have been asking eBay for years for an easy way to buyers to request a delay in shipment without it causing any harm to the seller's account status.
While it's not exactly easy, an eBay community rep did confirm in last week's chat that as long as the request is made through the eBay messaging system, the seller can call customer support to have the late shipment ding removed.
When is eBay going to recognize that buyers sometimes wish to delay delivery after buying an item? How can a seller respond to buyer requests that will result in a late shipment according to eBay? Who is right - the buyer or eBay?
A late shipment ding can be appealed by Customer Support if the buyer requested you to delay shipment after they paid. Just make sure that the conversation happened in eBay messages or as a note to you when they checked out (CS will need to be able to see the message from the buyer).
It's a good start, but sellers shouldn't have to rely on an appeal process that under-trained customer support personnel may not understand or be informed they have the ability to action.
A better solution for eBay's tech led reimagination would be to create a way for the buyer to submit the request when completing the transaction and have the system automatically adjust the expected shipping date accordingly, thus avoiding any "dings" in the first place and not adding additional call volume to an already overburdened support system.
As many of the items I sell are £10 or less, this makes it not worth the bother and I'll probably have to give it away to the charity shop.
Add that to the "buyer protection" fee they've added on - and the costs are making it untenable for people trying to clear the house, or make a few bob from old bits and pieces. Not happy at all and there doesn't seem to be a way of opting out.
The sooner these sleazebags at the top can be got rid of, or some community-run buy/sell/swap sites come up - the better. We don't need ebay.