BUG - Esty shipping estimate message to customers ignoring processing time.

[SugarFables]

Etsy recently changed how shipping and processing times work. I received a notice last week saying there would be a change and that the shipping dates would be more accurate for my time zone. I was pretty happy about this change.

The opposite has happened. My processing time is 2-3 days, so when a customer purchases, I see the "Ship by Date" on their order, which looks accurate; yay!  But if I go to "Update the ship by date," I see the customer has been sent the wrong shipping estimate that does not reflect the "ship by date" provided by Etsy on the seller side of the transaction. The customer receives a notice that says I will be shipping the same day they purchased, which does not accurately reflect my processing time before I ship.

The shipping estimate is reflected accurately on my side but not on the customer's side. I predict a ton of peeved (to put it mildly) customers when their orders do not show up in the Etsy-provided estimate.

Can we have a tech team investigate and update?

Thanks!

[ArtDollsbyJD]

When is the order coming in?  Sometimes that makes a difference in when things happen.

Did you check under Settings your time frame?  I am on Eastern time frame and that has always been accurated sadly not so for the rest of the world.

Also make sure that you do not have Saturday Sunday selected as days to ship.

The date that is sent is the date that original appears in the listing.  If you ship the 3rd day rather than the 2nd day then you will see a different date.  However in my experience it all works out with the packages arriving when the buyer expects even if the date in the label creation says something different.  Also in the label creation you can see information given by USPS at that moment which may or may not happen or is resolved quicker than they expect.  

[SugarFables]

I appreciate your thoughts, and I checked time frame etc.  I checked this multiple times and reviewed all shipping profiles when I noticed it. There is definitely something going on. The orders were made late this morning, and the customers received notes that their delivery estimate is Sept 7-10. To me, this means I may have to ship today, as it's Sept 5. When I set the shipping update to tomorrow, Sept 6, they got an estimated delivery date of Sept 11 -16. The updated shipping estimate is accurate. What I am talking about is the initial automatic estimate created upon purchase that is incorrect and does not calculate processing time. It's my experience that most buyers expect their order in the first 2 days of the estimate, despite the class of postage they may have purchased.

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@ArtDollsbyJD There is an issue and it is a significant issue

This has nothing to do with Seller error.

Etsy has made changes and it certainly appears that Processing Timeframe is NOT being factored into EDD information.

But

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@SugarFables YOU ARE 100% CORRECT!!

I have spent 3 days teying to work out where the "Buy it now get it by ...." advice on individual Listings is coming from. I have multiple shipping profiles (weight and Country variables) and every one is correctly set, yet Buyers are being notified that their parcel will arrive according to the Transit Time I have set and do not include my 3-6 Day Processing Timeframe.

I just had a Buyer message me about a potential Order which I can mnot possible deliver according to the message Etsy is presenting.

This is very concerning because Cases for Non Delivery by Expected Due Date can, and will, be automatically refunded by the "Bots" when we are quite accurate with the Processing and Transif information.

Etsy has done something. I think it may be associated with the "Timezone" changes they announced last Month. These changes were supposed to "fix" Processing Timeframs issues, but I believe the changes have actually created more significant issues

[AKindredYarn]

“This is very concerning because Cases for Non Delivery by Expected Due Date can, and will, be automatically refunded by the "Bots" when we are quite accurate with the Processing and Transif information.“

100% correct!

[SugarFables]

Thank you for corroborating; I thought I was going mad!

Your explanation of the issue is spot on!

[CarpetCollectionAU]

To make matters worse. I do not think this is as simple as Etsy just not considering Processing Timeframe

A Buyer quwstioned a Shipping Time / EDD on a particular Listing

Etsy Says 

"If the processing time for an item you purchased is 3-5 days, and the transit time for the shipping method you chose is usually 2-4 days, your estimated delivery date is 5-9 days from today.”

My Listing has 3 to 6 Day Processing and 4 to 30 Day Transit Timeframe

So, my Listing should show estimated Delivery between 7 and 36 Days ie: 12 Sept – 24 October

• Shortest Processing + Shortest Transit 3 + 4 = 7 Days
• Longest Processing +Longest Transit 6 + 30 = 36 Days

But the information shown to Buyers on the Listing is “Order Today to get by 12 Sept to 18 Sept”

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@FabioMcMustacheCould you please assist with the Technical Issue which I am certain is more widespread than is currently recognized?

Every one of my Listings has incorrect Estimated Delivery Date information showing to the Buyer.

Currently, I am declining / delaying Orders because of the incorrect calculation of Processing and Transit Times resulting in far too short EDD.

The impact of this, particularly for International Sellers,  could be financially disadvantageous should a Buyer open a Case for Late Delivery when I have accurate Shipping Profiles set for every Listing. 

The most extreme example I have found in my Shop is a Listing with 3-6 Day Processing and 4-30 Day Transit displaying  expected delivery as being between 12 Sept to 18 Sept

[AKindredYarn]

I’m on the phone now with Etsy trying to explain this issue. I told the rep that, for instance, my slippers have a 5-7 day process time, but Etsy is telling customers that if they purchase overnight shipping, they could have it by the 7th. That is a big fat lie. It simply means that after the process time, l will ship it however the customer has chosen for me to ship it. It’s 100% failure on Etsy’s part. Completely setting sellers up for issues.

