Home › Forums › How Can eBay Improve? › Guaranteed Delivery Enrollment FAIL
- This topic has 16 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 5 months ago by
MyCottage.
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02/18/2018 at 3:20 pm #33293
Hey Jay, Ryanne, and the scavenger gang!
Quick gripe session/suggestion to ebay, which Jay already mentioned at length a month or two ago, and has made a comment here and there on the podcast since:
EBAY: ***PLEASE. DON’T. MAKE. MEGA. ROLL-OUT. CHANGES. DURING. THE. HOLIDAYS.
Guaranteed Delivery? Huge fail for me. I wasn’t able to enroll and had an abysmal holiday season and last 60 days. I believe it is due to the guaranteed delivery button- – which HIDES ALL MY ITEMS from buyers who search using that feature!
Granted, I am heading into my third year of selling on ebay, and not every season of every year will be killer. I know this. I also have a small store – only about 250 items listed at a time. That being said, I was down SIXTY-SEVEN percent in December and I am currently down SIXTY-NINE percent over last year at this time. I currently have MORE listings now than I did last year.
Previously, I had shrugged it off when I heard sellers complain about having slow times, complaining as if ebay has turned a store’s listings “off”. I figured they must be doing something wrong somewhere- their shipping metrics were down, or they just weren’t selling items anyone wanted. The solution is always to list more! But that’s not working for me, in this season. I’ve gone from selling an item a day to selling a couple items a week. My store has gone from grossing $1,000+/month to less than $400. This is a shocking change. And the only thing that is different? The guaranteed delivery program that I am NOT IN.
I called eBay twice in December and asked to be enrolled, and was told I was on a wait list. I called again in January. It’s now February, MY SALES ARE AS LOW AS THEY WERE MY VERY FIRST MONTH SELLING ON EBAY back in Summer 2015.
I won’t stop selling on ebay. I’ll press on, eventually be enrolled, and I expect to see a rebound in my sales.
In the meantime, there is no one IRL I can gripe to about this who will understand what’s happened. This forum is the only place I can really stomp my foot, cross my arms and pout, “This isn’t fair!” and have people “get” me.
Anyway. thanks for listening, and just “getting” that frustration.
And eBay- try to be more intentional with these changes, eh?
-Heather
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02/19/2018 at 9:43 am #33335
Agreed. I noticed a sharp drop off in my sales the minute GD was rolled out. Not only that, but about 80% of my sales since then have been within my geographical area, either in my same state or in neighboring states. I’m positive that GD has made a major impact on me, because I’m not in the program.
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02/19/2018 at 5:29 pm #33376
Huh. That’s interesting. I haven’t bothered with GD at all (I have a 3-day handling time) and I haven’t noticed any drop in sales that I feel can be attributed to not having GD. If one is selling fairly unique items, do buyers really care? I mean, even on an old pair of, say, LL Bean duck boots (of which there are a lot listed), how often is a buyer going to care how long it takes to get them when it’s a matter of +/- a few days? I think the best example is J&R’s 6-week handling time when they are away from home. They still sell a lot of stuff, with only a handful of cancellations due to length of shipping time, and that’s usually b/c it’s a REALLY long time. So I guess I’m asking, what is it about your items that you think that buyers really want to get them so quickly, so much so that they will filter out non-GD items?
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02/19/2018 at 6:15 pm #33380
I think if eBay is going to provide buyers with a very prominent filter based on shipping time, then eBay needs to provide sellers with detailed data on how to get items into that program.
We provide same day shipping and priority mail. Half our store (3000 items) do not fall in the Guaranteed Shipping Program if the buyer is in our same town. eBay does not give us any reason why this would be. There literally no way we could ship these items any faster.
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02/19/2018 at 6:26 pm #33382
no argument here. This is one of MANY things ebay should do better. My question is – do you really think it’s negatively affecting your sales to a significant degree? And if so, why?
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02/19/2018 at 6:31 pm #33383
There a big button at the top of our store listings that says “Guarantee Three Day Delivery”. Its not a choice way down on the side bar like other filters. It’s right up top. eBay is making it very important.
Do I think its affecting our sales? No way to really know. My point is simply that if this is now a new part of “the game”, then we want to make sure it’s a fair playing field.
As always, we’ll just do the best we can.
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02/19/2018 at 7:03 pm #33390
I get your point, and I agree with it, as I said before.
