Built For Marketplace: How eBay Saved Millions of Dollars and Improved Valid Tracking Rate by 20% Using AfterShip

About eBay

eBay is a global commerce leader that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world. Founded in 1995 in San Jose, California. eBay has evolved from a pioneering online auction site to a multinational e-commerce giant provides C2C and B2C sales services.

It is committed to creating a better, more sustainable form of commerce that benefits individuals, businesses, and the planet. Through technology and innovation, eBay enables and inspires every individual and organization in its marketplace to participate and contribute to the global economy.

The Challenges: Seamless Tracking for Global Deliveries

For eBay, maintaining transparency throughout the shipping process is crucial to managing deliveries effectively across its extensive network. With a mix of major and smaller, specialized carriers, achieving consistent tracking accuracy is essential but challenging. Delays in tracking updates due to missing events or inconsistent data increase the risk of delivery issues and customer dissatisfaction, potentially leading to disputes.

Originally, eBay relied on a limited range of carriers and used batch processing for managing tracking data. This method, once sufficient, became inadequate due to eBay's growth and the increased demand for real-time customer updates. Challenges also emerged in integrating various carrier systems, each with different types of event data requiring normalization to ensure consistent tracking information across eBay’s vast networks.

As eBay's primary aggregator worked to modernize their systems to meet these advanced requirements, the transition highlighted both commitment and challenges. Historically, robust relationships with major carriers in the US, Germany, and the UK allowed for effective tracking through batch files. However, transitioning to a modern push API system to improve the efficiency and timeliness of data handling introduced technical challenges and setbacks.

The system enhancements, designed to improve overall performance, unfortunately led to intermittent service disruptions. “While this transition period presented unexpected challenges, it reflects our ongoing commitment to advancing our technology platform to better serve evolving customer needs. These upgrades represent an important step forward in building a more robust and scalable infrastructure.", said Skyler Loth, the Product Manager in eBay Shipping Tracking department.

The Strategies and Solutions

Expand Carrier Network with Seamless API Integration

In partnership with AfterShip, eBay expanded its network from less than 100 to more than 650 integrated carriers, with 400 carriers actively engaged each week. This expansion has enabled eBay to offer broader tracking services on a global scale.

“AfterShip has been vital to tracking orders and packages worldwide, especially in Australia, Germany, and the UK. AfterShip's value has been impeccable, connecting and providing success to even some of our biggest sellers.”

Skyler Loth, Product Manager, eBay Shipping Tracking

Integrating a larger number of high-quality carriers has enhanced eBay’s Estimated Delivery Dates (EDD) accuracy. Moreover, to facilitate smoother data transmission, AfterShip implemented API connectivity with eBay. This approach replaced the previous batch connection method, ushering in real-time tracking updates.

The improved connectivity and increased access to carrier data are crucial for eBay as timely updates directly contribute to the accuracy and reliability of their own EDD, which achieved a 10% improvement in EDD accuracy in 2024.

“AfterShip's tracking event and carrier data fuels core eBay processes, including training our estimated delivery date tool, triggering notifications, and providing our customers with a clear answer to: ‘Where’s my package’.”

Skyler Loth, Product Manager, eBay Shipping Tracking

Tracking Data Normalization

In the complex world of logistics, tracking poses a significant challenge. Picture hundreds of carriers worldwide, each using its own unique logistics terminology, where terms and event types differ widely. This necessitated a solution for data normalization. Skyler, responsible for tracking integrations, summarized the predicament: "Imagine trying to translate hundreds of dialects into one universal language. Each carrier sends us data—like 'acceptance scan', 'in transit', 'out for delivery'—each in their distinct formats.”

AfterShip Tracking has responded with a standardized tracking framework, meticulously designed for scalability and detailed nuances. "Traditionally, our batch processes could recognize about 13 distinct event types," Skyler explained. The new system enhances flexibility by introducing 'sub-events' or 'subtags', allowing for more granular tracking across up to 21 different statuses.

This system provides two levels of integration—simple for those requiring basic features, and complex for those desiring more detailed tracking. "This dual approach," noted Skyler, "enables our partners to integrate seamlessly with us, regardless of whether they need straightforward solutions or more detailed, complex ones."

Reinforced Seller Retention with Streamlined Logistics Management

Initially, some sellers faced challenges with unrecognized carriers and unsupported tracking numbers, creating gaps in tracking data. These issues led to customer complaints and put sellers at risk of not meeting eBay's shipping standards. Additionally, eBay sometimes had to cover the costs of lost packages or penalize sellers, frustrating both sellers and their customers.

To solve this, eBay needs to collect lots of sellers’ feedback seeing which kind of carriers they're using, which causes a lot of overhead, especially for those larger sellers, who have their own logistics platform.

With AfterShip, sellers’ own logistics platform and unsupported carriers could be integrated seamlessly into eBay’s system, allowing for tracking information to flow smoothly for their orders. This streamlined process not only widens carrier coverage but also maintains consistent tracking visibility across eBay, sellers’ websites, and carrier websites.

Overall, customer satisfaction (CSAT) has been improved to foster better retention for both sellers and buyers.

“Our sellers are required to provide tracking info as soon as possible to build customer trust. In cases where they use an unsupported carrier, AfterShip can easily pull this data for us, filling in the gaps in our supported carrier list.”

Skyler Loth, Product Manager, eBay Shipping Tracking

Mitigate Dispute with Improved Valid Tracking Rate

Tracking data is a cornerstone of trust in eBay’s marketplace. Whenever a dispute occurs, buyers, sellers, and eBay all look to tracking data as the source of truth to fairly settle these disputes.

Since partnering with AfterShip in 2017, eBay has experienced over a 20% increase in the valid tracking rate. A key contributor is AfterShip’s auto-correction mechanism. This function bolsters the accuracy and utility of eBay's order tracking system by first accepting a specified carrier's tracking number. If there are no updates within four days, AfterShip automatically tests an alternative carrier guess. If this adjustment detects tracking events, the system promptly updates the tracking details. This feature accounts for approximately 200,000 additional trackable numbers each month, thereby improving the service for an equivalent number of users.

This reliable tracking data ensures fairness in resolving disputes and resulted in substantial financial savings, amounting to millions of dollars over the years.

“Other aggregators we've used don't offer carrier auto-correction. When we turned it on in AfterShip, we uncovered more than 200,000 tracking numbers monthly. Previously missed packages now have events and can be properly tracked.”

Skyler Loth, Product Manager, eBay Shipping Tracking

Proactive Issue Resolution and Responsive Support

Unlike other aggregators where eBay had to identify and report problems, AfterShip proactively identified and resolved issues often before eBay noticed them. Additionally, AfterShip demonstrated strong responsiveness, even with time zone differences, facilitated by their carrier onboarding team and specific individuals who ensured the smooth handling of any personnel changes. Overall, this resulted in smoother operations and minimized disruptions for eBay.

“We work with hundreds of carriers around the world and know that shipping tracking has a high level of entropy. With our other aggregators, we must identify issues with carriers and report them ourselves, which leads to a high operational load for our team. We appreciate that AfterShip has a superior monitoring system. They take the lead to self-identify and quickly resolve our tracking issues (typically 3x faster) without our involvement.”

Skyler Loth, Product Manager, eBay Shipping Tracking

Conclusions

The collaboration between eBay and AfterShip has upgraded eBay's tracking and logistics, leading to a better seller and customer experience. Looking ahead, the continuous evolution of AfterShip's technologies will play a vital role in supporting eBay's expansion and enhancing global e-commerce logistics, ensuring eBay remains a leader in the e-commerce landscape.