Ebay: Yes, Speedy Shipping Really Is a Thing With Us (cnet.com) 63
Fast shipping is -- finally -- no longer all about Amazon. From a report on CNET: On Monday, eBay announced it will offer a new guaranteed-delivery program in the US starting this summer, pledging deliveries in three or fewer days for more than 20 million products. For the first time, Ebay's shoppers will be able to filter searches to see only items guaranteed to arrive in one, two or three days. "We know we need to continue to up our game on shipping," Hal Lawton, eBay's senior vice president of North America, said in an interview. [...] It's worth noting, though, that this Ebay announcement doesn't actually speed up deliveries on the site. Many professional sellers on Ebay have already been providing these faster deliveries, in some cases for years. Ebay, which says 63 percent of packages sold through its site arrive in three days or less, has been offering customers more conservative delivery estimates because it doesn't ship directly.
Hopefully better than amazon. (Score:3)
Amazon's same day and even 2 day shipping is rarely on time. Heck even the amazon NOW service here at work is rarely within the 2 hours promised.
Re:Hopefully better than amazon. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon's same day and even 2 day shipping is rarely on time. Heck even the amazon NOW service here at work is rarely within the 2 hours promised.
This is going to be a problem given the number of eBay sellers with no inventory using Amazon as a drop shipping service.
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No way. My eBay orders have been shipping within hours while Amazon has been taking 2 or 3 days. Ebay seller's prices are usually lower, too.
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Complain iirc there's a free month of prime for every time they miss a guaranteed delivery.
With that said most of the time mine are on time or early but I have had things arrive late and once never arrive at all.
On the 2 hour thing is much available or is that just a few select things? It's not available here.
Prime shipping very reliable (Score:3)
Amazon's same day and even 2 day shipping is rarely on time.
I place about 150 orders per year through Amazon Prime and the number that have arrived late I can count on my fingers. Maybe it's different where you live but Amazon is extremely reliable about shipping times to where I live in Michigan. The only times I've had trouble have been when UPS or USPS have dropped the ball.
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I don't have Prime and Amazon have become terrible about shipping quickly. I think they are trying to punish me into buying prime. Instead I have started purchasing from eBay.
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Amazon has a huge warehouse around Edison and at least one more in Pennsylvania with UPS and Fedex stopping by nightly for pickups
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ebay fast and free is always faster for me than amazon prime 2 days. yet on ebay its not 99USD/year... and the products are usually cheaper on ebay.
The things i miss on ebay are ease of search and decent quality user reviews, and last but definitely not least, good customer support.
If a vendor messes stuff up on ebay changes are that you're going to have to call your bank. Amazon is the sharp opposite.
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ebay fast and free is always faster for me than amazon prime 2 days. yet on ebay its not 99USD/year... and the products are usually cheaper on ebay.
The things i miss on ebay are ease of search and decent quality user reviews, and last but definitely not least, good customer support.
If a vendor messes stuff up on ebay changes are that you're going to have to call your bank. Amazon is the sharp opposite.
eBay's "Fast and Free" is not any sort of program that can be compared to Amazon Prime, and is really something eBay has no control over. That is just a little icon that gets put on listings that meet the requirements for Fast and Free. And if I remember right, that requirement is one day or same day handling and "free" shipping (which is simply the sellers rolling worst case scenario domestic shipping into their asking price, and calling it "free" shipping.) It is still up to the seller to get the item
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Why is this news? (Score:3)
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You're a bit full of it. I was easily able to get Top Seller by getting rid of junk from local auctions. I was surprised at how easy it was to get it.
TRS requirements for eBay sellers...
Top Rated Seller requirements
To become a Top Rated Seller your eBay account must have been active for at least 90 days. You must also meet sales and tracking requirements and performance standards.
Sales requirements:
You have at least 100 transactions with US buyers over the most recent 12-month period.
You have at least $1,000 in sales with US buyers over the most recent 12-month period.
