Home › Forums › How Can eBay Improve? › What shipping-related issues should eBay improve or fix? Share below!
Tagged: shipping
- This topic has 18 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 7 months ago by
annaesthetic23.
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11/07/2019 at 6:02 pm #70286
Hey all, what types of shipping-related issues would you like to see eBay fix? Share your feedback below! 🙂 Thanks!
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11/07/2019 at 7:36 pm #70294
Fed Ex labels are a mess. Formatted in way where print on a normal label. We have to print on plain paper and tape it on.
We’d love to see USPS and Fed Ex options at the same time. You have to click back and forth. Show the best prices.
We’d love to have a scan sheet through eBay where we can ship throughout the day, and then we tell it which packages to include. Currently you can only make a scan sheet for the immediate items you just ship.
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11/07/2019 at 7:54 pm #70300
I’ve been able to print fed ex labels on my Zebra printer for a while now, so the technically did fix it.
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11/07/2019 at 8:01 pm #70303
This is a very minor issue overall, but super annoying to me and should be trivial to fix. Can they please put a link to “My Ebay” on the shipping labels pages? Everywhere you go on the site, you always have “My Ebay” available to click on to get back to your main dashboard. But not on the shipping labels pages – specifically the one where you select the shipping label you will buy, and, more importantly, the screen that comes after that, after you’ve purchased the label and may be done with shipping and want to go back to My Ebay (Seller Hub).
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11/07/2019 at 8:40 pm #70311
Fix the remaining glitches on the new label page, especially since the “back_to_classic” trick to use the old label page doesn’t work anymore. Why does the shipping page occasionally randomly show as the selected choice of shipping method something neither I nor the buyer chose? Why does my standard message to buyer sometimes not automatically generate?
I agree with Jay on seeing all options. I loved the old shipping page where I could quickly get a pop-up box showing me all available shipping options from all three carriers at a given weight and size. Finding the appropriate method took just a second. Also adding or changing other selections on the old page took just a second or two. Now if I need to check a couple different shipping methods (flat rate or non-flat rate; USPS or FedEx) it’s more clicks and more time.
It would be very helpful if a buyer while browsing and searching would see the cheapest shipping a seller offers as the default shipping price for their zip code with calculated shipping. For example, in a certain range of size and weight package, USPS Priority in custom size is cheapest for buyers on the East Coast near me. But the cheapest shipping to the West Coast – by a significant margin – is FedEx Home/Ground. If I choose FedEx Home/Ground as my default, it looks expensive and slow to a buyer on the East Coast. If I choose USPS Priority as my default, it looks ridiculously expensive to a West Coast buyer. If the item fits in a Priority Medium or Large Flat Rate box, that might be cheapest to the West Coast, and it’s expedited, but those boxes will cost more for buyers on the East Coast than Priority custom size. I do tell buyers to check all my shipping methods to pick the best for them, but that doesn’t help if they don’t open my listing because the shipping looks too expensive.
Once a buyer is in the listing, they should see all shipping options. Not sure if this is still going on but for a while a buyer would not see all shipping options that a seller offered with calculated shipping. And it wasn’t the best option for them.
Sonia’s issue is super annoying to me, too.
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11/07/2019 at 10:30 pm #70317
This might be considered as a nit-picky thing, but I really relied on the packing list from the old shipping page.
I would print out the packing list. It had the buyer information, what they bought, and I think what they paid for the item. I signed each one “Thanks, Sharyn”, cut them up into strips, used each strip to match the right item with the right label/buyer, and then put the strip in the box as a small packing list.
The new label list has the shipping cost on the label, which, most likely, is not the same price as what the buyer paid. I have to cut the strips so that the price is cut off, which sometimes cuts the title off. It really doesn’t look very professional, and I have nowhere to sign.
I print my labels in bulk, so the packing list was really important to keep me organized, and then served a double purpose.
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11/08/2019 at 1:01 am #70322
@jay, I have no problems printing my 4×6 labels on my Zebra printer, but if i remember correctly in the podcast, @ryanne mentioned that your label sizes were different. Is that correct? Can you give more details on your set up? Thanks for the other feedback.
