eBay told sellers it would protect them from shipping-carrier and weather delays. With Christmas 2 weeks away, it’s the peak of peak shipping season, and sellers face significant consequences when orders don’t arrive on time. Disappointed customers may leave negative feedback, or they may return items that arrive after their gift-giving deadlines.
In addition, sellers on marketplaces like eBay face consequences from failing to meet performance standards, such as incurring a high “late shipment rate.” According to eBay’s policy page, “A high late shipment rate on its own won’t cause your account to be evaluated as Below Standard, but a low rate is required for Top Rated status.” That means sellers could miss out on the 10% Top Rated discount on final value fees if they fail to meet shipment performance standards.
In a recent post on the eBay seller announcement board, eBay provided the following information about “Delays and protections”:
- eBay will be monitoring all weather and carrier delays. If you meet your handling-time commitments, we’ll credit you for on-time shipping even when carriers experience delays. Your performance shouldn’t suffer for issues outside of your control.
- We’ll adjust estimated delivery dates. We monitor carrier delays by ZIP code and automatically adjust estimated delivery windows so you don’t have to change handling times or worry about penalties. Keep shipping on your normal cadence; we’ll handle the adjustments.
Unfortunately, weather-related delays have already been having an impact on shipping carriers, according to an article by Sean Breslin on Weather.com. He quoted digital meteorologist Sara Tonks about the leadup to the holidays: “The December forecast leading up to Christmas, unfortunately for holiday shoppers in the eastern half of the country, comes with multiple waves of winter weather that could make errand-ing treacherous, especially this weekend, the last full weekend before the nitty-gritty lead-up to Christmas that comes with the weekend of Dec. 20.”
And Breslin said that shipping-carrier ship-by dates, such as the December 17 USPS deadline, don’t account for a massive regional backlog that could be caused by a potential storm in early or mid-December. There have been a few of those, he said, “So your packages might be joining a traffic jam already in progress.”
eBay executive Ron Jaiven (VP & GM, eBay U.S. Markets) recommended sellers watch a session from the Winter Seller Check-in for a better understanding of eBay’s shipping policies, linking to the following video on YouTube featuring eBay Senior Director of Shipping Stuart Reichenbach:
