Can Students Help eBay Improve Delivery Estimates?

by: Silver Ice King

@Toolguy

But Ebay does not like the USPS estimates so they want to create their own using data that they have supplied.  Nothing like stacking the deck in your favor before using untrained students to analyze their manipulated data in hopes of securing an internship with Ebay down the road.  If they only knew who and what they would be working for.  Ebay will continue to have this information evaluated until someone comes up with the answer that they are looking for and can then announce to the world that an independent study arrived at these estimates all while ignoring all the others which show longer delivery times.

by: pace306

@ Shanna :)

"eBay may be the largest buyer of postage out there. When you spend that much with a company, you have leverage."

Well maybe .. except .... they arent.

Firstly though, you are correct that eBay makes a boatload off of stealing FVF on shipping. eBay had a broken revenue model, people figured out a way to best eBay at its own game - so eBay upped he anty and decided to steal FVF on EVERYONES postage ......

BTW Amazon does it too ... ie they let others have the buy box, because they make more off the sales commissions then they would if they let a 3p seller make the sale - works out good for them as well when they have low inventory or theres no inventory in the warehouse they need it in.

On your comment to me ..... maybe volume doesnt always = leverage. Poshmark sells postage too and charges buyers 7.99$ for a package up to 5 pounds. 5 pounds from the east coast to CA (for example) would be ~$20 or more!

YET, eBay cant match those kind of numbers, so if they had all that leverage ... it should reflect in their shipping prices, no ????

Maybe (on second thought) you are right AND Im right ... they have that leverage but keep the HUGE savings for themselves and just dont pass any of it on to sellers!

You cant put anything past the criminals in San Jose .....

BTW - you know whos getting bad ... Mercari ..... their "Seller Protection" is non existant .... but I digress.

by: Mazdaman

We send shipping notifications via eBay Messaging to each and every customer.  These estimates are based on what our LOCAL POST OFFICE tells us, as we ask the clerks (one in particular) every time we deliver order to the P.O. - which is at least once per business day, including Saturday, and sometimes twice.

THEY know better than any $2/per day programmer eBay hires what is actually going on within the USPS, so typically our estimates add 1-2 days for Priority and 1-4 for First Class Parcel right now due to Covid.  But even THAT cannot predict weather, personnel shortages, etc., but we've included that in our texts to buyers.

Also, we default to Priority mail, because we see that 98% of the delays were in FIRST CLASS, not Priority, so defaulting to Priority means we're trying to provide the best experience for buyers (and lest anyone thing we make more on Priority, we actually make nothing on it while making .32 on First Class after covering costs).

And the odd thing is that very few bother to select First Class now, instead realizing for so little more $$ they can get much faster deliveries.

We started this last January 2021 after the scams of filing "INR" cases appeared, any having people domestic and international alike claiming INR EVEN AFTER ITEMS WERE DELIVERED WITH TRACKING.  Yes, we blocked some of them too.

There are so many other parts of eBay and antics of theirs that stink that I'm not really worried about shipping estimates they provide, as we ignore that anyway!

by: ebayout

Life is not perfect. eBay should stop pretending it is.
They need a disclaimer...
"If you need this tomorrow, Amazon MIGHT be a better choice."

by: ShortSeller

Nah they'll just say get in two days or your money back because magic beans technology.

by: ShortSeller

Nah they'll just say get in two days or your money back because magic beans technology.

by: Chicago48

Is Ebay getting pressure from buyers to speed up delivery?  When I order from Ebay, I look at the estimated delivery date and track the package.  I have no problem waiting a week for delivery.  I wish EB would stop looking at AMZ as competition.  Two different models.  Unless EB is willing to build warehouses and rent out trucks, it can't compete.

by: railady

DITTO to the above posters thinking the idea is ridiculous.

I'm looking at it as a way of indoctrinating more followers.  Students are forming life opinions and too many are being taken down yellow brick roads by too many "higher" institutions already.  

by: Valaset

As usual...the ebay haters are out in force.  Some of these people need to find a new hobby.

