eBay Puts Handling Time Back On Listings

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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Handling times have been a sore spot for sellers since eBay removed reference to the handling time the seller actually selected from the listing in favor of showing "estimated delivery dates" based on the seller's historical shipping times and carrier transit data instead.

For several years now, eBay has only shown the handling time if it is an "extended handling time" as shown from this community thread from 2019.

Re: I Don’t See My HANDLING TIME on My Listings
eBay’s official policy is to show a handling time only for longer handling times (either 4 or 5 days or more). For shorter handling times, eBay wants buyers to rely on the estimated delivery date. If you want to know what handling time is being used, go to the listing and click on revise; or on…

eBay's official policy is to show a handling time only for longer handling times (either 4 or 5 days or more). For shorter handling times, eBay wants buyers to rely on the estimated delivery date.

I always liked that stated on my listings too, but Ebay removed it without notice a very long time ago.

Yes I suspect ebay did this deliberately without notice to prepare themselves to implement this dumb functionality here in message 71 by Trinton

They don't want to show the seller's handling time setting on the listing so they can play around with it themselves and basically "veto" your handling time if they want to.

The "dumb functionality" referenced by the seller was eBay's policy of ignoring the actual seller selected handling time and instead using the seller's historical shipping time plus carrier transit time ranges to calculate the estimated delivery date.


While there has been no official announcement from eBay that's I've seen, it does appear they may have finally taken all those years of feedback into consideration and reversed course on this - many users are now reporting handling time is consistently being displayed on listings even when it is less than 4 or 5 days.

Handling time is back. Anyone else seeing this?
Just noticed on my recent listings that “Handling time” is again being listed in the “Shipping and handling” tab on active items. Any one else seeing this?

Just noticed on my recent listings that "Handling time" is again being listed in the "Shipping and handling" tab on active items. Any one else seeing this?

HALLELUJAH! ‘Handling Time’ is BACK!
Admins, apologies and delete if there’s already a post about this. I just went to the listing of an item I recently bought but has no tracking yet, hoping against hope that maybe ‘handling time’ has been restored to view and know if the seller is still in their expected timeframe to ship. And LO…

I just went to the listing of an item I recently bought but has no tracking yet, hoping against hope that maybe 'handling time' has been restored to view and know if the seller is still in their expected timeframe to ship. And LO AND BEHOLD IT IS BACK!

It's not on the listing's main page; you have to click the 'See Details' next to the Shipping line, and look about halfway down the ensuing page.


I've tested multiple random listings in multiple browsers and can confirm, I'm seeing seller selected handling times displayed in the shipping and payments tab on all listings at this time.

Are you seeing handling time on listings again? As a buyer or seller do you prefer having handling time specifically states on the listing? Let us know in the comments below!

eBayShippingTools

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderConcerned13 hours ago
It is Slowwwwwww and is more expensive to the buyer. In the past items I have ordered will sit at the hub for around 2 weeks. I avoid ebay unless I cannot get it elsewhere.
Avatar Placeholdermarks304717 hours ago
Hi, I have a friend who had an interesting experience recently that fell under this issue. They sold an item, packed and dispatched to the UK Ebay hub, this was midway through the period as the pause occurred. They then received a message from the buyer that they had checked tracking and discovered that the item had disappeared on ebay, no advice. It then turned out that the tracking had been fudged and the package was with them but not forwarded on to the USA. A few hours of to and fro to get the answer that it was due to the tariff dilemma. NO fault of the buyer(who had paid) or the seller ((who had been paid) and a strange response that the item could not be delivered. The buyer would be refunded in full, the seller would keep payment and the item would not be returned. Strange, Ebay must be hurting paying our both sides of the deal+
Avatar PlaceholdercwiYesterday
  1. Start building out the brand and promoting the heck out of Canadian sellers to our domestic market. Work with Federal/Provincial level governments in the push to build a strong presence here in Canada.

  2. Add other calculated shipping options than Canada Post UPS/FedEx for domestic shipping - partner with couriers nationwide, leverage agreements and software integrations with courier reseller platforms such as Stallion Express. Build out a crowd sourced network using national/regional retail locations as drop points for rural regions, leveraging transport networks to move packages to courier pickup points, akin to the UK courier model but adapted to the Canadian realities.

  3. Create a centralized international shipping clearing house to aide micro businesses with affordable shipping rates and customs clearance to avoid pitfalls and complexities (akin to US eIS).

  4. Bring features forward to the platform from other localizations, such as prepaid best offer acceptance, etc.