Tracking

[johnwash1]

I've booked the parcel, got a tracking number, now what do I do with it? All I can see on ebid is to enter it into the After Sale Log in the Goods Shipped section.

But that's just plain text. On ebay there's provision for entering the carrier and the tracking number, then both seller and buyer, looking at their list of sales/purchases, can click on links which bring up the latest progress.

Any chance of something like that here?

[madelaine]

sounds like a good idea.

[rocks2dust]

I usually put the tracking number in the "Details" when I mark an item as Shipped. I also send a note to the customer with a link to the tracking for the item. Would be nice if it can be done, but there are various shippers for each region, each with a different tracking system (and some, such as collection in person, which wouldn't be covered). I suppose that we could just paste a link to the tracking when entering the ASL Shipped details, which in turn could be displayed as an active link, but might that pose a security problem?

[johnwash1]

I usually put the tracking number in the "Details" when I mark an item as Shipped. I also send a note to the customer with a link to the tracking for the item. Would be nice if it can be done, but there are various shippers for each region, each with a different tracking system (and some, such as collection in person, which wouldn't be covered). I suppose that we could just paste a link to the tracking when entering the ASL Shipped details, which in turn could be displayed as an active link, but might that pose a security problem?

Hang on. I do understand that if I come here and say "Wouldn't it be nice if the site offered fairies and magic pixie glitter?" that I might be being unrealistic, it might be hard or impossible to implement, and I'd need to rein in my expectations.

But this suggestion has an existence theorem. There is already, as I indicated, another site that offers this. So it's certainly not impossible to implement.

And given what a disastrous shower of incompetents ebay's web developers have proved to be over the years, often replacing features that were good with much worse implementations instead of fixing existing problems, we can be pretty confident that this idea isn't rocket science.

I'm sorry to come across grumpy and negative, but I think this would be a benefit on the site and I'd welcome people actively supporting it (as Madelaine has, thanks Madelaine) rather than coming up with spurious difficulties and rather lame workarounds (yes, of course I've put the tracking in the ASL and told the buyer).

Oh hell, it's Christmas, season of goodwill. Thanks, rocks2dust, for contributing to this thread and therefore giving it higher visibility. Yes, thank you, and I've given myself a slap!