Tracking requirements:
You've
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Meanwhile, as postage rates and eBay/PayPal fees keep going up, it will cease to be profitable to sell anything on eBay
I tried selling stuff in the early 2000's and the fees were too high to make a profit, I've looked at it again recently and they seem much more reasonable than they were then. I guess it's a matter of perspective.
Why is this news?
Slashdot changed their motto to "news for prosumers, stuff that never mattered" a long time ago.
eBay's final value fees for non-store accounts have been a flat 10% throughout most of this century, and store FvFs range from 4% to 9% depending on the category. Of course, they also charge the same rate on the shipping that you charge the buyer as well. At least if an otem goes outside the U.S. though, they only charge based on the lowest domestic rate shown in your listing. So if you were to ship a 10 pound parcel off to Australia, and your listing showed domestic "free" shipping, then you would not b
I'd really like to see competition for Amazon... (Score:3)
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It's not really the vendor's fault that they require paypal it's just that they aren't allowed to accept many other payment methods as per ebay policy.
Imho support for things like amazon payments and google wallet is very long overdue but especially since they "split" from paypal but yet paypal is still deeply integrated and used for verification and such.
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It's not really the vendor's fault that they require paypal
I didn't say it was. Indeed, the rest of your message confirms what I see about EBay's apparent emphasis of PayPal.
I'd like Amazon to quit becoming Ebay (Score:2, Offtopic)
I'd like Amazon to quit being Ebay. Filter off the crap, stop merging SKUs with third party sellers who often sell old revs, fake items or other problematic inventory. Be more aggressive about knock-off products.
If I want to buy a shitty Chinese clone that's probably been already opened, I'll go to Ebay, thanks, or better yet, skip Ebay and go to Craigslist.
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The thing I like most about ebay is that there are still a large number of sellers that take pictures of their actual items for the listings while amazon is almost entirely stock photos.
eBay problems - buyers and sellers (Score:3)
... but I have a difficult time trusting many of the vendors on EBay.
If you pay PayPal and follow eBay's rules and it's largely a non-issue. (yes I know how people feel about PayPal) It's not always convenient but you can almost always get your money back if the deal goes south. I buy stuff like surplus tooling with some regularity on eBay and I rarely have a problem. By and large if you look at things with a skeptical eye and read all the fine print you should have too much trouble.
I used to make my living selling stuff on eBay and I assure you that there are WAY more
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If you pay PayPal and follow eBay's rules and it's largely a non-issue.
I disagree. I sold something. The recipient said there was nothing in the box when he received it. Payment is taken back and I no longer have the item.
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How is that handled?
Problem buyers != problem sellers (Score:2)
I disagree. I sold something. The recipient said there was nothing in the box when he received it. Payment is taken back and I no longer have the item.
That happens sometimes but I'm talking about how buyers protect themselves, not sellers. You are basically backing up what I'm saying that there are more buyers who are crooks than sellers.
Best advice I can give for a seller is to document, document, document. Take pictures of the product going into the box and have witnesses. Make sure you have evidence of the weight of the package and the item. Only ship via traceable services. Use an escrow service if you are really worried or if the item is espec
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The problem with the 'buyer is always 200% correct' mentality at ebay can screw small sellers. Or if you only sell something once or twice a year. You're better off using craigslist.
I sold a generator head to a guy on ebay, packed the item perfectly, it got delivered without damage and the guy couldn't figure out how to get it working so I got stuck with having paid the shipping out to the other coast AND the seller fee. I had to issue a chargeback to ebay and fight for two weeks to get the seller fee of
Selling on eBay (Score:2)
The problem with the 'buyer is always 200% correct' mentality at ebay can screw small sellers. Or if you only sell something once or twice a year. You're better off using craigslist.
Speaking from personal experience I would agree. Selling on eBay can be a risky pain in the butt. Never sell anything you can't afford to lose. You might have to take it back even if you do nothing wrong and the item is perfect so take that into account too.
