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Simple Delivery - not so simple?
Hello,
I'm not a seller really, just trying to find new homes for a lifetimes stuff that I no longer need. My listings are text books and archaeological educational resources.
Before the introduction of Simple Delivery I had flexibility and was able to send buyers exactly what they wanted with the cheapest postage available, a win - win situation.
Now we've lost that control and flexibility with packing and postage I've got a some issues:
1 - buyers of more than one item are regularly being charged more than they need to be - for example, the buyer selects and purchases two books with postage costs for each book £3.38 - together they weigh under 2kg and can be sent in one parcel for £3.38 - I'm issued with one postage label to combine them in one parcel - the buyer has paid £6.65 - almost twice the cost prior to Simple Delivery - I think this is unfair and I am unable to make it right for the buyer
2 - buyers buying more than one item who buy them separately are being charged more than they need to - for example they buy two books each with postage of £3.38 totalling £6.76 - these together they weigh under 2kg and can be sent in one parcel for £3.38 - I am issued with two postage labels and cannot combine them in one parcel - again, I think this is unfair and I am unable to make it right for the buyer
3 - some of my items are large and fragile and need to be packed on their own to protect them during transit and also because of the size of the box required - if a buyer selects two of this type of item I will be in trouble as I cannot physically pack the two items together
To try and get around this issue I've put a 'Please Note' note at the top of my description for all my large and fragile items asking buyers to select and pay for items separately or to contact me before any purchase.
I have read all the many information pages regarding Simple Delivery and I've been unable to find any answers, I don't understand some of the information and I'm confused as much of it makes no sense to me.
I would be grateful for any suggestions which may help.
Many thanks.
john1297576
Mentor10 months agoAs far as overpayments by buyers are concerned, simple answer is to do a part refund. Ebay make it complicated by splitting the payment, but the main thing is buyer gets refunded.
As far as combining goes, buyers are not aware of how complicated SIMPLE really is, from seller’s angle without tracking proving delivery of two items, you as seller have potential risk of a Not received claim. With honest buyers not very likely but there is the risk.
The long winded way to deal with this is with buyer’s agreement, cancel sales and relist as one item to be bought again. Risk of losing both sales.
Putting notes on listings may solve problems, but buyers never seem to read important sections and when this sort of transaction happens, probably best to message pointing out that because of size and weight etc. you cannot combine postage in any way.
0149david
OP10 months agoThanks for this John, I'd come to the same conclusion about relisting items as one bundle to get around this problem.
With regards to buyers postage overpayments, I haven't got any room to refund £3.38 myself as a lot of my listings are under £3.
After I posted yesterday, I contacted ebay about my buyer overpaying postage and was advised to combine the 2 books in one parcel and use only one of the labels I had been issued with and that, providing the other label was not 'used' (ie it could be printed out but not sent on a parcel) the buyer would be refunded in 30 to 40 days.
I hope that I've covered myself against a claim of non-delivery of one of the books by messaging the buyer to explain and by keeping the ebay customer service chat transcript. I suppose time will tell.
Simple Delivery could be just that, but it needs a good overhaul!
Again, many thanks John.