I ordered 3 things from 3 different sellers on Amazon Marketplace/Ebay. It just happens that these things are complementary sense that if all 3 had arrived on time great, 2 on time still fine, 1 I’d make do but none arriving caused some aggravation. It’s been 72 hours after the end of the estimated window, over a week since the start of the estimated window and I still haven’t received the items.
This is because all 3 sellers elected to use a piece of shit company called MyHermes as a courier. MyHermes is widely know to be full of crap service and delays. I think that even if the items were dispatched immediately, the fact that the seller elected to use MyHermes to send items means they bear the responsibility for the delay and deserve a negative review. Many other, more reliable couriers are available at only a slightly higher cost. Is that fair?
Something to bear in mind: some items on Amazon are “Fulfilled by Amazon” (FBA). Here’s a random example. In such a case, the seller has no control over delivery, it’s Amazon who does the packaging and chooses the delivery service.
One of my huge pet peeves about Amazon is people who down-rate a product because of something unrelated to the product!
“I ordered black, but I really wanted red - 1 star.”
“Shipment came in a box with scuff marks on it - 1 star.”
“Picture showed a beautiful woman, but all I got was the shirt - 1 star.”
If you want to down-rate a seller, fine. But, don’t rate the product on anything but the product, please.
Don’t most sellers give you options to choose the delivery you want?
I’ve done that, even at times specified “anybody other than X” and the seller honored my request.
Technically, the sale isn’t fulfilled until you receive the product. The shipper is hired by the seller, not you. In a normal sale it’s the seller’s responsibility to get the item to you, and they are supposed to deal with the shipper if anything goes wrong. Sometimes if something goes wrong the buyer will be asked to take reasonable actions like taking a photograph of a smashed box/product etc.
Now obviously shippers vary and even good shippers are bad sometimes, so first give the seller the opportunity to make things right. But if not by all means include the shipping hassles and how the seller wouldn’t make it right in your critique of the seller.
A faster/slower/overnight option, sure. But I don’t think the precise carrier (UPS vs FedEx or whatever) is even displayed most of the time, let alone being a choosable option … and I have never once anywhere seen “anybody but…” choice because believe me, I’d have noticed and remembered.
Hermes is the worst courier I have ever had to deal with. My heart sinks when I order something and then get a notification that they are delivering it.
I agree sellers should make better choices. I feel like I would only be mildly negative about this poor choice in my feedback - I don’t think it warrants all guns blazing, but it does need to be negatively reinforced.
Yup. There was a really annoying phase on eBay quite a few years ago where a lot of sellers seemed to think that their obligation ended as soon as they had made some effort to propel the item in the general direction of the buyer - often asserting that it was the buyer’s responsibility to track down lost parcels with their local post office or the local agent of whatever shitty courier the seller had picked. That never works, and fortunately, eBay has cracked right down on it since then.
Even in the most charitable pro-seller position, we can’t expect the buyer to consider a sale “complete” before he has a functioning product under his personal control.
It’s also the case that the buyer is giving money to the seller to arrange shipping, therefore this is part of the service that the buyer is buying from the seller, and it is the seller’s responsibility to ensure it is fulfilled.
I’d consider it different in a “fulfilled by Amazon” situation. I’m paying Amazon, and Amazon directs part of that money to the 3rd party seller, with the understanding that Amazon with pick and ship the stuff to me. I have a direct relationship with Amazon, and paid them directly for this fulfillment, so it is Amazon, not the 3rd party, who is responsible for the shipment.
If that’s the case, then they should just rate themselves for how great a job they did achieving accounting’s definition of “completed sale”.
However, since I’m not on their internal audit team, and am simply the person giving them money in exchange for goods & services, IDGAF what their internal controls designate as a completed sale.
A completed sale is defined by two things:
They get their money
I get my goods & services
Because these two things are literally the only reason anyone sells or buys stuff.
On the other hand, I sold something on eBay and got a message saying that the buyer claimed that he never got it. I sent eBay the tracking number, and they closed the matter. How am I supposed to track a package once it has (reportedly) been delivered? For that matter, what stops a seller from claiming, “That tracking number could be for anything! How do I know it was for my item?”
If I ship something across the country and a porch pirate gets to it before the buyer does, what am I supposed to do about it?
Yeah maybe technically isn’t the right word, but effectively. In modern mail order/e-commerce, the seller needs to get the product to the buyer or they are opening themselves up to bad reviews and chargebacks. If the buyer can make a solid case they didn’t receive the product then the seller is screwed on the chargeback. This is especially true on sites like eBay.
So yes the shipping is a very important part of the transaction. The seller pays the shipper. So when there is a shipping dispute, the seller usually needs to deal with the shipper.
That’s a grey area. If the seller shipped the product to a shipping address that’s on file with the buyer’s credit card and have tracking information that says “Left on front porch on (date/time)” or better yet “Signed for by The Don Guy”, then the seller has a good defense. But even that isn’t always a sure thing. Buyers will either through ignorance or malice try to claim they didn’t receive a package and sometimes they get away with it. I’ve had cases where delivery people left the package in a strange place, or even at the wrong house. I’ve also had cases where a husband picked up a package off the porch and the wife filed a claim about not getting it.
We give you no options but some of our third-party people do.
As for the OP ------ yes, I would hold the seller (not the product) somewhat responsible for the delivery issues. I don’t know that I would go negative but I would e-mail them and let them know your issues and maybe neutral or “clouded” in the general feedback.
(Seller and product fine but the delivery service THEY chose failed.)
We will not order from someone who uses Fed Ex for delivery. We did have a problem with Amazon the other day. The delivery agent (presumably a gig worker) claimed that he tried on Sunday, but “The business was closed”. We live in a condo and there is no business here. But Amazon had them redeliver on Monday. They were supposed to call us but didn’t, just leaving it in the outside lobby, which they could have just as well done on Sunday. I guess we were satisfied–sort of.
The seller is responsible for representing the item accurately, packaging it securely, and shipping it promptly via a reputable delivery service. Down-rating a seller because UPS/USPS/FedEx screwed up is misleading to other buyers and wrong. By all means, contact the company to complain. You can even include a line like “Despite my satisfaction with the product, I won’t order from Acme until they use a more reliable shipper than Roadrunner, Inc…” But if I see an item has two stars, I’m going to assume the item was poor, not the delivery.