Shipped????

[Bruce Wrenn]

To me the word "shipped" means my package is in the hands of the shipping company ( FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, etc.) To many Ebay sellers, it means they have created a shipping label. I've had several items marked as shipped, but tracking starts a few days later when shipping company has the item in their facility. So what does shipped actually mean? Same goes for the words In Stock." To me it means seller has item in hand, and can ship it immediately. To some sellers ( not just Ebay) it means they can get item from manufacturer, because it's in stock at the manufacturer's facility. Only after seller has item in hand, do I consider it in stock. If it's going to be drop shipped from manufacturer, mark it as drop shipped, not in stock

[mike stenson]

It's not just eBay sellers. I've had the same happen recently from vendors such as BendPak and Lie-Nielsen. It seems to be pretty much a part of the automated systems for fulfillment. That's probably true for eBay as well, since the seller is no doubt using eBay for the shipping label generation.

[Jim Becker]

There was another recent discussion about this, if I'm not mistaken.

Many firms are bundling their shipments it seems. There may or may not be financial incentives or they may be dropping in bulk rather than getting daily pickups, etc. So many permutations. "Everyone" is doing pre-printed labels, both for convenience and often to save money with discounts available through certain processing systems. And, as you point out, many are also marking things "shipped" when the label is created rather than when the packages actually leave the building. For individual shippers from EBay, ETSY, etc., there absolutely is financial incentive for sellers to buy postage through them at the conclusion of the transaction...so the label sits on the desk until the item(s) are actually in a box. Some folks are not as diligent as others.

When I create labels via the USPS site, it actually asks for the intended drop-off date to the post office as part of the transaction. It defaults to "today" and I suspect that some folks don't bother to put the real anticipated shipping date when they create the label. ETSY's system for purchasing postage works the same way. I don't sell on EBAY, but it's likely similar.

[Paul F Franklin]

The practice is annoying, especially when you know with today's tech it is pretty easy to provide detailed accurate info. I ordered a dado set from a supplier (I won't name them, but it rhymes with holbren) and got a shipment notice the next day. When after a few days the tracking no. in the shipping notice still wasn't live, I emailed the vendor. They replied that the item was being drop shipped from the manufacturer and they didn't realize the item was on backorder and wouldn't ship for over a month. Of course that didn't prevent them from charging my credit card at the time of the order. Needless to say, that's the last order that vendor will get from me.

I really try to avoid ordering from suppliers that don't have live stock status info available, but sometimes there isn't much choice.

[roger wiegand]

The game gets played at all levels-- a very large company I used to work for would fill (many) railroad cars with product and run them out onto a siding in the couple weeks before the fiscal year came to an end-- from a tax, legal, and accounting point of view they were "shipped" once they left the factory and didn't count as inventory and could somehow be included in sales even though they were on a slow train to nowhere. Presumably this is why the finance, accounting, and tax guys got paid so much more than those of us in R&D-- they delivered the numbers to hit annual bonuses.

[Kev Williams]

I don't know much about mass-shipping you guys are talking about, but 'simple' shipping of stuff people order online, don't be so quick to blame the businesses doing the shipping, blame the shipping companies. Like the post office, the instant I print a label thru Stamps.com, the recipient gets an email saying 'a package has been shipped'. This happens for EVERY shipping label printed, but the package is NEVER 'shipped' yet... The sad fact is, it's up to the recipient to run tracking...

[mike stenson]

The game gets played at all levels-- a very large company I used to work for would fill (many) railroad cars with product and run them out onto a siding in the couple weeks before the fiscal year came to an end-- from a tax, legal, and accounting point of view they were "shipped" once they left the factory and didn't count as inventory and could somehow be included in sales even though they were on a slow train to nowhere. Presumably this is why the finance, accounting, and tax guys got paid so much more than those of us in R&D-- they delivered the numbers to hit annual bonuses.

Wait, the sales guys get paid more than us engineers? Say it aint so!

