Appropriate amount of time

Question: what is the appropriate amount of time before contacting seller about shipping?

Situation: I bought/paid for an item on Monday night.  About 10pm-ish.  So I count that as Tuesday. They say they ship within 24hrs. So I figured Wednesday, but they sent tracking number on Tuesday. Awesome!

But here it is Friday and tracking is still blank.  You know that bar? Accepted>In Transit>Delivered.  It's blank.   I've never come across this before.   

Should I wait untill after the estimated time of delivery or is it cool to send a (friendly) note asking if they've shipped?     I don't want to bother them if its the post office......

Should add, I only care because I use a mail drop.   Don't want to keep driving there (its far) to check.  Small packages are in lock box but this item is pretty big and will be left out....it's security is okay but not guaranteed.

2nd, seller has a rating of just under 1400 at 100%.   So I don't think it's them.....

Question: what is the appropriate amount of time before contacting seller about shipping?

My experience with post office tracking is this:

1) After first day has gone by I click on the tracking number...nothing shows.

2) Repeat above each day for 2 or 3 days if item is coming across country.

3) At some point item arrives at my door. Check the tracking number that day, nothing shows.

4) Check the tracking number a day after item is delivered...sometimes shows delivery has been made, sometimes doesn't.

Bottom line, USPS is nothing like UPS tracking. UPS shows arrivals and departures at every stage of shipment.

Okay, I guess I'll just go check Saturday evening.

As of now tracking doesnt even show "Accepted".   Didnt know if tht meant they never got picked up/dropped off.  I've had slow updates before but never just blank.....

Was just trying to plan my weekend. No big deal.
It's a whole lot of items I wanted to refurbish and have listed ASAP since with the 4th next week I'm sure CL sales are going to be slim.   

I think Ebay counts an item as shipped when the label is printed. You could have a lazy seller and he printed the label getting his credit for 24 hours, but procrastinating on actually dropping off the package.

I think Ebay counts an item as shipped when the label is printed. You could have a lazy seller and he printed the label getting his credit for 24 hours, but procrastinating on actually dropping off the package.

Ditto to this. The seller probably only ships stuff out once a week.

Ditto to this. The seller probably only ships stuff out once a week.

Must be it since tracking was set on Tuesday morning but now shows it was accepted yesterday afternoon.

Must have printed label but ships everything Friday afternoons.

yep you guys nailed it..the seller was lazy... tracking # starts as soon as ya print label... then slow walked it to tha post Office...I do gurantee / next business day shipping on all my items most stuff sent priority,,and when I go to the P.O the next day I always get them to "swipe" the label bar code, which actually starts the clock running,and get a receipt with time/date stamp... then I contact buyer and say "it's on the way at 9:30 ( or whatever)... my customers love that communication

coudl be one of two things. one possibility is the seller is lazy and printed the package as to meet ebay 24 hour deadline with printing the lable but hasn't bothered going t the post office to drop it off or hasnt even packed it. its also possible it just isn't showing tracking.

usps recently change dthe name of delivery confirmatin to tracking which is stupid because its not tracking its delivery confirmation. they are only required to scan upon delivery not all along the way like true tracking. sometimes packages may show tracking at diff sort facilities but those are courtesy scans sometimes you wont see anything until you have the package in hand.

as a seller its best to drop the package off nad have it scanned otherwise i answer this question like 10 times a day for buyers why isnt my package showing shipping however when i got a handful of 30-50 packages if there's a ilne i just drop them and leave and they generally dont get scanned in that way so i get people asking why isnt tracking showing anything

Seems odd that the shipper could have printed the label and not taken the package to the post office for a while. I believe the post office requires the package to be received the same date as printed on the label.

Seems odd that the shipper could have printed the label and not taken the package to the post office for a while. I believe the post office requires the package to be received the same date as printed on the label.

Not really. I don't make a practice of doing it but have done it on an occasion or two when I oversell on ebay and one of my delivereies from my supplier gets delayed at customer or something like that. Ebay is super strict with power sellers and top rated sellers printing lables within 24 hours. If you dont your powerseller/top rated seller status will be pulled pretty quickly. For that reason on one or two occasional I've printed labels and not mailed for another day.

Post office really doesn't care. I've had one mail carrier tell me I had to reprint but otherwise they never have an issue with it. Probably only with priority or express since those are guranteed within a certain amount of time. With first class they dont care at all.

It finally arrived 8days after order.  (Technically nine but won/paid auction at 10pm-ish so started count next morning)


And after the wait.....not even "as described".    "No Damage" my a**! 

But to return I need to pay postage which would take 25% of purchase price.
I can probably still make a slight profit after repairs so might a well use them as practice.