How do I see which eBay orders must ship today?
Open Seller Hub, go to the Orders tab and filter to Awaiting shipment, which lists the orders that are paid but not shipped. Each row shows a ship by date, and anything dated today needs a carrier scan before the day ends. That date comes from your handling time, counted in business days from when the buyer paid.
Where the ship by date lives
Open Seller Hub and select the Orders tab.
Choose Awaiting shipment from the sections on the left.
Read the ship by date column on each row.
Work anything dated today first, then tomorrow's rows.
Print labels and add tracking from the same screen as you go.
The other filters on Orders are Awaiting payment, Paid and shipped, and Archived. Only Awaiting shipment is your work queue.
How that date is worked out
The ship by date is handling time applied to the payment date. Handling time is measured in business days, it begins when you receive payment, and it ends when the package is scanned by the carrier.
With a 1 day handling time an order paid on Monday has to be scanned by Tuesday at 11:59pm, and an order bought between Friday and Sunday has to be scanned by Monday at 11:59pm. Saturdays and Sundays are optional business days, so whether weekend orders roll forward depends on your own settings.
The date on the row is not the deadline you work to
The deadline that counts is the carrier scan, and the scan happens after your last pickup or drop off of the day. So the real cut off is your carrier's, not eBay's, and it is earlier than 11:59pm. Work backwards from it: the last collection time, minus the packing time for what is still on the bench, is the moment you have to stop adding orders to today's batch.
eBay recommends a handling time of no more than 2 days. Setting one you can hit on a slow day beats setting a fast one and missing scans.
Take the queue off the screen
From the Manage orders page you can download the orders report with Download report at the top right of the table, which gives you the whole current result set. To take only part of it, check the boxes beside the orders you want and choose More, then Download selected. That is a workable pick round for a shift where nobody is at the screen.
What today's list should never contain
Orders whose weight you are guessing, because the label gets bought twice. Orders with an unread buyer message, because an address change after the label is printed is a void and a reprint. Two orders to one address, which should be one package and one label before anything is printed.
Key takeaways
- Awaiting shipment is the queue: paid, not yet shipped, with a ship by date on each row.
- The deadline is a carrier scan, not a printed label and not a Shipped status.
- Handling time counts business days, and weekends only count if you opted in.
- You can download the queue as a report for a paper pick round.
The queue arrives before you go looking for it
Connect your eBay seller account and paid orders land in The Workbench within minutes of payment, with buyer, address, line items and a weight prefilled from the listing where the listing has one. That means the day's queue is complete before you start packing, instead of growing while you work.
Batch it, rate everything against USPS and UPS at once, buy from your balance and print one merged PDF with a pick list and packing slips. Each label posts its tracking number and carrier back to the eBay order, so eBay marks it Shipped and emails the buyer while you pack the next one.
Related questions
No. Handling time ends when the package is scanned by the carrier, so a label printed at 4pm on the deadline and dropped the next morning is a late shipment. Buying postage is not an event eBay measures. Make the last pickup or drop off of the day the deadline you plan around.
It depends on whether you treat weekends as business days. Handling time is counted in business days and Saturdays and Sundays are optional, so a seller who excludes weekends starts the clock on Monday. eBay's own worked example for 1 day handling is that an order bought between Friday and Sunday has to be scanned by Monday at 11:59pm.
They are different calculations. Your ship by date comes from handling time, while the estimated delivery date adds the carrier's transit time on top and leaves out weekends and holidays. The one your late shipment rate is judged against is the latest estimated delivery date, so a fast scan on the deadline day still lands you inside it.
In Seller Hub the Awaiting shipment queue is one list per seller account, with no ship from location on it. If you pack in two places, split the list yourself, by item or by who is working, and make sure each person knows the ship by dates in their half. eBay is measuring the account, not the bench.