Another 'simple' delivery question.

[daveinbirkenhead]

I'm aware you can arrange a collection as a tiresome and lengthy separate step after the customer has paid for a label, but the arcane instructions on the help page say you can also drop off royal mail parcels at a post office.

My question is will ebay reimburse you for the additional costs you'll get charged for doing this, as the post office do charge extra for this service.

If you buy a postage label direct from royal mail website you'll get charged a different amount depending on if you're having it collected or dropping off at a post office. This is presumably because the post office is now an entirely separate company and charge RM a fee for handling their parcels.

Additionally the 'simple' delivery info states you won't be charged extra postage costs if you accept their weight and size suggestions for a sale but it turns out to be wrong. But Royal Mail charge the recipient a surcharge for underpaid items, not the sender. So how does this work because I know for a fact RM won't deliver any item that's oversized or overweight.

[jckl1957]

There is no additional cost for having your items collected.

I often use RM Click and Drop and, after I have bought labels, it always says 'Your item is eligible for free collection'.

I don't know why you think there will be a charge for having items collected or dropping them off at the Post Office - this has never been the case.  (I did work in the Post Office for two years.)

Ebay's arrangement means that parcels which are overweight will still be delivered without the buyer being charged.

I am not a cheerleader for Simple Delivery but for me, it is easier to adapt to the change on Ebay rather than start selling on a different site with new systems etc,

[john1297576]

I have seen a lot about  Post Offices refusing to accept packages with wrong label, and sellers having to buy a fresh label. That means if buyer bought the label in the first place, seller being very much out of pocket, having not received cost of label and having to buy a replacement.

I also saw that if label unused the buyer gets refunded, and I doubt many would pass on to seller, as there is no way to for this to be done through ebay.

[daveinbirkenhead]

I work for RM and we haven't been told to ignore underpaid ebay parcels. I can pretty much guarantee if the postage is wrong then they'll get surcharged as per the normal process. How would a postie know if the weight and size were entered manually by a seller or entered automatically by eBay.

And I know there's no fee for collection but there IS a fee for dropping off at a post office. 

[tobiasd4]

There is NO fee for dropping off at PO.

But, you may pay more to buy postage at PO than buying online.

Once bought online, you can still take to PO to get POP.

[jckl1957]

That is not actually a fee.

If, like me, you prefer to buy your RM Tracked 48 postage from the Post Office, rather than buying online, for example, by using RM Click and Drop, it is a bit more expensive.

For me, paying those few pennies is quicker and easier than filling in details on the RM website and printing a label.

However, that is a choice, not a fee.

There did used to be a fee, I believe, if you wanted to send your pre-paid Tracked 24/48 items from the Post Office, but that was ended over a year ago when the Post Office started selling labels for those services in branches.

Anyway, if you take your Ebay items to the Post Office, there will not be a drop off fee.