Buyer wants to delay despatch

BargainJunky

I sold a low value item on Sunday and buyer paid straight away.  I went to package it up today only to notice that they have asked me to delay despatch until 5th May as they are away.

Ebay is telling me to despatch by 25th April so if do as the buyer has requested do I end up with a black mark from Ebay or could I mark as despatched on the 25th but not actually post it until the 5th.

fenwick458

the message to dispatch by the 25th is presumably as you entered your dispatch time as 7 days, it's automatic and is just a reminder
nothing bad will happen if you hold onto it until the 5th like the buyer has asked. they can't complain about late postage because they asked for it,  and that's the only way your seller metrics will get altered, if a seller marks you down on stars in the feedback section.
you could mark it as dispatched and hold onto it, but when you do that it'll send the buyer a message saying their item is being posted, and they might then get upset as they might think you didn't listen to them, and this may result in even more messages being sent to explain
I've not sent something well past the dispatch date as the buyer said they would collect from me personally, and I got a red "Dispatch overdue" reminder on the dashboard for a few weeks until they collected it, but just ignore it

soolin

fenwick458 said:

the message to dispatch by the 25th is presumably as you entered your dispatch time as 7 days, it's automatic and is just a reminder
nothing bad will happen if you hold onto it until the 5th like the buyer has asked. they can't complain about late postage because they asked for it,  and that's the only way your seller metrics will get altered, if a seller marks you down on stars in the feedback section.
you could mark it as dispatched and hold onto it, but when you do that it'll send the buyer a message saying their item is being posted, and they might then get upset as they might think you didn't listen to them, and this may result in even more messages being sent to explain
I've not sent something well past the dispatch date as the buyer said they would collect from me personally, and I got a red "Dispatch overdue" reminder on the dashboard for a few weeks until they collected it, but just ignore it

If it is not marked as despatched within the time frame set by seller then seller will get a ding for late despatch, even if buyer has requested it. 

In these circumstances , and assuming the timing works, I usually print the label on the last possible date I can and then send it on the last date covered by the label. If the time frame is too long for that then I would politely explain to buyer that postage cannot be delayed and item could be cancelled or posted and if it arrives too early then collected on their return from the local mail office. The only time I’ve ever held , and then it was reluctantly, was a large letter for which I had no delivery confirmation anyway, I just marked that despatched and then posted it with stamps when buyer requested it. 

Ms_Chocaholic

I've done this for a sale a few months ago.  It was a Hermes parcel so I marked as despatched and then sent it late as they requested but I didn't upload the tracking number, it worked well for me/the buyer on this occasion.