On the topic, I would say it is a good idea.  The concept is to get some "outside of the box thinking" on this topic.  Then if ebay decides to purse the concept, they will have their internal programmers work on it (or contract it out).

I would say the system needs one more component that has not been mentioned: Have the system "learn" the current environment.  Be able to feed live data into the system...so when a slow down is spotted in one region (say the USPS distribution point in Detroit Michigan), the system can then alert the buyer that their shipment may be delayed.

Anything to help keep the buyer informed in my opinion is a good thing.  Nice to see that EBAY is looking into it...

by: ValueAddedResource

Ina - you're right about the data set, sorry about that it looks like I was looking at a different blog post.  Thanks for adding the link!

by: Paul W

I set my handling time for 3 days and usually ship out same or next day.  Delivery times almost always beat eBay's estimate and buyers are happy.  I think there are issues needing fixing on eBay far more important than investigating delivery estimates.

by: Silver Ice King

@Valaset

If Ebay actually considers the input these students give that might be one thing, but unless it totally suits their purposes of shortening delivery estimates and being able to hold Sellers to it this will be nothing but a waste of the students time.  Ebay is once again showing that they have no intention of putting any more money into fixing their platform but will look at something that is free or very cheap, like awarding them an internship which is probably a non paying one at that.

Ebay has so many problems with their site and none of the glitches that always seem to favor Ebay ever get addressed or fixed.  They are just called known problems and that is the end of it.  This is nothing more than another attempt at finding a way to lower their delivery estimates and ultimately turn them into guaranteed delivery times which they already currently try to do even though Sellers have opted out of that program.  

I loved Ebay for many years and started selling on it in 1998, not so much by choice as I had a very successful email auction business going that had 1300 quality email addresses that were interested in my products and I almost always got 80-90% of book value on my cards.  But more and more of my customers were suggesting Ebay to me so I checked it out and even though my % of book value went down my sell through rate soared due to all of the exposure.  I finally had to take a break for health reasons in 2007 but came back in 2012 only to find a much different site, which for some reason no longer appreciated both buyers and sellers but only buyers.  I still used it as there really was not a good alternative site out there and despite all of the changes still did very well with my business.  

Since Ebay went public and Donohoe and his Bain background took over, Ebay has been nothing other than buyer oriented and always at the expense of the Sellers.  His successor Wenig,  was the worst possible replacement the company could have come up with and Ebay has been sliding downhill ever since.  Wenig always felt that Sellers were making way to much money on their sales and that Ebay should make more on each sale than the Seller as nobody would be in business if not for Ebays platform.  That may have been true much earlier in Ebays history but now there is a lot of competition out there and Ebay management does not understand the industry at all nor do they even understand retail.  Every move that has been made since was to try and attract more buyers as that is what they always touted to Wall Street and to this day do not understand that if the Sellers were happy and trusted Ebay to not continually allow the buyers to rip them off there would be so much more product on Ebay for sale that the buyers would be flocking to the site.  I have no problem paying Ebay a commission on a sale, but their constant changes to try and dig deeper and deeper into Sellers pockets even when there is not a sale is what has been and will continue to be their downfall.

Now that revenues are not growing from sales, Ebay programs in glitches that "accidentally" charge you more than you should have been charged and unless you personally catch the mistake you will never see the refund of those overcharges.  All that happens is the glitch becomes a known problem but is never addressed because Ebay needs the money to try and show some kind of growth.  I have removed all of my items from Ebay due to them telling me that I must use Mangled Payments for my processing and the lack of transparency with Ebay and Mangled Payments made the decision a very easy one to close both of my stores and move all of my cards elsewhere.  I will admit that I am not doing as well on the other sites yet, but with the constant loss of their product and money, more and more sellers are taking their good product elsewhere and the buyers are following.  Ebay refuses to spend any money to hire competent programmers who could fix most if not all of their problems, including their broken search engine.  Instead they continue to try and find cheap ways to fix some of their problems (of which this one is way down the line as to importance) and refuse to spend money on anything that is not going to directly generate additional revenue.  

