On April 23rd I placed an order, and paid for a Columbus decal from an eBay seller located in Serbia.

On that same day, I received shipping notification with an expected delivery date stated to be between May 5th and May 12th.

I assumed that Covid might slow certain international shipping processes down. But man, it’s been a chunk of time, 6 weeks to be exact, and no decal yet.

Ask for your money back, I guess. You know how to open a dispute using the "I didn't receive the item" button, right? Ebay does have a time window for that, and as a sometime-seller, I can tell you they're always good about siding with the customer!

That's not enough time passed yet, in my opinion. I waited nearly four weeks for a small first-class parcel recently and it was only going across the country.

When I send postcards home from eastern Europe they have sometimes arrived 4-6 weeks after I posted them, and that was before the current mess.

I'd be patient for a while. And expect such delays in the future, good times or bad.

-Gregory

I ordered some vintage parts from Portugal in April and have not yet received them. I tried to open a case in ebay but could not do so because of the pandemic. The expected delivery is late June, early July.

Why would you open a case against a seller who shipped something with an expected delivery date still in the future, due to the current state of the postal service? What did the seller do wrong?

There is still no tracking number uploaded.

You realize a lot of international postal services don't offer tracking #s with every level of postage like the United States does, right? Did the auction specify that it would have a tracking #, or did the seller explicitly say so?

I was advised by a UK seller that international parcels are simply going missing due to the pandemic, so make of that what you will.

Years ago I bought a fork from Serbia, had to sign up to Skrill to pay - I thought I was never going to see it or my money again, but alas, it arrived.

I was thinking that what the UK seller told you might be the case here.

And while I hope my order will show up like yours did, I’m certainly not interested in opening a case against the seller if it doesn’t. It’s only a 7 dollar decal, and I’d rather believe they’ve upheld their end of the deal. After all, I have no reason to believe otherwise.

The tracking information provided by ebay can be woefully inadequate for international shipments.
I ordered some pedals from Italy on May 2. Since May 4 the tracking information provided by ebay says something to the effect of "parcel information received by post office." When I finally figured out how to use the Poste Italiane tracking system I found out that the package has traveled to this country and cleared customs on May 27.
I ordered a saddle from England also on May 2. The seller shipped it through the ebay global shipping program. It arrived in this country within a week, but then spent 2 weeks bouncing around this country. According to the tracking information it bounced back and forth between various locations in Southern California, Nevada, and Northern California 6 different times before finally coming to rest in my post office box.
I think patience is the order of the day in these peculiar times.
Brent

I appreciate the lecture.

Has the OP tried to contact the seller? I hate when someone escalates the case to eBay without first inquiring with me when I sell stuff.

I’ve seen similar wonky tracking before. For this particular order, there is no tracking number however. So I have no way to know that it ever made post at all.

I’m not feeling impatient so much as I’m just feeling curious. While I’ve had successful shipments from France, England (fastest), Czech Republic, Italy (the slowest) and most recently Poland, I’ve never ordered from Serbia before.

Best case scenario, I find a decal in my mailbox tomorrow. Worst case, I forget all about it, long before it never arrives.

I have. And the only reason I might consider seeking a refund is if after time, it appears that’s they’ve ignored my effort to open communication. Otherwise, I’ll assume it shipped, but and just got lost in the matrix, and accept the minor loss.

Several folks on Facebook have mentioned long delays in shipping between the US and anywhere overseas. "Long delays" these days would mean "normal shipping" 20 or so years ago. We've become accustomed to quick shipping due to eased regulations and networked agents that assist with routing. Especially between the US and China.

I'm trying to recall my last private transaction with anyone across the Atlantic. Might have been 20 years ago, between here and the Netherlands. Swapped camera lenses with another fellow. Took 2-3 months back then. But we opted for the cheapest shipping and figured customs would slow things down.

I just received a package from Serbia (some new brake hoods), and it took 5 weeks, but that was what the seller told me it was going to take. So I suppose it's not the country, but the individual seller that makes the difference.

