eBay’s New Guaranteed Delivery Program

In an effort to provide sellers with tools that can offer an exceptional shopping experience, eBay has announced a new Guaranteed Delivery program which will enable sellers to provide guaranteed three-day delivery option to their customers in the U.S. on more than 20 million items. Sellers who gets qualified will be given tools through which they will be able to guarantee delivery on a specific date. On the other hand, buyers will love that they will receive their orders when they wanted it to.

Need of the Hour?

This three-day guaranteed delivery program is supposedly a step taken by eBay in response to Amazon’s Prime and Walmart’s free two-day shipping program. It is very well understood that the delivery of the products has a great impact on the sales. Online buyers want their shipments to arrive as quickly as possible. With a guaranteed delivery date buyers know exactly when their package will arrive and tend to take buying decision immediately.

In a press release dated March 20, 2017; eBay CEO Devin Wenig wrote “We know over 40 percent of online shoppers don’t complete their purchases due to longer than expected shipping times”; eBay has recognized the fact that they need to overcome this shortcoming and ensure customer satisfaction by ensuring faster delivery of products. The Guaranteed Delivery is a step towards improving Cart Abandonment Rate.

Why Sellers Should Offer Three-Day Guaranteed Delivery?

• The sellers offering guaranteed 3 days delivery gain buyers’ visibility when they search based on the delivery date filter. So, increased exposure of products would give better results in terms of sales and profits.
• Sellers get better control over shipping costs to be levied for a particular region. Moreover, they can also customize handling time cut-offs by day of the week.
• Besides free shipping, the other thing which can make customers happy is the guaranteed delivery.

How Will Customers Benefit?

• Buyers get the facility of filtering the products based on the delivery date. It would be easier for them to select the product if they want the delivery within 1-2 days.
• Buyers get guaranteed delivery of their orders within committed time frame which is within 3 days.
• If a guaranteed item is not delivered as promised, buyers can request refund of shipping cost. If the product comes with free shipping, then buyers can receive a coupon and can redeem it on their next purchase. The other option includes buyers choosing to return the item without any cost.

Conclusion

Through the Guaranteed Delivery program, eBay has eliminated the hassle of tracking the shipments after the orders are placed. Now the eBay customers would have a guaranteed date on which their products would be delivered. As informed by eBay it has more than 167 million active buyers on its marketplace. Hence, it was very much required to launch Guaranteed Delivery program to boost sales, provide more control to the sellers and keep customers happy.