Brick Owl please inform your buyers about shipping times

Leftoverbricks

On BO I keep receiving emails from buyers in the USA or other countries outside Europe about the whereabouts of their order and how long it will take to ship to their country.
I'm really done with these kind of questions and I refuse to answer. I ask BO to make it VERY CLEAR (and in capitals, please) from every order page that shipping overseas can take as much as TWO MONTHS or more and the buyer should not complain about this.
As a courtesy to BO I'm still selling outside Europe but I'm already inclined to stop selling to the other side of the pond (as you Brits call America) because of the fact that BO is silent about this.

leopard37

This is your job as the seller to handle customer inquiries, if that causes too much grief it's time to move on. If your shipping is taking 2 months you are using the wrong shipper.

Hoddie

"As a courtesy to BO..." hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Omg, hahahahaha.

Hoddie

By the sounds of it, your store's tag line of "fast and friendly" is wrong on both counts. You're right, it can take a long time for orders to reach the US from the UK - anywhere between 4 days and 6 weeks in my long experience, depending on how busy US customs are and whether or not a package is picked out for closer inspection.

Regardless, when a customer asks "where is my order?" how hard is it to reply with the above? It's literally taken me less than 30 seconds to type it out.

Geert Middelman

From the USA, I've changed the shipper I use internationally. Everything goes through UPS now. They take care of the customs in a timely manner, and everything so far has arrived within a week. Europe normally 3-4 days even (faster than the far corners of continental US with USPS). Stamps.com / easyshipping.com can do UPS from the same system, same labels, same printer, same funds. For me the closest UPS dropoff is across the street from USPS. I'm happy.

Yes, it costs slightly more (25-35 usd), but I'm not gonna bother with waiting 3 months.

I'd say from Europe either DHL or UPS should be a good option. DHL have the customs done in house as well. I'm receiving shipments from UK (iwoot etc) within 5 days to Arkansas,USA.

tons_of_bricks

@Leftoverbricks So you basically want BO to take over part of your job as seller? What do you want next, Brickowl to put orders together for you? I'm not saying it isn't annoying, I've had probably close to 10 international customers ask the same question in the last month. But that's part of the job, and part of customer service. By refusing to answer, you're merely causing trouble for yourself and your customers. You may not have any neg. feedback right now, but you will soon if you keep this up. Forgive my harshness, but stop being so entitled and do your job. If you don't want to deal with your customers' inquiries, then this job isn't for you.

I mean, how hard is it to but a banner of some sort on your store page? That would lower the inquiries down a bit. Then for those that still ask, respond.

P6tu

Hi,

I need to comment on this.
I'm situated in EU (Estonia).
Regular mail without phone number from UK to EU - about 2 months.
Mail with phone number on properly filled information - about 2 weeks.
Regular mail without proper address from US to EU - about 2 months.
Mail with pohne number on properly filled information - about 3 weeks.

I must emphasise it, that it playes a big role how the the addressing is marked on the shipment (proper address fields, forming, phone number, index, name etc.) If there is some gibberish or partial information, then this will cause massive delays in processing the parcels in the sorting centers and etc. This is a fact for Estonia at least on how things are in here and what I have noticed.

With best regards,

Pikka

It would be very useful if we could customize the automated email that BO send on our behalf when we mark an order as Shipped. More than a year into the pandemic many overseas buyers don't seems to understand that shipping under these conditions is still very challenging. But if we could add a few sentences concerning delivery time during Covid, it would give – at least to some folks – a peace of mind. Until that happens, keep your cool and keep answering those damn enquiries. Sure, buyers can be rude, but we can't afford a luxury of biting back.

Leftoverbricks

@Pikka Thanks. This is the best comment so far.
I asked BO to make a custom email possible before but I talked to deaf ears apparently.

To people who comment about using DHL/UPS and so on: I'm not talking about large orders that go with tracking. I'm talking about very small orders that ship for €3.49 without tracking. If a customer in the USA desperately is in need for one or two parts that I have in my inventory, she/he can buy it from my shop and thus pays €3.49 for international shipping. That's what I meant by saying 'as a courtesy to for BO' but it would have been better if I had said 'as a courtesy for BUYERS'. Sorry for being not clear about that.

