Forewarning; This is quite long….and it might only relates to Business sellers. Private sellers with Simple Delivery may have a different experience.
I just had the most bizarre and quite revealing chat with eBay support on X. I just want to start by saying that those guys are great - they're always helpful and attentive to detail. And I truly mean that. ...But today's exchange proved that something isn't quite right and made me feel like eBay execs are trained to deal with these matters in this way so to cause confusion and get the questioner (me on this occasion) to give up.
Earlier today we started a return for an item. The reason for return determined that we (the buyer) would be liable for the return postage. The item we want to return is 3kg and eBay had offered a pre-determined label for for £5.93 through Royal Mail. There was no option to say that we were using our own label. This seems very limiting so I asked the support guys, on X, if I was allowed to use our own label. They said that if I agree it with the seller it might be possible, but we're then obviously not protected. I also asked why they forced us to buy specific labels and the response was, and I quote:
"This is to avoid buyers from returning orders without tracking resulting in the items getting lost and sellers not being responsible to refund."
Which reminded me to ask about something that has been bothering me for a while; When the conversation around that particular return came to an end, I asked the support person about the £3.50 labels that are automatically sent to buyers for returns. I asked why they're always £3.50 and also why, when a buyer that abuses the returns system (by choosing the wrong reason for return), the seller can only ask for £3.50 back as a refund.
The response I got:
“Sellers don't pay the full amount [for items that are returned with £3.50 labels]- when a return is opened and the seller is required to provide means of a return - The label cost is subsidised. So when a seller needs to give a buyer a label to return an order - It is generally no more than £3.50.”
I questioned this and said that these labels that are sent out are only qualified for items up to 2kg and 61cm in size and that if an item is 25kg and 150cm in size(for example) the item would be refused at the post office. So when a heavy or large item needs to be returned, we always have to provide our own label. I said that with this in mind, those labels are not subsidised because we buy separate labels for items above 2kg/61cm and labels for items that are up to 2kg and under 61cm are only £3.50 through Royal Mail or even cheaper with other couriers, like Yodel.
The response to that wasn’t acknowledgement that the labels aren’t subsidised, but “Sorry Yodel isn’t an option I will feed this back”. Complete avoidance to being corrected...and despite being corrected they ignored it and went on to say:
“if the reason for return for the £5.93 return (mentioned above) was “not as described” or “damaged”, the seller wouldn’t pay £5.93, they would pay the subsidised £3.50 because we want to help sellers.
Now, this item is over 2kg, so what the support had just said got me very excited, because I’d always been told that the £3.50 labels were only for 2kg/61cm items, and what the support person just said means we could save money, so I asked:
“Are you trying to tell me that I should let my buyers use the £3.50 label eBay provides them for returns that are damaged/not as described…even if that item weighs 25kg and the box is 150cm (for example)?
To which I got the following response. Which COMPLETELY CONTRADICTS THE ABOVE STATEMENT THAT A SELLER WOULD PAY A SUBSIDISED £3.50 BECAUSE EBAY “WANT TO HELP”:
“we don't handle shipments larger than 2kg”
and that
“It just wouldn't be possible for us to pre-determine the postage costs for larger packages”
At which point I didn't bother pushing more on the point around the contradiction, but I asked: “So how was the cost of the return (mentioned above) pre-determined at £5.93? (an item above 2kg!)
Response from support: “This would have been calculated based off shipping locations and the weights and dimensions of the overall package entered by the seller at the point of listing the item”
And I'm like "what the...."
...So to add to the fact that returns labels aren’t actually subsidised at all, we now have a second contradiction; On the one hand it wouldn’t be possible to pre-determine the cost of a label…so they only ever give out 2kg/61cm labels (even if you add the correct shipping details in the listing. But on the other, when a buyer is paying for a label for a “change if mind” return, then it seems very easy for eBay to calculate the cost of a package that is over 2kg and/or 61cm because they base the calculation on the details in the listing.
And I just want to add that somewhere in the exchange, in context and long before the above response, I stated that we ALWAYS put the box size and weight in the packaging area of each listing, so it would be completely possible, based on the above statement to calculate the cost of a return for an item that's more than 2kg/61cm..because they ALREADY DO IT using those exact details!
If the reason eBay forces buyers to buy a specific label is “to avoid buyers from returning orders without tracking resulting in the items getting lost and sellers not being responsible to refund.” then why aren’t labels for damaged/not as described returns forced? Sellers can still "not be responsible to refund" in exactly the same way.
Maybe it’s really because when a buyer misuses the returns process (which is probably 50% of our returns) and sellers go to claim the postage back, they can only claim for £3.50 because “it wouldn’t be possible” for them to calculate the actual cost of the return (i mean, they could literally let us upload a receipt). The actual cost of some of our returns is far more than £3.50 but we have to eat it because eBay wants to keep the buyer happy…..which is ironic considering providing them with labels that do not cover the full cost of the return will certainly give you a disgruntled buyer, right?
