eBay Shipping Labels Not Printing For December 31
Sellers are reporting problems with printing eBay shipping labels for December 31st and are perplexed because eBay is allowing them to choose January 1st as a shipping date, even though post offices will be closed.
As I went to pay and print labels using bulk shipping I noticed shipping on Friday, Dec 31 is NOT available but Saturday, Jan. 1 is available. WTH? Does eBay realize Jan. 1 is a holiday??? My 50+ packages all say they must be shipped by 12/31. I'm just going to print the labels and the SCAN sheet -- my carrier said it would make no difference and USPS would initiate shipping on 12/31 regardless of the label date of 1/1/2022. Why does eBay do this to sellers?
It doesn't make a difference. You can ship packages on 12/31 with a label dated 1/1.
As to the "why" of it:
eBay did not require shipments on 12/24 this year due to irregular PO schedules, despite it being a regular business day for many.
It was handled last minute and some theorized that eBay put 12/24 in the system as a holiday as the fastest and easiest way to make sure seller protections were applied and sellers didn't get late shipping marks.
Others said that eBay's botched up holidays in the past with shipping labels so that might have happened again.
We've heard nothing from eBay about giving sellers protections or an optional day off from shipping 12/31. So either eBay botched the dates in the system again, or there are 12/31 protections we weren't notified about (or both). Maybe velvet@ebay has an answer she can share.
Some sellers are wondering if it is a technical issue or if eBay is providing protections like they did for the Christmas holiday. Protections have not been announced, and as this seller points out - eBay is still showing the 31st as an expected shipping day on orders.
I'm a bit puzzled as to why 12/31 is not showing up as a ship date. It IS showing up as a "Ship by" date on our orders. This seems to indicate that the Holiday shipping issue might actually be a separate issue from the Holiday protections, since eBay's system is still recognizing it as a ship date on new orders, and I don't believe any protections are offered.
So far no official answers from eBay, but I'll update as more information becomes available.
