Ebay shipping options confusion

I ship international parcels using FedEx International Mail Service (with tracking)
but I don't find that option in ebay when I have to select my shipping option.
All the FedEx options have shipping delivery times of like 1 to 7 days which
is not how fast it takes FedEx IMS to ship (usually between 10 to 30 days).
I know that expedited services international with UPS or DHL are like 4-7 days
but cost a lot more. FedEx IMS takes on average (depending on the country) 2-4 weeks.
It's hard to find which shipping option in ebay to use to match that timeline because ebay automatically writes in the item listing the estimated delivery time.

So what option should I use? Standard Int'l Shipping? Economy Int'l Shipping?
There doesn't seem to be any other option that allows for 10-21 days other than those ones.

It's a problem when ebay's estimated delivery time is pre-set and different from my actual estimated delivery time.

I'm shipping from the US and my ebay "from shipping" is located in the US so that should be right. International for me means anywhere outside the US.

I usually put Standard Int'l Shipping. Plus I add disclaimers on the item description about shipping time, that way if the customer gets back at me about shipping I'll point them back to the disclaimer.... Works most of the time.

Hmm....why couldn't ebay simply allow us to enter in the name or our shipping service and the estimated delivery time ourselves? Why do they have a preset estimated delivery time for us as if they would know exactly how long it's going to take to ship something. Then the customers always come back and tell us how it said shipping was going to be 8 days. I never said it would be 8 days, ebay did lol but ebay doesn't know what I'm shipping and to where. I always found that part confusing. I get the exact the cost and estimated delivery time direct from my shipper. Yet, ebay seems to know better and tells me when and how fast I'm going to ship?

oatmeal said:

Hmm....why couldn't ebay simply allow us to enter in the name or our shipping service and the estimated delivery time ourselves?

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There are basically only 3 options for international shipping. USPS, FedEx, or UPS.

oatmeal said:

Why do they have a preset estimated delivery time for us as if they would know exactly how long it's going to take to ship something. Then the customers always come back and tell us how it said shipping was going to be 8 days. I never said it would be 8 days, ebay did lol but ebay doesn't know what I'm shipping and to where.

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The estimated shipping time provided by eBay is generous for most parts. For example they say 17-23 days for first class shipping from US to UK and in my experience the usual shipping time is 7-10 days. If you ship on estimated handling time this should not be an issue. The estimated shipping time is NOT "let's give my drop shipper a few more days to ship and fool the customer into thinking it's on its way when it hasn't even shipped yet".

oatmeal said:

I always found that part confusing. I get the exact the cost and estimated delivery time direct from my shipper. Yet, ebay seems to know better and tells me when and how fast I'm going to ship?

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You realize eBay considers package as shipping on time if it starts tracking within the given handling time, right? Ship within the provided handling time and this isn't an issue.

Thanks for the replies.

As I said though, unless you ship with DHL, UPS or some service like that for international shipping that takes only 4-7 days, sometimes less, it's exact and always on-time. But shipping international via airmail (even with tracking) is never an exact science. All my shipments to within the US is always exactly on time when they estimated the shipping day (ie. if they say in 3 days, it's in 3 days. If they say in 5 days it's in 5 days). But international is like 11 to 24 days and sometimes it's 12 days and sometimes its 20 days and sometimes it's even over the estimated time.

I've shipped to all over europe and middle east and it's never only 7 day shipping unless you paid for some expedited service. Standard/Regular/whatever you call it airmail even with tracking (i use FedEx International Mail Service) takes on average 14 days but closer to 20+ days. I don't know why, I can't control that. I just want to make sure that when I list it on my ebay shipping info, that it says 11-30 days or something around there. Their Fedex economy international shipping automatically inputs shipping is in 6-7 days and that's completely misleading and not my intention.

So I guess I have to input Standard/Economy shipping??? That was my whole question because those are the only 2 options I found that has at least 14 days or so estimated delivery time (which is even short). The only other one that I can find is the shipping from China option which is like 11-35 days but I'm not shipping from China so I can't use that option.

