Locked
Discussion interactions are currently paused.
Simple Delivery - not so Simple
I am a private seller and have sold around 20 or so items this year, all £20 to £30 range and have had no problems with Simple Delivery, in fact up until now have quite liked the way it works. Last week I listed one of my rings for £180 and it sold today, but Ebay has managed the postage and the buyer has paid for the postage, but I now have a label for Royal Mail that is 48 tracked. I would never send by tracked as RM advise to send by Guaranteed Delivery 1.00pm, but I have no way of cancelling this label. Having read the Ebay T&Cs they elude to the fact that it is covered by the Ebay selling guarantee, but are Ebay really going to cover the value if its lost?
Desperate to know as I have to post to the buyer on Monday
jckl1957
·11 months agoHi again @smile29y
If you go back to the post I mention in message 9, there is now a written response to this from Ebay Community Team which I hope you will find useful.
papso22
Mentor11 months agoSo from that reply it seems ebay will honour seller protection for jewellery that is listed using simple delivery but at some point that category will become exempt from simple delivery and people will have to use custom postage.
I guess that does provide some clarification.
jckl1957
·11 months agoUntil about 3 weeks ago all jewellery and watches could only be listed using custom delivery - then it just changed to everything over £20 having to use SD, even though it says that gold etc, are restricted.
I rarely sell anything for more than £10 so really I am not affected but it has left a lot of jewellery sellers confused!
I suppose they will either change the Ts & Cs or allow all jewellery to be listed using custom postage.
It's currently a mess and gives all the people who complain about SD another genuine reason to have a moan!
smile29y
OP10 months agoIt will take some thinking through, to finalise a solution - I have this evening had the third of my three items I had listed sell (items over £100 - when I first encountered the SD issue when the 1st item sold) and have just gone into produce the Invoice and then SD label (based on the feedback that items under £750 will be covered while its being sorted) and the Order has the words written alongside the image of the gold ring: 'Tracked and Fully protected by Ebay' and this isn't the only place it states this, it appears on the listing screen (even though the category selected is Fine Jewellery), on the label production screen and I have seen it somewhere else (cannot think where at the moment). I do believe there's no reason to not switch back to custom for over £20 as Royal Mail will honour insurance as long as you use their correct Special Delivery mechanism, or eBay provides Royal Mail Special Delivery within SD. Time will tell, we can only wait and watch. Thank you for your help and time in trying to sort this out - I'm a eBay user of 25 years (we both are), I get lavished with praise every time I contact the help desk, but have to admit there have been a few issues over the years but SD really does seem to beat them all by far!!
tressygirl
Mentor11 months agoNot sure that jewellery is covered by Simple Delivery postage.
Use your preferred method and the label generated by SD can be cancelled and refunded to whoever paid for the label.
You can then manually update your tracking this way:
Use a laptop / PC to manage this, Chrome seems to work well with eBay.
@smile29y
smile29y
OP11 months agoThank you for the update, but have since spoken to Ebay and have confirmed I can send jewellery through Ebay up to a value of £750 using Simple Delivery. The postage contract is then between the Buyer and Ebay and the buyer is paying a Buyers Protection Fee which provides Insurance against loss or damage in the post - so no impact on the seller.
**peaseblossom**
Mentor11 months agoJewellery is excluded from Simple Delivery buyer/seller protection cover. eBay Customer Service don't always get things right. Unless they've changed it of course but I wouldn't bank on that.
smile29y
OP11 months agoI've searched across Ebay to confirm that and I cannot find reference to Ebay excluding Jewellery from the cover, I have also asked AI the question and AI confirmed what Ebay were saying when I spoke to an operator. I have kept the conversation transcript as proof as well as the AI searches - all confirm that Jewellery up to £750 are covered under the buyers protection fee so I feel assured that they would not recover the money from me - but would loose my business after 25 years of using them if they did!!
**peaseblossom**
Mentor11 months agoScroll down to "Restricted or prohibited items" on here:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/simple-delivery?id=5575
Restricted or prohibited items > The following items aren't allowed to be posted with Simple Delivery: valuables, including, but not limited to, jewellery, watches, gems, precious metals, real pearls, silver and gold.
smile29y
OP11 months agoHow crazy can it be, do you think Ebay will get this corrected on their helpdesk given the way its misleading users. If you AI the question about sending jewellery through Ebay, it clearly states using the Simple Delivery process. If you then Google as a Private Seller Ebay doesn't provide Special Delivery through its Simple Delivery postage how do I send Jewellery, it states clearly that they produce a tracked label to use and its safe to do so as long as the value is under £750 - as the buyer has bought buyer protection.
Then you speak to the Ebay helpdesk and they tell you exactly the same and I then ased for them to send that in writing, to which I get a segment of text saying its covered by Buyers Protection.
You then send me a link to an Ebay page that specifically says the opposite.
Further, the other restricted and prohibited items in their list I tried to list and all got barred with comments about the items being on the prohibited list (I tried a penknife, an item containing the words Nazi, etc..) and all were barred, yet with jewellery they accept the listing and will produce a shipping label. I have now resorted to sending the item on a Special Delivery even though the buyer has paid for the label and will do the same for the other over £50 item - I'm so glad its only these two items that I'm trying to sell.
This is absolutely diabolical service, to leave users in limbo - I've been a user of Ebay for 25 years and have never sen such poor communication. How do we get Ebay to unravel this mess and inform users correct on what they can and cannot do with valuables!! Is there a fast track reporting channel to get someone to look at this that you know of? Thank you for your help...
papso22
Mentor11 months agoYou have to believe the published policy and not the ebay agent. Unfortunately they are wrong about jewellery being covered.
They are also wrong about buyer protection, it has nothing whatever to do with protecting buyers from delivery issues. Again, what it does do is made clear in the published guidance about the buyer protection fee.
@marco@ebay is there need for some agent education here?
jckl1957
·11 months agoI have asked for a response from the Community Team on this post - you may find it useful to read
Re: Simple delivery of Gold jewellery
@smile29y