I’ll give up on my point now since I’m clearly not doing a good job explaining it.-
02/19/2018 at 7:06 pm #33392
I hear your points.
There’s no way for us to know if its affecting our sales.
We do have a history of selling unique items even when we have a long handling time.
Its not the end of the world.
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02/19/2018 at 7:27 pm #33393
It looks like it might, however, be a serious problem for the first two posters on the thread, and I’m wondering if there’s something about what they’re selling that makes lack of GD so bad.
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03/19/2018 at 1:52 pm #35577
Has anyone gotten off the wait list in March? I thought they said it would roll out March 1 for many more sellers. On mobile, it’s a separate toggle at the top. It’s a bit frustrating that they display it so prominently without allowing many to participate. Also noticed good visibility for promoted listings on mobile.
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03/19/2018 at 9:01 pm #35621
on our second store, we have not heard anything about the Guaranteed Shipping Program.
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03/19/2018 at 9:33 pm #35623
I’m still waiting to be opted in…been on the waiting list forever. I “qualify” but there’s no way to know when they’ll get to me. No way to know whether my non-participation is hurting me or not. Like sonia, I’m inclined to think most of the time my buyers appreciate fast shipping but aren’t necessarily seeking it out. There are always exceptions: people buying gifts, the holidays, people buying parts to repair or make something , people buying props for shows, people going on vacation and want that aloha shirt to arrive before they depart, etc….but for the most part, I don’t think it’s a big factor.
But I know my listings qualify, and it is frustrating to still be waiting. But that’s all I can do, so no point in me worrying about it.
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03/23/2018 at 5:35 pm #35996
Have been waitlisted. Got an email today that my listings will go in sometime in May. Says will lift visibility. It also includes a link to a guaranteed delivery page under the listings tab that says what you need to change/update to make listings eligible. None are listed at this time, but I guess I will need to switch to immediate pay. A bit unfortunate because I encourage my shoppers to visit my store and then use the shopping cart to buy multiple items. Now I would have to delete all of that language in my listings.
PS. My Cottage, I agree most times buyers don’t probably care about guaranteed delivery, but since the mobile filter is so prominently displayed on top of the search results I will participate.
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03/23/2018 at 6:02 pm #35997
Shoppers can still use the cart even if you have immediate pay. They pay on the cart total. I have immediate pay and get people using the cart regularly.
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03/23/2018 at 6:21 pm #36001
We’ve been in the program awhile. Can’t really tell if it mattered. Can’t tell if switching to immediate payment mattered either. Their 3-day toggle thing still does not bring up eligible items properly. With 1-day handling it is pretty easy to keep good performance.
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03/23/2018 at 6:39 pm #36003
ChristineR, Yeah, I look at GD —for me—the same way I look at free return shipping: it’s low risk, low (to maybe high reward. Low risk because all I need to do is get the package out the door within my stated handling time and get the PO scan—and my track record and my local POs track record for doing that is excellent. But low reward because, with the likely exception of the Holidays, most of my buyers probably won’t use the filter. But the reward might be fairly high when they do, because many of my competitors probably won’t use GD.
About your verbiage encouraging multiple item purchases, I implore you to look at the thread I started about using the Reply with Offer button. Watch the video I link to. The video gives the WRONG impression that this works only with auto parts. But this works with any category. I never knew the “reply with Offer” button had such enormous potential as an upselling tool. AND you can encourage buyers to contact you—through ebay messages only, that’s important—to ask about bundling additional items. And get this, you can include items not currently listed in your ebay store in the bundle. (ebay will collect an FVF on the total sales price, but forgoes the listing fee on unlisted items.)
An example: you put verbiage in your description (or even pay for a subtitle) telling buyers you have more in the pattern , contact you through ebay messages. Buyer contacts you through a dinner plate listing, asks about the dessert plates and creamer you have listed…would you lot them together? And do you by any chance have a gravy boat too? Well, it so happens you do, just haven’t listed it yet….arrive at a price with the buyer, and right there in the messages you provide an ad hoc invoice…buyer can pay via PayPal, and you ship. You do have to manually take down the other listings that sold, but it sounds pretty simple. If sellers start using this, I think ebay will work to streamline it further. Let me know what you think once you’ve watched the video.
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03/23/2018 at 6:49 pm #36007
here’s a link to my thread:
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