I sent a couple of packages to the US from the Netherlands on the 21st of april. Two of them received theirs last week but the one with tracking and insurance is still waiting but at least he can see where it is.
Keep in mind that plane traffic between the US and Europe virtually completely dried up and it is only now that it is slowly starting back up. Give it some time.

There seems to be a little cottage industry of C&V bike parts and accessories in Serbia. I bought some brake hoods, pedal dust cap wrench and reynolds decals.

I just got my envelope with Reynolds decals from Serbia last night and ordered on 18 May 2020 to Canada.

I bought a wool jersey from a Serbian seller a couple of years ago and it went fine. I bought some decals from Australia yesterday and seller messaged me asking me to be patient with delivery. He told me he’s been waiting 8 weeks on a package from the US.

Ordered a hub from a cycle shop I’ve dealt with before in the UK, usually 2 weeks for delivery, hub took over. 2 months to get here. I’d wait a couple of more weeks before getting concerned. I have ordered some eBay items from Serbia, no issues in the past.
Tim

there is worldwide shipping disruption from covid (obviously). air traffic, which moves a lot of mail, has been seriously impacted. USPS is using ships for mail service, causing delays.
some countries shut down their international shipping, at least short-term. i tried to order something from Poland, seller canceled the order because at the time he was unable to ship outside of Poland.
many countries still have shipping restrictions, both incoming and outgoing.
i, personally, at least for the immediate future, will not be shipping anything internationally, which impacts my business significantly. however, since all this has begun, i have had three international shipping problems, where i had not had that many problems (total) in the last decade or more. it's not worth my time or hassle, or loss of money from refund claims.
that said, shipping from some countries and through some couriers, does not seem to be impacted as much as postal services.
patience is key, or just don't order things from other countries right now.

check the USPS website for current conditions and restrictions. they seem to be fairly accurate as to what is going on with shipping to and from other countries.
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/USPS-...tial-Customers
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Mail-...ts-and-Updates

Was it from this seller?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/COLUMBUS-SL...72.m2749.l2649
I purchased decals from this one last August and received them within the given time. I don't remember what timeframe it was though.

Things are extra slow at the moment. Partially because many of these postal workers were simply not on the job because of the pandemic (essential or otherwise), and also for exactly the reason mentioned above. Some people might not be aware of it (or maybe everyone knows), but all of the passenger airlines are now big into the cargo business. Not sure how long this has been going on, but I've seen it have a pretty big effect with my work. They aren't just carrying mail, but much bigger and heavier cargo like furniture.

Prices of air shipping larger cargo had actually become quite reasonable prior to the pandemic, but as noted above with so many regular flight not being operated at the moment, the usual supply/demand mechanism has driven prices (and wait times) way up.

While there were no doubt some wealthy riders back in the day that purchase those things originally, I would unfortunately think that a lot of that stuff is stolen. Not trying to start a flame war, but plenty of things go missing in Western Europe and end up in Eastern Europe.

I'm not sure if new repop reynolds decals, brake hoods and custom made pedal wrenches get stolen. I cant comment on used bike parts but I was referring to the custom tools, decals, hoods, and bar ends that seem to originate in serbia.

What kind of an accusation is that? I've spent quite a bit of time in eastern Europe and Croats, Serbs and Greeks (who I have experience interacting with most) are about the friendliest, most humble people you can find. You're clustering an entire corner of a continent together as being full of thieves? If you didn't want to start a flame war, you shouldn't say such silly things.

What evidence do you have to suggest that bicycles are stolen on a "cottage industry" scale by anyone in eastern Europe?

If you want to compare crime rates in western and eastern Europe, then you should be assuming that things coming from England or France are far more likely to be stolen than things from Serbia! Bicycle theft is a major problem in urban western Europe and stealing in general is more prevalent in the countries we see the highest volume of internet sales from (England, France, and Italy).

For example, Italy has a theft rate consistently floating at more than 1,500 per 100k people.

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Italy/theft/

While Serbia maxed out at only about a fifth of Italy's recorded rate in Italy in recent years. 350 per 100k.

https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Serbia/theft/

And if you think there's some underground international crime ring involving foreigners committing all these crimes and smuggling it back to eastern Europe, I want some of what you're smoking.