@Sonia, I agree with your comment. The eBay global header isn’t there on the shipping labels page or on the send invoice page. Both pages should have the global header. However, I did notice in the latest labels page, there is a link in the top right corner to go back to orders. Also, after you print your label, there is navigation on the right to “Ship your next item.” That link also takes your right back to Orders as well.For sending invoices, it would be nice to 1) have them open in a pop up window in Seller Hub rather than taking me to a page that doesn’t have the global header navigation. Then, I can just close it when the invoice is sent and I’m still in the Selling Hub.
@Temudgin, I could not agree more with your comment on how we should display shipping to buyers. I default to slow economy service because it’s generally the cheapest, but then buyers that want something fast may be disappointed thinking it will take forever, even though I would likely upgrade to Priority if they are close by because it would probably be cheaper…
@Sharyn, useful feedback on the bulk label printing. I don’t do it that way, so that’s good insight to have. Thank you.Any comments on shipping email communications?
What about the purchased labels page? I would LOVE to see on the Shipping Labels page a column that shows you what the exact cost is for each label so you can see if you over or under paid for every label in one place, including FedEx. I hate that I don’t have an easy way to see when a FedEx label has cost me more than what I thought I purchased when I printed the label.
What else?
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11/08/2019 at 10:11 am #70345
@Temugin has put his finger on it. It would be totally in Ebay’s best interest to show the buyer the cheapest shipping as the default. Worth the effort to program that. Being on a coast, the location of my buyer will make a big difference. It’s impossible for me to show them all the best price with the current functionality, and my listings are more likely to be passed over by a long distance customer who otherwise would have bought it. I imagine making this change would generate more sales for Ebay right away.
I also agree with him that many buyers probably aren’t aware that Ebay doesn’t count weekend days. I didn’t know that until a year into selling.
@mallybills Thanks for asking!-
11/08/2019 at 10:43 am #70347
Every single week I have to send at least one message to a buyer explaining why their item hasn’t shipped yet due to the BUSINESS day handling time. They’re always fine with it once I explain.
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11/10/2019 at 9:15 pm #70455
mallybills,
Yes, I know about the links to get back to the orders page, and I use those quite a bit. In fact, in order to go anywhere I need to go, i have to click on that first, and then select which My eBay section I’m looking for. I’m speaking about the situation where I don’t want to go back to the orders page, but rather want to navigate to My eBay or anything in that dropdown like I can do from any other page. -
01/08/2020 at 3:55 pm #72667
@Mallybills – I hope that you monitor your old topics, but I wanted to say that the one nit-picky thing I mentioned in my 11/7/19 post has been fixed!
After I pay for shipping using the bulk shipping tool, I can print out three other things in addition to the labels themselves: USPS Scan Sheet, pick list, and billing summary. The Pick List was what I was looking for! It was just added yesterday.
Information for each purchase is printed out in rows and has things like listing title, purchase price, buyer’s address, and tracking number. I cut out each into a strip and use it to match the box with the label. Then, I throw the strip in the package before I seal it. It acts as a small packaging list.
I don’t know that you had anything to do with that, but thanks!
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11/08/2019 at 3:11 am #70323
Above all, make combined shipping work better. I get lots of combined orders on lightweight items, and I offer First Class or Priority. If a buyer orders several items that are each under a pound, eBay will mindlessly charge them for multiple First Class packages instead of combining everything into one Priority shipment. It won’t even tell them during checkout that they could save money by combining — they’d have to individually select Priority for each and every item in order to see that the combined shipping is less that way. It’s so embarrassing every time I have to explain this to a customer. Who knows how many sales I’ve outright lost.
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11/08/2019 at 7:13 am #70326
One more thing – I frequently pack items the evening before they ship or on the weekend where they won’t go out until Monday. My message to buyer with the label will tell them when the item will go out, but at least once a month I have to deal with a buyer who is flummoxed by the fact that they’ve received a notice that their item has “shipped” but it hasn’t gone anywhere yet. I wish eBay would come up with a more accurate notice, either waiting until the carrier acceptance scan to send the shipped notification, or simply say that the item is prepared for shipment or something to that effect when the label is printed, rather than it has shipped.
