eBay measures how well sellers get their packages into the hands of customers. But in the fall, eBay stopped considering a package "delivered" when the USPS handed it over to an agent, leaving sellers with what might be called a "stuck" delivery status instead.
A
thread on the eBay boards, "eBay not recognizing "Delivered to Agent for Final Delivery" as delivered," garnered over 100 comments after a seller reported the issue right before Christmas.
Wastingtime101, who is active on the eBay boards, explained the problem as follows:
"In many places such as apartment buildings with concierge/doorman, townhouse complexes with a management office, freight forwarders, buildings with mailrooms, etc USPS will deliver to the building's mail "agent" and this has always registered a "delivered" status on the eBay orders page.
"That is it used to until about 2-1/2 months ago. Now those orders are stuck as "shipped" as the system is not recognizing that packages were delivered. When you click the tracking pop-up it's stuck at "it's on its way to the buyer" and "was scheduled" for delivery on X date.
"I've reported the issue multiple times, but I'm wondering if others here are seeing the same problem?"
Sellers posted examples of tracking numbers that showed how USPS Tracking displayed such deliveries. In a screenshot uploaded by a seller, the USPS tracking showed:
"Latest Update: your item has been delivered to an agent for final delivery in PALMDALE, CA 03550 on January 18, 2023 at 10:36 am."
Sellers said they believed they had fulfilled their duty and could do no more to prove they shipped the item to the customer.
On January 20th, an eBay moderator shared in a post on thread the following update from the Policy team:
"eBay policy has been updated to consider "Delivered to Agent for Final Delivery," as delivered."
One seller expressed gratitude but sought clarification, writing in part, "when they say "the policy" do they just mean how CSR's will handle INR cases if they come up, or are they resolving the eBay tracking software to notate 'Delivered' despite the USPS language about delivering to an agent for final delivery?"
The seller went on to explain in a
subsequent post in the thread how an international buyer appeared to have abused the agent-tracking status in an Item Not Delivered claim with eBay.
The incident is an example of how things can go wrong even when sellers do their best to ship using tracking.
The thread itself also demonstrates how sometimes sellers can effect change by reporting an issue on the boards, encouraging others to weigh in, and being persistent. Feel free to share other examples.
eBay to Unstick Delivery Status when Delivered to an Agent
by: Marie