by: Shanna

@Pace

I'm not talking about tathe FVF, I'm talking about how much eBay pays for postage vs what they charge sellers. I few years ago, there was a Congressional hearing about the losses USPS was reporting. Most of it was the mandated retirement benefits catch up that Congress implemented between 2006 and 2016. The prior Postmaster also noted the decline in letter mail from years before. But a Congressman asked about the increase in package volume, did that not make up for some of the losses in letter handling. He noted the cost to send a package was significantly more than the cost of a stamp. He then asked if USPS was losing money with their contract with Amazon. He said that he had heard rumors that Amazon paid as little as 20 cents on the dollar for their postage. Obviously with their volume 10 years ago, this would cause losses, or the USPS was way overcharging regular taxpaying customers. The PM noted that the USPS was an independent agency of the US Government, and had no reason to disclose contracts with private companies. So, while not confirming it,  he did not deny they paid so little. He just needed the added volume of mail to justify keeping a large, overpaid staff.

Once upon a time Ole Griff claimed that eBay made no money off of postage, one of his more egregious lies. Of course they made money, if for nothing else they were buying at the Commercial Plus rate, and selling to the majority of sellers (except TRS+ sellers) at the Commercial rate. But how would a company like Stamps.com make money, surely they make more than just the $16.95 monthly rate, which is waived for eBay sellers.  Of course they buy postage in bulk and pay less than the Commercial rate. The real question is how much less. If Amazon is paying less than a quarter, surely eBay is paying no more than half. So for every Priority Large Flat Rate box, eBay makes $10. You would have to sell at a high price before the FVF makes more than they do off the shipping. And of course, you can double down on that profit if we can get the buyer to return the item, maybe even have the seller sell it again!

by: Valaset

@Silver Ice King

You have proven my point.  Anytime a story appears on this website about EBAY, the haters come out in droves.  They go completely off topic (as you just did) and use it as a chance to bash the company.

I have been selling on the platform since 2005.  We do $250,000+ per year.  Do I agree with every decision they have made? No...of course not.  But I am still an avid buyer/seller.  I do not sell on any other platform (other than a little on Facebook Marketplace)

I JUST WISH that people would STAY ON TOPIC and stop using these stories as an opportunity to bash ebay.  That accomplishes nothing.

by: iheartjacksparrow

@Valaset - Which would you rather have eBay spend their time and resources on? Glitches that cost sellers money (including you, I assume, unless you have a sweetheart deal), or estimating a delivery time based upon guesses? If eBay is bashed by the posters here, it's because they deserve it. When was the last time eBay did anything to help sellers prosper?  

by: ShortSeller

if you are a regular seller then you would know ebay has played games with shortening delivery ETAs throughout COVID including ignoring all the handling times set by sellers. This is to suit one agenda.

by: pace306

"As usual...the ebay cheerleaders come out in FULL force.

Some of these people need to find a new hobby (one that doesnt include ass kissing). To these people, eBay can do no wrong, never does wrong, is benign, kind, benevolent and once and awhile "we may disagree with some polcies" ... HOGWASH.

On the topic, I would say it is a bad idea. Sure, waste time and effort trying to control or appear to control, things you have no control over.

Beyond what sellers do, theres ZERO control over what the post office does - either locally, state by state, county by county or even region by region. Estimates (guesstimates) are about all that can be done - unless you LIE to people and give them false expectations.

Then if ebay decides to purse the concept (emporers new clothes), they will have their internal "programmers" work on it (or contract it out) aka just lie (since that is eBays BEST known trait). Are these the same FAMOUS internal programmers that still cant get the shopping cart to work properly?

"I would say the system needs one more component that has not been mentioned: Have the system "learn" the current environment. Theres nothing to learn." This isnt the tv show Numb3rs" where some whizz kid comes up with a magical mathematical formula to solve what ever problem arose that day. This is real life with more variables that anyone could possibly know.