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@AKindredYarn I have tried Chat and Email with no success.

I first noticed this problem 3 days ago and thought it must be just my Shop/s because no one else posted about it.

We need to keep this Thread alive.

How many Late Delivery Claims will Etsy have to deal with if these estimated delivery timeframes remain so inaccurate?

I am not accepting Orders because I cannot possibly deliver Internationally in the Timeframe Etsy is saying I will. 

[AKindredYarn]

@CarpetCollectionAU I’m on hold because she’s trying to find out what Etsy has told other sellers. I told her there isn’t anything to tell sellers, they need to fix the issue. Someone had no clue what they were doing and jacked this up big time. 

[CarpetCollectionAU]

@AKindredYarn Absolutely. I believe the new "Timezone" fine-tuning has been not so well implemented.

Etsy makes plenty of coding mistakes.

But the financial impacts of this one could be disasterous as Late Delivery Claims are Automated and will result in a "no questions asked" Refund. How much time and workforce resource will be spent rectifying the Refunds issued incorrectly once every Seller impacted proves their Processing and Transit Timeframes were NOT accurately reflected in the messages sent to Buyers?

[DaysofYoreTreasures]

Marking the old fashioned way.

[thatregina · Accepted solution]

Hi folks, we appreciate your reports. If you have not already done so, could you please write in to our Support team with the specifics of what you're seeing? https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new I'll ask the team to look out for your follow ups. Thanks! 

[SugarFables]

@thatregina I submitted via the email help link with screenshots explaining the problem. I will post the exact text I wrote in the email in this thread, but I will omit the screenshots.

[SugarFables]

@thatregina I have had zero response from Etsy when I used the support link to report this bug. It has been more than four days. Please can you escalate.

[SugarFables]

@thatregina I reported it, sent to support team and had ZERO RESPONSE beside the usual auto email. THIS NEEDS ATTENTION! I keep experiencing a WRONG date change in the ship date after using the "update ship date" menu function.

[GreatStuff80]

Just WHICH links should we use after getting to this page? It's just the standard help start page with many choices. I sent in a request and got NO response weeks ago! When printing labels I'm getting a "it may arrive late" and showing buyer expects it within 4 days starting tomorrow! I can't even get it to the PO before tomorrow.  

[RosyRetro]

Still getting issues also. Have escalated second time now, items being marked as late even though the processing time is well within limits.

[CorkCountryCottage]

Same problem here. I think I am going mad. For two orders of the same products both to be delivered to the US via standard shipping one is showing delivery time October 7-17th (which is accurate based on production time + delivery time) and the other one is showing deliver by September 25-26th. Both have ship by date September 19th. There us no way that I am able to deliver the product via standard shipping by September 25-26th. As of today I had to cancel one order because of this nonsence and for two other orders I had to ship them express taking up the costs for that. Why is this happening? I know exactly how long delivery takes and I can not understand why is Etsy showing these inaccurate delivery dates. 

[SugarFables]

You could change the ship by date, to more accurately reflect when you can ship, and message the customer in the message are of the "update ship date" menu to explain the change.

[SugarFables]

I submitted to the email help link - here is what I wrote up:

Since the new timezone changes went into effect, I have noticed several issues with shipping dates when using the "updated ship date" button.

1. The most problematic is updating shipping to a particular date, in my case, earlier than the Etsy-provided estimate. The date reflected initially looks correct, but after 24 hours, it changes to a day earlier. On Monday, 9/9, I updated several orders to ship on Wednesday, 9/11, but today, they show they must ship today, 9/10. Because I noticed this last week, I have meticulously selected the correct date, but it is still happeneing.

2. The original shipping date is not accurately reflected when using the Update Ship Date menu. It is instead set to the first date in the list of potential dates. Please see the attached image.

I have provided several images to demonstrate the problem. My biggest concern is the change in ship date after 24 hours, as this could potentially jeopardize my shipping rating and cause me to lose star seller status. I use the "update ship date" to create an efficient shipping schedule on the days I print and ship, and this bug is causing a great deal of distrupt and extra time investment as I have to manually check the orignal shipping estimate and retype it in the Update Ship Date message area to the customer. On top of that, I cannot rely on the date to stay accurate and not revert to a day earlier than I set it to.

[DougsVintageStore]

Ive experienced this issue a few times over the last few months. When I go to print out the label I see the buyer expects it in 2 days. But it was purchased on a Friday night and I cant mail until Monday morning. So I switched my  shipping options to Mon-Fri and no Holidays. But I got another order with same issue the next Saturday and it said the Buyer expects it on Tuesday? So I contacted the buyer and was lucky enough that they understood and it was no problem.

[moonbeamgifts]

One open order I currently have  lists the following:

Received today, the 21st

Note: my weekends are turned off for processing

Ship by Sept 25

Buyer expects delivery by Sept 25-28

Since I have weekends turned off, my timer shouldn't even start until Monday the 23rd

I have 3-4 day processing time

The order is going from MD to OR so it's literally crossing the country

The math is not mathing correctly.