Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 16.04.25 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible.

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay , dave@ebay and marco@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order and will quote the original question in each answer.

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards.

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat!

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[phillsvinyl]

Thanks for this Dave.

Then given the fact that so many people are very annoyed about what has transpired over the last few weeks  - charges - post -simple this - extra payments for buyers to pay  - when are eBay actually going to listen to the users that use the platform?

[ruby*ryan]

Is there a new date for when SD will become mandatory please? I have some stuff to list, but am twiddling my thumbs until I can properly see how the sizing works, if I am able to opt out on my letter size items, and what the actual rates will be.

[phillsvinyl]

Hi Marco,

thanks for the reply.

So are you saying and correct me if i am wrong.

That previously buyers were not protected when purchaseing an item.

[marco@ebay]

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@ruby*ryan wrote:

Is there a new date for when SD will become mandatory please? I have some stuff to list, but am twiddling my thumbs until I can properly see how the sizing works, if I am able to opt out on my letter size items, and what the actual rates will be.

---

Hi ruby*ryan, thanks for your question.

The date remains the same, the thing is that we are onboarding sellers gradually and not all sellers in go. So, if your account hasn't been onboarded yet, it will be in the upcoming days. 

Thank you,

Marco

[iansims]

Royal Mail Tracked comes in large letter, small parcel, and medium parcel sizes at present only one option appears. What I have been doing is putting notes in for large letter books in the comments and editing the post to reflect the £2.70(?) cost instead of the £3.45 for small parcel. I have around 50 books in this category and the majority in small parcel.

I should also note that I worked for RM in Revenue Protection checking parcel sizes so I am quite fluent in how the sizing and pricing works.

[dave@ebay]

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@driftworks wrote:

Hi, is there any scope at all to work with an ebay account manager to help neutralise a couple of problematic orders? We're a longstanding business seller but hadn't used ebay much last year. We started selling again but have 3 problematic orders on our account (one of which was us getting scammed for a £700 product which never got returned) due to a staff dismissal and the christmas break. That now puts us in Below Standard rating, which attracts significantly higher fees (20.4% overall instead of 13%) until we get it resolved. But to get the numbers back, we need 900 more orders, which is not practical for us at 20% fees, or to wait until November until a year has passed and they drop off. 
So basically we want to work with ebay, give them our custom and sell on the platform, but we're in a stalemate situation due to the current fees. Please could someone help us to identify this as a mistake and not our regular standard of business? 

---

Hi @driftworks,

We don't have an account management model in the way we had in the past so there isn't anyone that I could ask to look at your account.

For those cases you will need to speak to customer support as they are the only team that will be able to action them. It's not something that we can support with from here.  

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

---

@phillsvinyl wrote:

Hi Marco,

thanks for the reply.

So are you saying and correct me if i am wrong.

That previously buyers were not protected when purchaseing an item.

---

Thanks for your reply, phillsvinyl. 

Buyers could appeal for the money back guarantee, with the buyer protection fee, you can still do this and now we've added the ones I mentioned in my previous reply. However, as advised before, you can visit the link previously provided to you for full disclosure of the buyer protection fee.

Thank you,

Marco

[ruby*ryan]

Thank you. Maybe it should have been announced as a gradual roll out, rather than state it was mandatory from 15th April?

[vinylscot]

Are there any updates on how SD will cope with multiple orders / combined shipping, etc.?

Obviously, the current shambles can not continue.

[marco@ebay]

---

@iansims wrote:

Royal Mail Tracked comes in large letter, small parcel, and medium parcel sizes at present only one option appears. What I have been doing is putting notes in for large letter books in the comments and editing the post to reflect the £2.70(?) cost instead of the £3.45 for small parcel. I have around 50 books in this category and the majority in small parcel.

I should also note that I worked for RM in Revenue Protection checking parcel sizes so I am quite fluent in how the sizing and pricing works.

---

Thanks for your reply on this, iansims.

Do you have a screenshot of what you see when you try to do this, so I can take a further look for you? Hope that's ok.

