Ebay delivery issues

[ScottishStottie]

Wanting to buy something on ebay. Not really ever used it before.

Buyer listed item as courier delivery which is perfect as item is large and we dont stay nearby. Still mainland uk though.

Contacted seller to get info on courier cost to our location, seller said that item is not suitable for courier as its not boxed.

So why is he listing it as courier delivery?? Do we have any comeback to argue with him on this one? I know we are not likely ro he able to arrange our own courier as this is not protected for the seller.

What did the buyer say when you queried the delivery method, had they made a mistake on the listing?

Ask them to cancel and refund if there's now way for you to get the item.

Weve not bought it yet, got in touch with the seller to ask a question before purchasing because its an expensive item.

Just a bit annoyed that it looks like we cant get it, it was a good price for something weve been looking for for a while.

When looking at sellers page it lists the business address as liverpool but item description says shipping from london? Is that common or normal?

If it's not suitable for a courier then how does he propose to send it out exactly? I don't understand why he listed it at all.

Also having a poor experience with eBay at the moment. Ordered some basic exercise equipment (not weights so not particularly bulky or difficult to send) over 10 days ago with an estimated delivery date of 7th April. They’re still not here and now estimated delivery is showing 15th-17th April. Method of delivery Royal Mail. Quite fed up tbh as I’d wanted to start using it and obviously your money is gone on day one.

@Youngatheart00 Royal Mail deliveries are taking over a week to arrive at the moment as so many post office staff are off sick or isolating. That's not the seller's fault.

Curdsandwhey I agree. I have ordered stuff on eBay and it is taking longer to arrive. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way things are at the moment.

You can't blame Ebay for problems with Royal Mail, that's nothing to do with them. A first class letter took over a week to get to me last week but we're in lockdown so hardly a surprise. We need to adjust our delivery expectations and for everything at the moment.

Yes, and it's being compounded by lots of people ordering stuff online at the moment as they can't go out, so there's more stuff to deliver but fewer people available to deliver it.

Glad its not just me that thinks the listing is stupid. I can see why people dont like ebay.

So if it's not suitable for a courier delivery, what does he say it is suitable for?

I’d anticipated Royal Mail taking a little longer but not 2 weeks for first class. And I do think the sellers / Ebay should make that clear rather than still advertising 2 day delivery time when you part with your cash and then changing it afterwards.

It would've been Ebay who changed it, not the seller. If a seller uses a 2-day dispatch time then Ebay will automatically tell the buyer it'll arrive in 3-4 days because that's automatic. Ebay always change it to be longer during December as they know the post takes a few days extra in December. They sometimes change it during a postal strike too. So that's what they've done here - they've automatically extended all anticipated delivery dates so as to give you a realistic date.

The reason they didn't make this change a couple of weeks ago is because they didn't know yet. It's only very recently that the long delivery times have come to light, as more and more people are noticing it and asking where their parcels are.

You are being very unreasonable here.

Difficult times lots of problems with postage...a lot of couriers have pick ups at Currys .....Bargain booze etc (all of which are closed) so the courier companies charge a fortune to pick up at the suppliers house....he would have to charge extra for this or loose money.

I was expecting an extra charge for courier which is why i contacted him asking for a price. If at this point he told me it would be am extra £300 then i would have said no thanks, but i was willing to pay up to £100 for courier.

But this wasnt even given as an option, despite being listed as courier delivery under the listing.

Anyway @ScottishStottie I think I know what's going on here. People are selling stuff on Ebay without having sold anything for a while, then they sell something or get an enquiry and suddenly realise it's far more difficult to send the item out than they'd realised. As mentioned above, even courier deliveries can be difficult or expensive at the moment.

I must admit it happened to me last week. I hadn't sold anything since February, then an item sold last week. My 2 nearest post offices are now closed, so I walked to the 3rd-nearest one as it was advertised on the post office branch finder as being open, but I got there to find it was actually closed. So they next day I had to walk 20 mins to the 4th-nearest one, luckily it was open and I managed to send the parcel but there was a long queue. I've heard tales of people having to queue for an hour or more at some of the few post offices that are still open.

As a result I've taken most of my listings down. The only things I'm still selling are a few small, cheap items that fit in a letter box with a normal stamp.

@scottishstotti is you ask for dimensions and weight you could organise for a courier to collect it. Just ask if the seller will package it up.

I would imagine that he put shipping was available as this generates more interest than saying collection only. If the listing had stated collection only many people would not be interested if they could not collect it.

Companies like inter parcel are good for this sort of thing.

For those moaning about delivery times get a bloody grip.

Get the tracking info from the seller and track it online. You can then see where it is in the supply chain, so stop blaming the seller.

When we use Royal Mail, we always use tracked 24 and this is currently takes 2-5 days to arrive. Thankfully, our customers understand the reason for the delay.

Some of the replies here are the reason I closed my eBay shop on lockdown because of some buyers unreasonable expectations which are totally out of the seller's control. I have no wish for my feedback to be trashed by buyers ignorance.