[Paul F Franklin]

A company I worked for did various projects for a very large electronics company. More than once we had to ship an empty box or crate or whatever at the end of the year so they could mark it received prior to the end of the year, otherwise the funding for the project would go away and they wouldn't be able to pay our company. Seemed shady to my young self, but it the end, everyone got what the contract called for and the powers that be looked the other way.

[Mark Bolton]

You have to give online sales a try before you judge. Using services like ship station the mere fact of the matter is when its boxed and labeled that is the point at which its deemed shipped. There is no way for many vendors to trip a notification when the shipper physically picks up the package. Imagine if you box an item and carried it to a ups drop box.. when you complete that action the box is "shipped" as far as your concerned. When the carrier picks up from that box is of no issue to the shipper.

With online sales being anything from a screw to a $10k item and so many places having to offer free shipping just to be competitive and stay in business people are ordering a $0.30 item where the envelope and the stamp, forget about the labor of packaging, dwarf the total cost of the transaction.

This transaction is simply not sustainable. I just ordered a single 1/2" diameter tapped brass ball for a lamp part that cost 1.35 and the shipping was 4$. The company lost money on the sale with the mere labor and cost of their online store, labor to process and ship the order.

Be careful what you complain about because if you had to pay the true cost of what your getting your whining would be deafening.

[Brian Elfert]

Ebay sellers like to have a tracking number in the Ebay system ASAP as Ebay gives various discounts if sellers maintain certain ratings and selling volumes. Ever notice you can't even rate shipping speed if a tracking number is supplied right away on Ebay? Ebay automatically gives five stars for the shipping because a tracking number was supplied right away. There are times when I would like to give a zero rating for shipping speed because the item didn't actually get to the shipper for days or weeks.

One Ebay seller supplied a tracking number that was legitimate, but old and not for my package, just so Ebay's system would show it as shipped. He didn't ship for at least two weeks! Good thing it was a great price and I didn't need the item right away.

[Brian Elfert]

With online sales being anything from a screw to a $10k item and so many places having to offer free shipping just to be competitive and stay in business people are ordering a $0.30 item where the envelope and the stamp, forget about the labor of packaging, dwarf the total cost of the transaction.

It is not the buyer's fault if the shipper is offering to sell items for below their total cost for the transaction. A lot of online sellers don't do free shipping unless the order total meets a certain threshold. I believe even Ebay has an option for the seller to only offer free shipping once the order total from that seller reaches a certain threshold.

I always choose the cheapest price all in. It is often cheaper on Ebay to buy from a seller who charges for shipping rather than from the seller with "free" shipping.

[Doug Garson]

Be careful what you complain about because if you had to pay the true cost of what your getting your whining would be deafening.

So true, I recently ordered some wooden wheels and axle pegs online. When I received them I realized I ordered the wrong axles. I ordered the correct axles and they charged me about six bucks for shipping, I returned the first axles in the same box and the return postage cost me ten bucks. So they supplied the box plus shipped it for less than it cost me for postage.

As far as the original question, I don't care about when it "ships", only thing that matters to me is when I receive it. If I get it when they say I will all's good.

[Lee DeRaud]

Another aspect of this is that many credit card companies have policies that say an online sale may not be charged until the item is shipped, so it's in the interest of the seller to define "shipped" as loosely as possible. But (for better or worse) there's no actual law backing that up, and it's up to the buyer to complain if the policy is violated, since there's no practical way for the CC company to tell.

[Mark Bolton]

It is not the buyer's fault if the shipper is offering to sell items for below their total cost for the transaction. A lot of online sellers don't do free shipping unless the order total meets a certain threshold. I believe even Ebay has an option for the seller to only offer free shipping once the order total from that seller reaches a certain threshold.

I always choose the cheapest price all in. It is often cheaper on Ebay to buy from a seller who charges for shipping rather than from the seller with "free" shipping.

While this is ultimately true that its the seller(s) who have drunken the population on unrealistic shipping, return, and so on, policies, it is simply miserable for many small operations to have to compete with across the board free/same day whatever. As you say, they can say the heck with it an charge, and ship in a reasonable fashion, but the big boys and the drunken consumer have setup a system that is very very difficult for the small operation. Lost leaders and shipping minimums are fine until they arent.