no more royal mail options business seller to usa ?
Summary: maarsy noticed that eBay no longer offers Royal Mail as a shipping option to the USA and expressed concerns over the increased costs with UPS. 4_bathrooms attributed these changes to tariffs and explained eBay's inability to handle Royal Mail tariffs directly. c_of_e84 shared their experience with a persistent warning on eBay listings and the functioning of Royal Mail’s PDDP. pillarboxred discussed the impact of eBay fees on profitability, suggesting the option of limiting sales to the UK to avoid losses. The discussion highlighted differences in shipping approaches between eBay and other platforms like Etsy.
i know there were some changes going to happen with simple delivery for private sellers but i just notice i no longer have the option to send with royal mail and instead only get ups , the cost for the same item instead of around 22 £ is 104 £.
i have sent parcels a few weeks ago to the usa trough royal mail without any problem i dont see why ebay now has to create a problem.
c_of_e84
·3 days agoOn my ebay business account I am still shipping to the USA.
I buy my postage direct from the royal mail website.
I pay the tariff charges to royal mail
pillarboxred
·1 week agoEBay claims 10% of the total the buyer pays, so Trumps tariffs and high shipping benefits eBay at our expense. You might be better off selling to the UK only where prices are lower but so are postage and taxes.
maarsy
OP6 days agoit was a 40 quid item so was worth it , though i still question why the option for rm was not there . i'll wait until something else comes by and see what happens
pillarboxred
·1 week agoRemember that eBay collects 10% of the enhanced total. You pay that, the buyer does not: the buyer pays the duty but the 10% comes from your proceeds so you have to be careful that there is a business case for selling to the US market. If something is cheap but has high postage because of weight and size, I make it UK only because the 10% of the grand total eBay claims often puts me into loss so I'm better off selling for a lower Final Value with low postage to the UK only.
4_bathrooms
·1 week ago · EditedAre you talking about final value fees or something else? None of eBay's FVFs are 10% with or without VAT added.
You're correct that eBay's fees are calculated on the full amount paid by the buyer which includes any taxes eBay was obliged to charge and remit and also the postage/shipping charged. So if it was possible to purchase a PDDP label via eBay - rather than loading the tariff charge into the postage fee or the item price - the seller would still be paying a FVF based on the tariff-inclusive price the buyer paid.
pillarboxred
·yesterday at 12:13 PMExactly. That is why you have to very careful when listing low margin items which might sell to the USA: the 10% of the total the consumer pays comes out of your proceeds, so if the postage and tariff is £50 you pay £5 out of your little profit. A small profit on something sent to the UK is still a profit, to the US you are in loss.
maarsy
OP1 week agoi resized the parcel and managed to send it with ups for 26 £ instead of the 104 £ ... same weight . though still down 4 quid compared to royal mail and need to go to the next town to post it , and i think this is just an ebay issue as the other platform i sell on had no issues making a label for royal mail , even their next weight category only charged me slightly over 26 £ .
4_bathrooms
·1 week agoHere is Royal Mail's guidance about Postal Delivered Duty Paid (PDDP) services to the USA. That guidance suggests it is still Royal Mail's responsibility to collect and remit the PDDP tariff charges for postal items up to $2,500 in value. Can you still access the address label that was generated via the other marketplace? If you can it should have a black circle with "PDDP" inside similar to the IOSS logo for postal packages sent to the EU.
Can you name the other platform involved? It would be interesting to find out how - if indeed they are - collecting the tariff.
maarsy
OP1 week agoetsy , doing frequent parcels to the us , even another one today
4_bathrooms
·1 week agoInteresting.
This appears to be something Etsy introduced on 9th July; I'm pretty sure linking to the page mentioning it is not allowed here. However, it is interesting how Etsy has a means to purchase PDDP Royal Mail postage labels via the platform rather than requiring sellers to purchase them off-platform.
pillarboxred
·yesterday at 12:14 PMIt's not an "issue" it is an eBay commercial policy.
4_bathrooms
·1 week ago · EditedThe problem is Donald Trump's tariffs. Any goods sent to the USA through the international postal system must have the applicable tariff collected by the sending postal operator. eBay can't collect the tariff on Royal Mail's behalf so RM services to the USA must be purchased off-platform.
Here is eBay's announcement about the changes from last year. Note that although the original tariffs are not being applied any more (as they were ruled illegal) Trump has since replaced them with like-for-like tariffs under a different executive order.
c_of_e84
·3 days agoSo far the Royal Mail PDDP system is working ok, as you say we have no option other than to pay the tariffs here in the UK but UK sellers selling on ebay.com still get this warning on there listings, I contacted ebay through online chat because it is putting customers off buying but "Customer Services" told me that the warning on my listings was nothing to do with Ebay and I needed to contact Royal Mail to get the warning removed. See below: