Etsy is Delaying "Ship By" Dates

[RLittleCompany]

I currently have (and have had for a while) production set at 4-5 business days. All new orders that Etsy is processing have 1-2 business days ADDED onto them. 

So if someone ordered today the 19th, it SHOULD be scheduled to ship by next Friday the 26th. Instead they have them scheduled for the 29th/30th! 

All shipping profiles are normal and as they should be. We also do not have weekends added on so our listed work days are still Monday-Friday.

This has been happening all week and I know I'm not alone in this. I have to manually update every order at the end of the day to prevent angry or disappointed customers. I posted about this previously with other shop owners encountering the same issue, but the post no longer exists. 

Please fix the issue etsy and do not cover it up! 

Has anyone else experienced this AND fixed it? 

[SilhouetteBlue]

This has been happening in my shop all week as well! 1-2 business days being added and I haven't made any changes to my shipping profiles.

[JMOldeVintage]

@RLittleCompany  - There is this thread:

https://community.etsy.com/t5/Managing-Your-Shop/SHIPPING-DATES-ARE-WRONG-BE-AWARE/td-p/145367480

There have been others. 

TBH I don't know if adjusting the ship-by dates is necessary. One would like to think that the buyer purchased based on the dates they saw on a listing. Whether those dates are correct or not is unknown.
So unless you have buyers messaging you that they are upset about seeing dates being changed, if you're shipping within your usual processing times if nothing else the buyer might be pleased that the package dispatched "early"? 

ETA - this is your earlier thread - it's in the Shipping Forum:

https://community.etsy.com/t5/All-About-Shipping/Order-Ship-Dates-Wrong/td-p/145352597

[RLittleCompany]

Updating orders is my own personal preference to ensure all is kept on schedule because of the amount of orders and items I have to maintain.

I do receive a lot of messages asking if the date estimates are accurate or not to match up with their timelines so I've been correcting it.

Thank you for finding the other feed. It has disappeared from my profile completely so I can no longer find it without the link.

[cindylouwho2]

"I have to manually update every order at the end of the day to prevent angry or disappointed customers." - why? Just ship earlier than the date on the order and make the customers happy. 

When I look at your listings with my settings on the US, they say "Order today to get by Apr 27-May 3" which is based on your actual processing time, not the one people see after they order. This is only happening after an order is placed. 

[RLittleCompany]

Why should I be settling for an error that is clearly on Etsy's part? This has not been just effecting me, but many others as well.

[cindylouwho2]

@RLittleCompany It's affecting my orders too, but since I already let every buyer know when their order will ship, I am certainly not going to waste time updating the ship by date as well (which is a buggy tool that can go wrong, so I only use it when extending the ship by date, then I cross my fingers LOL)

I can tell you from the occasional message I get that many buyers don't even notice those dates. 

[MathewandMarieCo]

I just made a post about this. Me too. All my orders are shipping late starting from 3:30pm on the 16th.

[RLittleCompany]

So it's clearly happening to a bunch of us. Hopefully they are able to address the error soon.

[DashingDogCompany]

yes... orders from 4pm and on, on the 16th have been having 1-2 extra business days added to the production time. I reached out to etsy but was giving a generic reply and the old "we will send it off to be looked at and get back to you"

[ThePurplePuppy]

Orders I received this week have done that. I did not regard it as a problem. One does NOT have to wait until that date to ship--just ship early or as normal. that's what I did--no foul, no problem.

[RLittleCompany]

It's great to think that in theory, but when your entire production line is based on ship by dates, it can get confusing. Especially when there are a bunch on schedule, others are not, and then you get thrown rush orders in-between it all. The ones that are off can slip through the cracks which I do not want happening. 

I understand I do not have to wait until the new ship date, but they should not be off in the first place when we all set our own schedules and timelines. 

I do not think it is fair we have to settle for Etsy's errors. 

[digitaldoodlebug]

Yes, it's not a problem provided etsy is actually adjusting the ship by date, and customers see that date OR sellers keep shipping as normal.

It would be a problem if sellers use that date and ship later (maybe as buffer, maybe they don't notice) and etsy counts it against them since it's 1-2 days past their processing time. 