Thank you,

Marco

[driftworks]

ok, thanks Dave. I can't find any way to actually speak to a real human and all the automated routes are closed to us as it's over 30 days. Seems mental that we have to stop using the platform as a result.

[marco@ebay]

---

@ruby*ryan wrote:

Thank you. Maybe it should have been announced as a gradual roll out, rather than state it was mandatory from 15th April?

---

Thanks for the feedback, ruby*ryan.

I will pass on your thoughts on this, so the team can take this into consideration for future announcements.

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

---

@vinylscot wrote:

Are there any updates on how SD will cope with multiple orders / combined shipping, etc.?

Obviously, the current shambles can not continue.

---

Hi @vinylscot ,

I understand the frustration with having this available. It is currently being worked on and as soon as we have the update on it we will update the community.

Thank you,

Kat

[vinylscot]

Thanks for the reply kat@eBay I'm sure you agree with so many posters that the whole Simple Delivery project should not have been rolled out until this aspect was fully developed and integrated.

It's extremely bad planning on eBay's part.

[dave@ebay]

---

@phillsvinyl wrote:

Thanks for this Dave.

Then given the fact that so many people are very annoyed about what has transpired over the last few weeks  - charges - post -simple this - extra payments for buyers to pay  - when are eBay actually going to listen to the users that use the platform?

---

Hi @phillsvinyl 

The feedback from across the forum is shared with the relevant teams and many of them read through the forums themselves.  

In some cases, changes are made based on the feedback but sometimes it's not possible. We will continue to pass sentiment as it can help shape future updates to the site. 

Thanks,

Dave

[letpigsfly]

Can you explain why Simple Delivery was rolled out when it is full of bugs, is not yet fully functional with a full compliment of couriers, there are absolutely zero benefits to it for the seller (despite what eBay says) , the combined postage does not work and the guidelines are not clear or finalised? Nevermind that clearly it was not requested by buyers or sellers and the feedback from everyone has been blanket hatred of the system. 

Why was it rolled out despite this?

[debbidooda]

‘Simple’(!) Delivery is making things more complex, time-consuming and complicated for private sellers, who already have the most efficient and adequate method worked out for sending their items, to suit their own lifestyle, location and circumstances.

We wish to retain this one little piece of autonomy (choosing where, what and how we arrange delivery) – now, even that is being removed from us.  Simple Delivery should be optional, not enforced on us.

I will not be spending any money on ebay for the foreseeable future and have paused my listings, due to imposition of ‘Simple’ Delivery mandatory policy change – and (from messages on these boards, social media and forums elsewhere), it seems I am not the only one.  Private sellers are delisting and defecting to other selling platforms.  If these actions are a reflection of the general trend, then ebay UK have a problem.

Losing private sellers will mean less options for private buyers; less buyers will then affect business sellers.

My question is:

Are management worried or concerned about this?

[iansims]

This should also have size options as you can see only one is available.

[marco@ebay]

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@letpigsfly wrote:

Can you explain why Simple Delivery was rolled out when it is full of bugs, is not yet fully functional with a full compliment of couriers, there are absolutely zero benefits to it for the seller (despite what eBay says) , the combined postage does not work and the guidelines are not clear or finalised? Nevermind that clearly it was not requested by buyers or sellers and the feedback from everyone has been blanket hatred of the system. 

Why was it rolled out despite this?

---

Hi letpigsfly, thanks for your post.

I understand that not all carriers are included yet, but the plan is to start adding more carrier, while we don't an estimated time, this will come eventually. However, thanks for your feedback on this, we understand this is not a small change for sellers, so regardless of the feedback being negative or positive, we appreciate you expressing your concerns. Ultimately, to answer the question, it has been rolled out as it is considered fit for purpose and we can see it working ok, but as advised before we are taking all feedback possible to improve it and make it better or easier if at all possible.

Thank you,

Marco

[wintersdawn1]

Please give one example where there is a 20% saving in simple delivery postage costs for the buyer/seller?  Thank you.