Uptick In eBay Orders Marked Shipped Without Tracking: Is New Cancel Policy To Blame?
eBay buyers are noticing an uptick in orders being marked as shipped with no tracking uploaded - are recent cancellation policy changes to blame?
Previously, buyers were allowed to initiate cancellation within 1 hour of commiting to buy an item. Once it is past that hour, the buyer could still send a message to the seller requesting cancellation but the option to initiate it directly through the eBay cancellation process was closed.
But as of August 28th, eBay has removed the 1 hour window, instead allowing buyers to initiate a cancellation request at any point before the order is shipped.
Liz Morton
Since the change went into effect, buyers are noticing a curious side effect - more orders are now being marked as shipped without tracking almost immediately after being placed, with confusing messaging from eBay showing the order as both "awaiting shipment" and "shipped untracked" at the same time.
I'm seeing something recently that I've never seen before and it makes no sense. In my purchase list, above items that haven not been shipped, it says, "awaiting shipment". Then below that it says "shipped untracked" which makes it sound like the items were in fact shipped, but without tracking.
I've communicated with the sellers who verify that the items haven't shipped yet, so what's up with this? I also called eBay and a rep said, "I've seen that before." but had no explanation. When I saw this for the first time I contacted a seller to ask why he had shipped without tracking when he hadn't. It's confusing.
All of my purchases since 8/22 are showing at the top above order date " Awaiting Shipment" but under that it shows "Shipped Untracked" and then the estimated delivery date. I have purchased from most of these sellers in the past and the items were sent with tracking.
Hello all & happy Labor Day! I recently purchased 2 items --shoes and an exhaust pipe and both are marked as economy shipped with no tracking. Bought many an item from eBay and never saw that before or is just old age catching up that I did not see this?
While it has always been possible for sellers to mark an order as shipped without providing tracking, the slightly different messaging from eBay and increasing reports of the practice suggest that both eBay and some sellers may have made operational changes ahead of the new cancellation policy effective date.
Another buyer, who is also a seller, was curious about the same messaging showing on a recent repeat order they placed with a seller from whom they had purchased in the past.
Since the previous purchases had not been immediately marked as shipped without tracking, the buyer wondered if this seller was trying to avoid the new cancellation policy.
I made a purchase yesterday. On my purchase history page, the order is showing the item both as awaiting shipment and shipped (untracked). I buy from this seller often and have never seen this before.
I wonder if the seller marked the item shipped to avoid the new cancelation policy. What do you think?
Note: This is just a curiosity question on my part. I feel confident I will receive this order and I do not want to imply that the seller did anything wrong.
It's certainly possible some sellers may be intentionally marking orders as shipped immediately to avoid the new policy, then uploading the tracking later once the item has actually shipped.
But it's also possible this may be the effect of 3rd party software "workarounds", not a specific action taken by the seller with the intent of closing the cancellation window immediately - especially if it is a larger multi-channel seller who may be using 3rd party fulfillment services and/or software solutions to manage listings and shipping.
It's not uncommon for ecommerce SaaS programs to be coded to delay importing new orders from marketplaces for however long the cancellation window might be to avoid scenarios where an order may already be too far in an automated fulfillment process to cancel, but a tracking number hasn't been uploaded yet.
Building in a delay like that is a sensible approach to help larger multi-channel operations manage the order flow efficiently and would have worked well with the previous policy with a 1 hour cancellation window.
However, such a solution is no longer feasible with the new policy, so providers who had previously built in a delay will need to come up with a solution that still allows those orders to be imported but also provides sellers who use their services to deal with the challenge of that possible cancellation timing gap.
Sending an initial "shipped" status without tracking to the platform almost immediately and then submitting a revision with the actual tracking once the label is printed would be one relatively simple way to solve that problem, from a programmatic perspective.
But, while it's a simple solution on the programming side, it could create additional problems on the customer service side as buyers may be confused or annoyed by the practice - especially if it seems like it is being done to "cheat" the buyer out of the ability to request a cancellation if needed or that the seller is trying to circumvent eBay policies and processes.
And that could be why eBay is now showing some orders as both "awaiting shipment" and "shipped untracked" - possibly a clumsy attempt to communicate that while an order may be marked as shipped without tracking, it really hasn't shipped yet and a tracking number may be forthcoming at a later point.
If so, it clearly isn't working, as we can see from user comments it's creating additional confusion and unnecessary friction between buyers and sellers.
Perhaps it would have been wise for eBay to provide more than 2 weeks notice of this change to allow sellers and 3rd party software partners time to properly adjust business practices and programming instead of being forced to hastily deploy workarounds that make the experience worse for all involved.
What do you think of eBay's new cancellation policy and are you seeing an increase in orders being marked as shipped without tracking almost immediately after purchase? Let us know in the comments below!