[CanningCrafts]

You can ship earlier than the incorrect date Etsy shows on the order page. But having to click the order to see the estimated arrival date & remembering that the Ship By date Etsy shows is wrong, will get confusing. When my orders came in today, I didn't notice the dates being off until I saw it in the forum. I may have just gone by the "wrong" ship by date.

[DigiDesignsByHolly]

It's happening to me and it's concerning from a production standpoint but I'm most concerned that a customer might decide to buy elsewhere if the expected delivery window isn't accurate due to Etsy not calculating the ship by date correctly!

[WPshoppe]

@RLittleCompany I 100% agree with you on this. When the customer is getting conflicting shipping date estimates with each step of the order process, they will no longer think that the site is a reliable venue to order from. And, it can get frustrating to keep up with when a shop has a large order volume and has to keep a strict production schedule to make sure every order gets their best customer service. 

This is a disappointing issue, one that may or may not have an underlying purpose, just wish ETSY would come out and say what that purpose is? If not, seems like an easy fix.

[PoochandTabby]

Does it have something to do with the recent April update regarding delivery dates?

• Showing buyers more accurate estimated delivery dates

Estimated delivery dates are important to the shopping experience on Etsy. In fact, Etsy shoppers are more likely to buy items that ship faster—even if it’s only by one day. To help show buyers more accurate estimates of when they should expect their items, we’re making improvements to the way we calculate estimated delivery dates.

In addition to information you already provide, such as processing times and shipping services, we’ve started using your shipping history, along with carrier information like latest transit times, to calculate estimated delivery dates. 

The stated processing times and ship-by dates for your items won’t change and we’ll take them into account when making this new calculation. Currently this update only applies to US domestic orders.

[cindylouwho2]

@PoochandTabby then the time should be added to the delivery estimate, not the processing time. That's what they did the last 2 holiday seasons when they adjusted for carrier times. 

All of us who are seeing this are never shipping late, so there is zero reason for Etsy to add days to our processing time after the order is placed. (I can see them doing that if we shipped late, under the new "shipping history" adjustments.)

[BagmakerSupply]

As @cindylouwho2 says, the announcement seems to says that only expected delivery date range will be adjusted. But does anyone foresee the possibility of a coding error in the calculation where the expected delivery date could be yesterday for an order placed today? Particularly for those shops that consistently ship well in advance of the scheduled ship by date.

[WPshoppe]

@PoochandTabby If it does, they went backwards for my shop. I always ship ahead of schedule. I keep a buffer incase I need a day to take care of admin  items or do housework.

[BootifulLabels]

Try living anywhere but the US, my dates are always out of whack because Etsy is set to US dates and times.  I set my ship by dates a couple of days longer than I usually need, as I have good days and bad days and don't want to be at the mercy of the bad ones.  Regardless, I ALWAYS ship earlier than what Etsy says I will, if they want to push my dates out even further, its not a big deal for me.  

[CraftyCornishMaids]

my last 4 sales......

They all have the same shipping profile, they are the actual same listing, 1-3 days processing

I have

.....

ordered 19th, dispatches by 25th April
ordered 20th, dispatches by 25th April
ordered 21st, dispatches by 26th April
ordered 21st, dispatches by 25th April ... this was bought 10 hours 21 minutes AFTER the above listing with the 26th later dispatch date

[3LittlePixiesShoppe]

Came here to see what was going on with this. I noticed it starting with orders placed Friday. I’m on a 3-5 business day turnaround and every order has an 1-2 days added to it. So normally my F/Sat/Sun orders ship the following Friday. Now they’re showing as shipping next Monday. Today’s orders show shipping 5/1??? I honestly hate that they touch things without any communication. Between graduation and Mother’s Day this is a busy time of year for us and now I need to keep track of this myself

[DashingDogCompany]

I reached out to etsy support over this because I had no idea this was happening and its messed with my orders. I go by the ship date but yet orders placed on the 16th and beyond are getting all mixed up and being given extra days. it was confusing to see orders from the 16th mixed in with orders from the 17th and I am worried that it could be reflecting to customers that I am taking longer which I am not. 
This feels like one of those random things etsy does without informing anyone, kinda like last week or the week before where legit messages from customers were getting filtered to the spam folder.