Maybe if eBay actually made an investment into a transport service OR used some of their untold BILLIONS to up packages from FCM to Priority - things would move faster for those oh so important buyers (who just cant seem to wait 1 day more for some fake item from China)

"Be able to feed live data into the system...so when a slow down is spotted in one region (say the USPS distribution point in Detroit Michigan), the system can then alert the buyer that their shipment may be delayed." OR the buyer could just go to USPS.COM and input the tracking info and find out for themselves - REVOLUTIONARY!!

"Anything to help keep the buyer informed in my opinion is a good thing. Nice to see that EBAY is looking into it... " except this REALLY isnt the issue (an issue) that eBay has - so why pretend that it is?

"I do not sell on any other platform (other than a little on Facebook Marketplace)" well - maybe you should step out into the real world AND TRY IT.

"I JUST WISH that people would STAY ON TOPIC and stop using these stories as an opportunity to bash ebay." Well, since its the same group of thugs that run the entire system - they ARE connected, just as what happens to your head effects your feet.

"We are just a venue" ... OH REALLY?

You have been a seller since 2005, I've been 1 since 1998 (and top rated as well) - so what ... "my father can beat yours up !" - so what and who cares?

Since 1998, eBay has gone out of its way to lie cheat and steal from MANY people I know - including myself of course. Want to see the lawyers bills I've had to pay out because eBay let people lie about me and my company ?

Maybe explain how being FORCED into MP is somehow GOOD for me? (its not my fault eBay and Paypal went separate ways!)

EVERY one of us here who have bad things to say about eBay - is someone whos gotten hurt by a group of Californian thugs. We are still here however because 1) theres no other choice for some people due to Amazons actions and 2) deep down we all want eBay to actually work. eBays going out of business (not that they are- they have too much stolen cash for that to happen) helps no one.

by: The End

Send Ebay to Re - education camp.

by: scotdso53

pace306 has it right.  The USPS is the wild card in this charade.  Just for s&^%$s and giggles, track a package you are due to receive sometime and follow its journey on a map.  I live in Central Pennsylvania and I've watched a package that was mailed from Erie to me go to Pittsburgh (Warrendale to be specific--which is the place packages go to disappear from the face of the earth) to Philadelphia to Harrisburg to Carlisle.  That package passed my house 3 times before it made it to my mailbox.  Who figured that route out?  How can machine learning compensate for out and out laziness, indifference and stupidity.
Combine the USPS and E-Bay and you have incompetence squared and greed.  The greed is not squared because Louis DeJoy is too effin' stupid to be greedy.

by: pace306

eBay is looking for university students to help it improve the cost estimates on the BBQ wings over in Walkers West.

This way it will be able to let the free loading eBay execs know approximately how many wings the establishment has in total, how many free wings each exec gets, how much BBQ sauce will be on each wing, what breed of chicken each wing came from and how many sellers per wing must you steal from to get said portion of wings.

This data is a crucial piece of information that if not received in time, has the potential to set unrealistic expectations in the part of impatient eBay freeloading execs, especially around Q4.

eBay put the call out as part of a competition for students interested in applying Machine Learning technology to a real-world problem.

eBay described the overall challenge as follows:

"The problem statement we invite you to consider is how to build a model that can accurately predict wing availability on eBay, given a dataset of pertinent eating information.

"The accuracy of chicken data plays a significant role in providing a hassle-free and trusty eBay exec experience.

"However, this particular area has not received enough attention, as so far we have been concentrating on the availability of free booze (that has been part of eBay culture) within the machine learning community despite its growing importance at Walkews West. We at eBay want to change that."

"The journey of a package of wings from a farmer to an eBay exec is made up of 2 parts. The first part is the handling time, which covers the time taken by the farmer to package the wings until it is handed over to the the chef at Walkers. The second part is the cooking and actual BBQ time, which is the time taken by the chef to complete his task and serve the wings."

This is eBay's 3rd Annual University Challenge in the space of Machine Learning on an e-commerce dataset - the winning students will receive a free portion of wings next year.