This would also alleviate the issue with some sellers with long handling times who manipulate buyers by printing a label days before they actually plan to ship.
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11/08/2019 at 12:29 pm #70357
I don’t ship with eBay shipping, reading all the comments validates that decision.
I use ShippingEasy, primarily so I can do shipping from all marketplaces in one place while easily picking the best shipping service, but also because of how I can streamline my shipping process.
The efficiencies are well worth the monthly fee, and the dimensional Priority Mail rate saves me more than the monthly fee. There are other advantages, but I tend to just expect that from a provider whose primary business is shipping labels.
I already enjoy many of the wish list points mentioned in this thread. I realize this isn’t for everybody, but it’s something to keep in mind to ease the pain points.
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11/08/2019 at 4:58 pm #70364
Oh, another one I forgot. When I print a label on eBay, there’s a dropdown that lets me select the date the package will ship. When it’s after midnight in my time zone, but not yet midnight in eBay’s time zone, the date printed on the label doesn’t match the date I picked. By default, it will print a label for the day that just ended.
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11/10/2019 at 10:28 pm #70457
So you all have covered many of my issues with eBay selling page, but one thing I would like would be to have actual costs of shipping be something that shows up in the excel report page (or whatever it’s called, where you download excel spreadsheet with all info). Often times buyers pay market price for shipping, and we get a discount of varying percentages depending on the package. I would like to easily be able to calculate how much I made on a sale when all is said and done. Sometimes I lose on shipping, but often I make money on shipping (not on purpose, it’s just part of the system), and as such it would be nice to keep track of it.
Right now in order to see what you paid for shipping, you have to go to each individual sale and look at the sales record for that sale. I have a small store so it’s not a huge deal for me, but as my store grows I notice that it’s more and more annoying, and something I tend to not pay attention to.
I realize it’s pennies and sometimes dollars per sale that we are talking about here, but I like to know what I’m paying and exactly what I’m making at the end of the day. Helps me test the validity of selling certain items.
Thanks
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11/11/2019 at 9:01 am #70478
Now that I’m using Pirateship, this should be #1 on the list:
Why isn’t ebay using Cubic Shipping??????Cubic shipping using polymailers would save customers a ton of money! Most anything that can ship in a poly mailer can ship cross country for $10 or less, and weight isn’t part of the equation. This is a game changer for bulky/heavy clothing.
How can a mom n pop place like pirate ship have this and ebay doesn’t.
I have no way to effectively pass this discount on to my customers. I can’t do flat rate shipping because then my east coast customers would pay more.
For now I’m just pocketing the difference, which ranges from $1-$5 on most items.
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11/12/2019 at 2:38 pm #70572
@gfd_622 Yes! It drives me nuts that the actual shipping cost is not tied to the transaction in the download report from Seller Hub. I actually download the report every few days/once a week from the orders page and append the latest sales to the bottom. I’ve also added additional columns to the end of my version of the report that allows me to put in the week (e.g., Week 45), the month, any consignment payouts, eBay and PayPal feels (just a calculation), actual label cost, COGS and Returns. This allows me to create pivot tables with charts so I can see how I do week to week, month to month and what my actual net is. Today, I have to look up each transaction on the Shipping Labels page and put in the actual amount I paid for the label. It’s a huge PITA. Also, I never actually know what I paid for FedEx labels unless I go through my monthly invoice (which I never do). That actual shipping cost should definitely be tied to the transaction.
Thanks for bringing this up. I wasn’t sure if I was the only person doing this type of reporting.
Thanks!
Malinda
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06/22/2020 at 9:04 pm #78685
I’m not a fan of eBay send and Fed Ex labels being “added to invoice” rather than deducted directly from PayPal, and no immediately accessible record of it to boot! I am keeping my own running tally every month to know about how much extra will be piled on to my invoice. Super inefficient and annoying; hopefully with the payment processing changes in July, this will be resolved!
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