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
Simple Delivery
Simple Delivery just isn’t working! There are a number of issues which need resolving and unless they get fixed, eBay will see an even greater number of customers jumping ship. The issues are:
1. Being overcharged for postage.
Last week, as documented by many others on the forum, postage rates changed overnight, resulting in customers being overcharged for postage. The current rate at the time for Medium Parcel 1-2kg was £3.44, and yet I was charged £5.15. I have still not received my refund, simply a string of excuses (lies) as to why I was charged the inflated rate. This links in with...
2. Discrepancy between quoted rates and actual rates.
Prior to the 20th May, the quoted rates for SD were as follows:
But what customers are actually seeing/paying are as follows:
0-1kg small and medium parcel RM Only £3.64
1-2kg small and medium parcel RM only £5.15
Up to 10kg RM only £6.65
Up to 20kg RM only £10.80
3. Discrepancy between quoted weights and actual weights.
The options on the ‘Package Size’ pop up menu don’t match the quoted options available. Compare the screen shot below with the one above.
4. No Small Parcel rate
eBay states that from 20th May a new, Small Parcel rate, would be introduced. This does not appear to have happened (see previous screenshot).
5. No option to accommodate large/heavy items:
Unlike some customers, I do not have the option to override SD for large or heavy items. Therefore, I am not able to sell anything which does not fit within the Medium Parcel dimensions. Previously, there had been a link in the ‘Package Size’ pop up menu to look at custom options for sending larger or heavier items. Check out the screenshot from message 13 in this thread for what other customers can see. There is also no option for Collection Only. I created a test listing for a used chair, and still the only options available were those shown in the screenshot above. No option for large or heavy items, and no option for collection only.
6. No option for <£10, <100g Letter items.
I have 3 listings which fall into this category, but again, there is no option to override SD and benefit from being able to arrange my own postage.
The item numbers are:
326452821275
326450425711
326450424789
I really don’t like to be critical, but this is a mess. In fact, it’s shambolic. The simplest solution would be to switch Simple Delivery off until it is 100% working correctly - for all customers. You cannot have people being charged different rates for the same service, especially when those rates are significantly above the rates payable if we were to buy postage directly from Royal Mail.
As it currently stands, I have marked myself as ‘Away’ on eBay as there is no acceptable reason why anyone (buyers or sellers) should be paying £5.15 to post an item (albeit medium parcel) which only costs £3.45 in postal charges (small parcel) if purchased through RM’s Click and Drop website. This is particularly relevant as I have a number items for sale with an asking price of less than £5.15! As I send all items free-post to buyers, I’d end up owing eBay money on each sale. Where’s the sense in that?
Display Error with Listing Titles
Apologies for highlighting further errors, but just spotted today, in the website version of eBay UK, if you click to view a listing, the title is displayed with random characters. I have tried two different browsers on my laptop and one on my mobile and the same error occurs. Have cleared the cache and rebooted the devices. Not sure if anyone else is seeing this issue? Error does not occur in the app.
Item number 326584091582 in gallery view (just happens to be one of my own listings):
Same item in listing view:
Three other random listings to check out:
197304571479
177111077299
226658178068
@jjambadger27 wrote:
Can any of the eBay reps explain what's going on with the UK-US Global Shipping Programme situation? Some sellers have reported that the US is once again showing up for them as a GSP option for shipping, but this is clearly not happening for others. When will it resume for all items?
Hi @jjambadger27 ,
At the moment GSP should be blocked to the US. The team is currently updating the system to reflect some US policy requirements.
If you have any examples of it showing on listing, please forward them to me and I'll have a look.
Thanks,
Dave
Did you find your solution? Help other members by marking your problem as solved. Simply click on "Accept as solution" for the answer that helped you.
@cz1266 wrote:
Hi and good afternoon,
Is it still ok to put a clickable link in an item's html description to another ebay item that you are selling?
Regards Charlie
Hi cz1266, thanks for your question.