I was a pretty big seller at one point and I can assure you that eBay isn't friendly with big sellers either. But being a small seller is definitely risky. One or two bad bits of feedback can really screw you hard.
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Better than Canada (Score:2)
Where we buy everything from China and it takes 3-4 months to arrive...
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does anybody else... (Score:1)
Chinese shipping depends on how much you pay (Score:4, Informative)
I've been doing eBay shopping since 1998.
And if there is ONE thing I've learned, is that the lower you bid, the slower it ships. Doesn't matter if the two promises the same shipping times.
Also, the cheaper you go - the lower quality you'll get at the exact same product range. Because a lot of them will ship the lowest bidders the shittiest quality of the batch (kind of logical, don't ya think?).
And a above 90% seller success rate sounds nice, right? Wrong! You'd be amazed how many problems you'll have with sellers under 96% even at 97% good feedback. The trick is to look at their negative feedback, or / and their neutral feedback and see what happens for each individual product. The product is important here, because the same seller could earn a 100% feedback reputation on selling socks, but sell shoddy factory rejected production Arduinos with a feedback of 20% and less - and still earn a pretty penny. Many of the Chinese sellers just sells these by the thousands because it sells - they have NO clue what they're actually selling besides fake shoe brands etc.
The thing you need to watch out for - is the sellers that will tell you "please wait 40+ days because of your customs" etc... You know as well as I do that your customs don't give a hoot about your 2 dollar arduino, so if it takes 40+ days, and the seller says, please be patient, it's because the nickel-and-dime croock only wants to hoist good feedback while your complaint expires. Never accept this. Complain immediately. Down the bad sellers now, do not delay!
Shipping cannot be faster than parcel shippers (Score:2)
Yet Global Shipping Program still a rip off (Score:2)
This is all great for American customers, but everywhere else they've been foisting the Global Shipping Program scam on us. Rather than let the seller use something economical like USPS to ship to, say, Canada, they pressure sellers to use the Global Shipping Program which gouges the buyers, sometimes by doubling the shipping costs. But, they say, we handle all the import fees and duties. Except that for many products that we typically buy in Canada, there are no duties. USPS packages come right to my doo
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Thanks for explaining that. Sold on ebay for ~20 years but never heard of GSP. Sounds ghastly.
I used to do international all the time in my previous job and we always used Fedex or LTL freight, never the mail. All the customs stuff was integrated and easy to do as long as it wasn't being mailed. Fedex made it a snap. Never had one issue with paperwork or customs or duties.
Our Canada office always used UPS to ship to US offices. Everybody was careful to avoid US Mail or Canada Post.
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For shipping to Canada, I've always found UPS to be a rip-off as well. They gouge on customs charges also. Half the time they'll charge the recipient even more money upon delivery, after the fee already paid by the shipper. I once one a free jacket in a drawing, and the company shipped it to me from their head office in ND by UPS, and UPS charged me $45 to receive the thing. And as near as I could tell, that was just to pay for the customs form UPS had to fill out and file with the Canadian government (no
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The cost is dictated by size and weight. I've shipped many five-six pound items that were bulky and cost $50 to ship. No matter if using USPS, Fedex, UPS, whatever, the cost was expensive. Thankfully I take this cost into account for my auctions. And I eat the cost of the box I have to supply (these are anywhere from $2 to $8 each!) and packing materials (bubble wrap is fucking expensive).
So I not only don't make money on shipping, I lose money. And then some doofus demands a refund because the USPS
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People think that the cost of shipping something is in some way based on the cost of the item, rather than the weight and the distance. They also assume that the shipping cost per pound will be less for small packages than for big ones. Some people say, "Why can't you ship around the world for free?" People are funny.
An even bigger problem with shipping cost complaints is due to the way the USPS, eBay, and the Chinese government worked out the e-packet deal, so that shipping from China to the U.S. can be done for far far less than shipping a small package across town domestically. They think that since the Chinese can ship for "free" (not realizing that they roll their government subsidized shipping cost into their price), then domestic sellers must be ripping them off.