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How to Handle an “In Transit, Arriving Late” USPS Tracking Scan Status as an eBay Seller
If you’ve sold anything on eBay during especially busy or chaotic times — let’s say the holidays, for instance — with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), then you might have come across the frustrating and helpless situation where the tracking status you provide to a buyer via a tracking number ends up in no-man’s land.
In other words, the tracking simply doesn’t update (due to a lack of barcode scans) or the package is stuck in the “In Transit, Arriving Late” status for a prolonged period of time.
You check back a day later, and it’s the same. A day later, and the same.
Buyers can sometimes be understanding, but often they’re not (after all, eBay gave them an estimate that’s doesn’t seem to be on track to being met) and so they choose to file an “Item Not Received”, or INR, case.
You, as a seller, then basically have just three days to “resolve” the issue — which means either sending them a message and hoping they don’t bring eBay in to arbitrate (and, notoriously, eBay tends to side on the buyer’s side) or give in and refund them partially or even fully.
Now, I’m all for customer service, and with eBay, you should be too. However, it can feel a bit unfair to all parties when the slowdown is out of…