I believe this is no longer allowed due to security reasons, but I will double check for you just to confirm, let me just double check that for you and as soon as I get confirmation, I will let you know here. 👍
Thank you,
Marco
Did you find your solution? Help other members by marking your problem as solved. Simply click on "Accept as solution" for the answer that helped you.
@mygaras wrote:
Display Error with Listing Titles
Apologies for highlighting further errors, but just spotted today, in the website version of eBay UK, if you click to view a listing, the title is displayed with random characters. I have tried two different browsers on my laptop and one on my mobile and the same error occurs. Have cleared the cache and rebooted the devices. Not sure if anyone else is seeing this issue? Error does not occur in the app.
Item number 326584091582 in gallery view (just happens to be one of my own listings):
Same item in listing view:
Three other random listings to check out:
197304571479
177111077299
226658178068
Hi mygaras, thanks for flagging this with us.
We're aware of this, this is confirmed as a technical issue from our end, so I will add your account as one of the impacted accounts, so that can be resolved as soon as possible for you. 👍
Thank you,
Marco
Did you find your solution? Help other members by marking your problem as solved. Simply click on "Accept as solution" for the answer that helped you.
@mygaras wrote:
Simple Delivery
Simple Delivery just isn’t working! There are a number of issues which need resolving and unless they get fixed, eBay will see an even greater number of customers jumping ship. The issues are:
1. Being overcharged for postage.
Last week, as documented by many others on the forum, postage rates changed overnight, resulting in customers being overcharged for postage. The current rate at the time for Medium Parcel 1-2kg was £3.44, and yet I was charged £5.15. I have still not received my refund, simply a string of excuses (lies) as to why I was charged the inflated rate. This links in with...
2. Discrepancy between quoted rates and actual rates.
Prior to the 20th May, the quoted rates for SD were as follows:
But what customers are actually seeing/paying are as follows:
0-1kg small and medium parcel RM Only £3.64
1-2kg small and medium parcel RM only £5.15
Up to 10kg RM only £6.65
Up to 20kg RM only £10.80
3. Discrepancy between quoted weights and actual weights.
The options on the ‘Package Size’ pop up menu don’t match the quoted options available. Compare the screen shot below with the one above.
4. No Small Parcel rate
eBay states that from 20th May a new, Small Parcel rate, would be introduced. This does not appear to have happened (see previous screenshot).
5. No option to accommodate large/heavy items:
Unlike some customers, I do not have the option to override SD for large or heavy items. Therefore, I am not able to sell anything which does not fit within the Medium Parcel dimensions. Previously, there had been a link in the ‘Package Size’ pop up menu to look at custom options for sending larger or heavier items. Check out the screenshot from message 13 in this thread for what other customers can see. There is also no option for Collection Only. I created a test listing for a used chair, and still the only options available were those shown in the screenshot above. No option for large or heavy items, and no option for collection only.
6. No option for <£10, <100g Letter items.
I have 3 listings which fall into this category, but again, there is no option to override SD and benefit from being able to arrange my own postage.
The item numbers are:
326452821275
326450425711
326450424789
I really don’t like to be critical, but this is a mess. In fact, it’s shambolic. The simplest solution would be to switch Simple Delivery off until it is 100% working correctly - for all customers. You cannot have people being charged different rates for the same service, especially when those rates are significantly above the rates payable if we were to buy postage directly from Royal Mail.
As it currently stands, I have marked myself as ‘Away’ on eBay as there is no acceptable reason why anyone (buyers or sellers) should be paying £5.15 to post an item (albeit medium parcel) which only costs £3.45 in postal charges (small parcel) if purchased through RM’s Click and Drop website. This is particularly relevant as I have a number items for sale with an asking price of less than £5.15! As I send all items free-post to buyers, I’d end up owing eBay money on each sale. Where’s the sense in that?
Hi @mygaras ,
Appreciate the details you have put together on your points for Simple Delivery. I will share these with our shipping team for review. The new rates were introduced on the 20th of May so I will need to get this checked if there has been a change to this. Also for those 3 items you have mentioned that fall under the £10 and 100g they also need to be specific categories so do check out the FAQ's here with the list of them.
Thank you,
Kat
