Orders shipped two days late due to power outage

[PawprintsPortfolio]

My orders over the 4th of July weekend were shipped two days late because of severe storms and a long power outage.  We were unable to make shipping labels or packing slips for several days.  I was able to send messages to my customers telling them of the delay with my phone, and shipped their orders as soon as power was restored.  

This affected my Star Seller status through no error of my own.  

[NanaLetha]

Glad you got your power back.

[PawprintsPortfolio]

Thank you!

[bradgoodell · Accepted solution]

If you had extended the "ship-by" date, you would have been fine.  That is why that tool is there.  It's not enough to notify your buyers.  Sorry.  

[VintageRescueSquad · Accepted solution]

Yeah, etsy won't account for things like that. All we can do is extend the processing time or manually hand-write labels and go to the post office.

Etsy will not manually fix anything having to do with the star-seller badge. We all get dinged for something once in a while.

[michellepatterns · Accepted solution]

Some things to do for the future to prevent this are make sure you have some padding in your shipping times and take the time to find the update shipping date feature so you are familiar with it and don't need to look up the instructions when you might need to conserve your phone battery charge.

So if you ship next day, set your shipping for 1-2 days so you have an extra day. If you ship in 2-days, set your shipping for 3-days, etc.  

The extra day will help if you ever need to change the shipping date because it can't be updated the day a package is scheduled to ship.  It needs to updated at least 1-day prior to the shipping date.  

[LastCentury · Accepted solution]

If you were able to message your buyers, you were also able to extend the ship by dates with some leeway and include a nice message there.

Add that info to your private notes on those late orders, as a reminder for future. 

[PawprintsPortfolio]

Thank you all for the great suggestions!

[JeannesJungle]

Thanks for addressing this issue. Power outages can be a problem for online sellers! It's also affecting my star seller badge.

[NancyQstudio]

In the past I've prepared by doing exactly what others have suggested.  When strong storms are in my area electric can go out for awhile. And in recent years fooding and high winds have prevented travel to mail packages on a few days.  I prepare by extending ship dates, notify all buyers of why this is happening while assuring them the package will be sent safely the moment the storm has passed.  I also place an automated message on my shop letting anyone contacting me know that if there is a delay in response it's due to temporary electrical outages and internet interruptions.  This has always helped.  

[ModAngie · Accepted solution]

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