@Hoddie: I really feel offended by your comment. Example order: Buyer from the US for 1 minifig. Order value: €1.64. Shipping €3.49. To make this order happen I have to log in to the post service, fill out all details in a CN22 form, print it, pack it in a bubble envelope and take the Paypal costs: €0.64 as well as the cost of bubble envelope €0.08 and the label € 0.05. I do not take into account my time for packing and preparing orders but you will understand that the €1.64 only leaves a marginal profit for me. This is why I said it's a courtesy for BO but I actually meant it's a courtesy to my buyers. And as a result to BO as well.

Calibrick

Pikka, I think you have an interesting idea here, which it sounds like Leftoverbricks has previously suggested.

Perhaps, due to the ongoing Pandemic, there is a happy medium here... maybe someone makes a suggestion that is votable to modify the MASTER auto-shipping email. The code looks at if an order is leaving your country, and if so, appends a line: note that orders shipping out of country can take as long as several months, depending on the state of the pandemic in each respective country, or some such.

Just looking for a win-win here! :-)

White Horse Bricks

Can you not rename your shipping methods to e.g. 'First Class International - this may take 2-3 weeks'; 'International standard - this currently takes around 2 months' or whatever.

This way your buyer will see and have to click on this when placing an order.

Hoddie

@Leftoverbricks - selling something at break-even or at a loss is not doing anyone a favour, least of all yourself or BO. The only one winning there is the buyer. I'd recommend you take a look at the minimum order value setting to avoid this situation entirely.

@Pikka - the main problem with allowing sellers to customise outgoing emails is that disreputable sellers could stick all sorts in there - such as "not our fault if Royal Mail loses it" - and other dodgy practices that are much more common at the other place. The standardised experience here isn't for everyone, I accept that, but I personally believe it's a reasonable price to pay to keep such behaviour to a minimum.

Leftoverbricks

@Hoddie @Pikka - On Bricklink you can customize your emails for decades. I've never heard of issue related to that.
1. disreputable sellers should be kicked out by BO in the first place
2. BO can decide which part of the outgoing mail is editable by the seller and what not
3. I think in 2021 it's now recognized worldwide that sellers can not blame shippers; sellers are responsible, always. So I see no problem here.
Thus @Lawrence : please make it possible.

@Hoddie - I try to make a marginal profit on every small order but after 10 years of seller experience I can tell you that this is not always possible because of the variety in volumes and dimensions between the parts. I don't care if I make only 4 cents profit on a order with a net value of 79 cents, but I hate to get emails after I shipped the order about delivery times and such. Those emails cost me waaaaay too much time: searching for the order, reviewing how I shipped it, looking at the picture I make form every order and so on.

Hoddie

1. Much better to prevent disreputable practices than react after the event.
2. Of course, but that doesn't stop some sellers abusing it. Sellers can enter a public note on all lots right now, some sellers use that inappropriately imo - the old saying, "give someone an inch, they'll take a mile."
3. It is absolutely not recognised worldwide - what's illegal in some jurisdictions is perfectly legal in others.

Many BL sellers abuse the ability given by that platform to personalise their individual store. Such abuse manifests in the posting of illegal terms, adding nonsensical fees just for listings manipulation, feedback hostaging, etc., etc. This isn't even uncommon on BL, it's all over the place.

For that reason, I'd have to vote in favour of keeping the standardised system rather than opening it up to abuse, unless BO is prepared to actively monitor what stores actually put in their customised emails, and I doubt that's even possible.

Consider this:

A US seller customises their email to say "Thanks for your order, it has been despatched and you should receive it soon. Any problems, please contact USPS. Note that it's not possible to cancel or return your order."

That statement includes a couple of things whose legality is questionable. BO would be expected to check that the statement is legal in all the 50 US states. But even if it were, it may not be legal in every country that seller ships to, and it's the laws of the buyer's country that apply in a B2C scenario.

The alternative of course is that BO doesn't check the legality, and simply lets sellers put what they want. This, ultimately, will have a negative impact on the platform because some sellers WILL abuse it.

Calibrick

I do agree with Hoddie for the reasons he or she states above - BO cannot verify a statement that may change with every single order, it's not humanly (or AI) possible.

White Horse mentioned a really good temporary idea, though, that hadn't even crossed my mind - mod your shipping band title for out-of-country orders, which every buyer sees. That absolutely gets it in the eyes of every affected buyer (but not unaffected buyers) with very limited effort by any sellers that wish to do that - a perfect win-win! :-)