I still don't understand why they can't allow us to input our own estimated delivery time that we get DIRECTLY FROM THE SHIPPER. Just weird that ebay doesn't allow us to input our own estimated delivery, yet they automatically input it in for us like they know who we are shipping it to

oatmeal said:

I still don't understand why they can't allow us to input our own estimated delivery time that we get DIRECTLY FROM THE SHIPPER.

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Because sellers would input fake tracking #'s all day long if they were allowed to give their own delivery info. Forcing people to upload verifiable tracking #'s is something eBay is actually doing right.

toml3030 said:

Because sellers would input fake tracking #'s all day long if they were allowed to give their own delivery info. Forcing people to upload verifiable tracking #'s is something eBay is actually doing right.

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That's a good point. I agree. But maybe not allow us to enter in our own tracking number (obviously a real/verified tracking number needs to be submitted to ebay), but what I meant was the timeline shouldn't be determined by ebay's preset estimated delivery, it should be preset by the actual tracking number/shipper's estimated delivery time.

Here's an example: I ship something via FedEx International AirMail Service and they tell me that it's going to take around 14-30 days to get to xxx location. Good. But the when I go into ebay, I enter "standard international shipping" and ebay just decides to tell me that my estimated delivery will take 7-12 days. WTF? I didn't say it would take 7-12 days. Ebay did. My actual shipping service says 14-30, so why can't I enter in 14-30? Ebay doesn't allow me to enter that. I have to choose from one of their preset shipping services and they decide how soon my shipping order will get there? That's what I find inefficient and misleading. I don't want customers to be misled.

oatmeal said:

But maybe not allow us to enter in our own tracking number (obviously a real/verified tracking number needs to be submitted to ebay), but what I meant was the timeline shouldn't be determined by ebay's preset estimated delivery, it should be preset by the actual tracking number/shipper's estimated delivery time.

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You realize that the estimated shipping time isn't determined by eBay, right?

oatmeal said:

I ship something via FedEx International AirMail Service and they tell me that it's going to take around 14-30 days to get to xxx location. Good. But the when I go into ebay, I enter "standard international shipping" and ebay just decides to tell me that my estimated delivery will take 7-12 days. WTF? I didn't say it would take 7-12 days. Ebay did.

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You realize that FedEx International ECONOMY gets pretty much any package to all the developed countries within 5 business days, right? Remember, I have an import/export business and I send hundreds of packages all over the world every year. I have never had problems with FedEx delivering packages later than 12 days pretty much anywhere in the world.

toml3030 said:

You realize that FedEx International ECONOMY gets pretty much any package to all the developed countries within 5 business days, right? Remember, I have an import/export business and I send hundreds of packages all over the world every year. I have never had problems with FedEx delivering packages later than 12 days pretty much anywhere in the world.

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I'm not sure if FedEx International ECONOMY is the same thing or different as FedEx International Mail Service. I don't dispute what you know to be true for your own experience, but in my experience, I've always shipped with FedEx IMS, because it's usually the only option available to me at the cheapest price and it NEVER takes 5 days overseas/international. It's always at least 10+ days, on average as I said, 14-21 days. I've never as a seller or a buyer received anything from overseas via regular airmail parcel in 5 days. Sorry, but you must be using some kind of expedited service that costs more and comes with more benefits. Regular airmail has never taken only 5 days shipping from America to someplace overseas in Europe or Asia. It takes 5 days with a special expedited service like UPS or DHL that costs 2-3 times more money in shipping for me. This isn't me making it up. I'm simply reporting exactly what the shipping experience has been for me. If you find out why all my buying and even sending takes on average 14-21 days to arrive, please do.

I looked it up and even something like USPS First Class Airmail which sellers charged me $10 to ship from USA to Asia takes over 5 days. I don't know how FedEx Economy can do it in 5 days. I'd be more than glad to learn the reason why if you care to explain.