Delivery glossary
Each definition stands alone and assumes none of the others have been read.
Timing
Handling time. How long a seller takes to dispatch after payment clears. Quoted on listings and routinely mistaken for the delivery time.
Transit. The carrier interval after dispatch. Predictable within a range domestically and open ended across a border.
Checkpoint scan. A record created when a parcel changes hands inside the carrier network. Gaps between scans are normal and are not evidence of a problem.
Outcomes
Reship. A seller sending again instead of refunding. A second timeline rather than money back, and worth accepting only on a seller with a record.
Partial refund. Returning the fraction of the payment matching the fraction that failed. Usually the correct ask when something did arrive.
Release timer. The automatic escrow release. It runs regardless of what is happening to the parcel, and only a dispute pauses it.
The parcel itself
Unremarkable packaging. A parcel that invites no second look from anybody handling it. The goal, rather than concealment that draws attention by being obvious.
Tamper evidence. A seal that shows whether it has been opened. More useful than a seal that is merely difficult to open.
Substitution. Receiving something other than what the listing described. A different claim from damage and usually a stronger one.
Process
Dispute. The formal submission that pauses the release timer and reaches arbitration. A message expressing dissatisfaction does neither, however strongly it is worded.
Arbitration. Staff reading both accounts against the platform record. It weighs what can be shown rather than what is asserted, which is why photographs taken on opening matter.
Returns process. What happens to a parcel that fails delivery, usually because the address was wrong. A worse outcome than a slow parcel, and entirely preventable by reading the address twice.
Terms people mix up
Handling time and delivery time are the most confused pair on this site, and the confusion produces more disputes than any actual failure. Handling is dispatch, delivery is arrival, and the gap between them belongs to a carrier nobody involved controls.\n\nSeized and lost are also different, and from outside they look identical for weeks. Neither changes what you should do, which is watch the deadline rather than the parcel.
Why the vocabulary is worth having
Every one of these words appears in a dispute submission at some point. Using them precisely makes a case easy to read and easy to grant, and using them loosely makes the same facts look like a complaint rather than a claim.