Postage Preferences Courier EVRI ONLY SELECTED - but item has sold with Royal Mail?

[manyanslot]

Hi everyone.

I am new to selling on EBAY and have just sold my first item. I'm aware of all the "Simple Delivery" nonsense EBAY have introduced lately... Since I don't have a Phone for the QR code (at least not personally - my brother has, but I don't want to and can't ask for his help every time something sells) and I would prefer not print out the postage labels myself (I do have access to a printer, but I don't want to waste my own ink and paper if I can avoid it) so I decided to select EVRI as my only Courier option in Postage Preferences - which should make all my future individual listings EVRI only default. (I know many people dislike EVRI and will probably think it's a bad idea, but it's my choice so whatever).

I sold an item (within about 2 hours of activating it?!?!?!?! Excellent!!!!). The item is just a VHS (yes I sell these old out of date things - I don't care!) and the postage size is: Up to 1KG large letter (35cm x 25cm x 2.5cm), The thing is it's sold to send through as Royal Mail Tracking.

Erm, since I selected EVRI only on all my listings, can someone please explain why it has come through to send through Royal Mail.

I did notice on the Postage Preferences >>> Available Couriers settings page the note: There may be exceptions where preferred couriers are unavailable due to your location or package size. Having seen this I now kind of assume this means having Royal Mail Courier disabled is totally pointless if the Buyer can only use Royal Mail - lack of EVRI at their location or something? (The note above does say "unavailable due to your location" which to me is badly worded - does that mean Buyers location or Sellers location? Surely can't be lack of EVRI at "my" location - I think there is one just up the road from me!) Anyway apart from postage location limitations, surely buyers can not overide Sellers default saved Courier system? (Unless it's a bug in EBAY system or something).

Can anyone explain what is going on? (Or at least confirm what I suspected and frankly dreaded - sigh).

[thepillenwerfer]

I sounds like the Buyer is somewhere that Evri charge extra to deliver to — Northern Ireland, Scottish Highlands and Islands, Scilly Isles &c.

[manyanslot]

Nope - their address is Cambridge.

[xyz307xyz]

I suggest you contact customer services because looking at Vengeance on Varos that looks to be going RM also.

STNG 5.7 which is the latest I can see does too.

[sml192]

No idea why you have been provided with a Royal Mail label instead of Evri. 

There doesn't seem to be a logical reason for overriding your postage preferences which is rather concerning. 

In case you aren't aware it is now possible to book a collection with Royal Mail and get them to bring the label thus eliminating the need for either a smart phone or printer:

Booking a collection

If you have a Royal Mail label, you can book a collection on eBay. Royal Mail can then collect your item and also bring the label for you if you don't have a printer. You'll need to book the collection before you create your prepaid label. Here's how:

1. Go to Orders in My eBay.
2. Select the order you'd like to book a collection for.
3. Select Get prepaid label.
4. Choose the date for the collection.
5. Select Book collection.

Once you've booked your collection, you won't be able to change the date. If you miss your collection, you can book it again for another date on the Royal Mail website.

[manyanslot]

I have now temporarily selected both EVRI and Royal Mail as my Couriers. I've already had one item sold to Royal Mail + printed out the label for it, so I guess I might as well have both activated for the time being (even though I still don't like printing out the labels myself - but never mind that for the time being).

Oh and now I've had another sale with Royal Mail = "Star Trek The Next Generation - Volume 5.7" [VHS]. Was that you xyz307xyz who bought that? If not it's just a very weird coincidence you happened to mention it before and now it's sold!

Anyway, you said my latest listed items are going Royal Mail (this is before I changed my postage settings to allow both EVRI and Royal Mail). Well... this is probably a really stupid question but just where did (do) you see that items are going to so-and-so Postage Service (from a Buyers point of view I mean)? I have looked at my listing pages (as if I was a Buyer) and as far as I can see the listing pages don't show that information - the most I can see is:

Postage: Standard Tracked Delivery - Estimated between... (so-and-so)

Postage: Free postage

Express Tracked Delivery  - Estimated between... (so-and-so)

Postage: £3.30

Incidentially, is Express delivery supposed to show up on all Sellers listing pages? I have not selected Express as an option anywhere in my Seller Settings (as far as I know). 

Or do you find out a listings Postage Preferences when you click on the "Buy It Now" button (or somewhere else like that)?

Ach, I am soooooo noob to everything Ebay - I only started selling a couple of days ago!

[manyanslot]

Yes I know I can book collections. I might consider that as an option, but I will look into that later.

[xyz307xyz]

No I didn't buy it. But my thoughts and their influence spreads throughout the galaxy.

See the (likely*) two postage services by using Contact Seller on the item page and then expanding the Postage option. See below. The first is standard and second express (in all that I have seen). I've not seen any mention that a seller can only list with Standard (nor only with Express.) It's always possible that when the item is being sold, ebay will choose a different postage option - most likely scenario is if the delivery address more suited to a particular carrier.

e.g.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/cnt/FindAnswers?ShowSellerFAQ=&item_id=127200017189

It's badly formatted so I have added colouring to show the two different options. e.g. 

Postage to:
Postage service: Evri Standard - Dropoff
Estimated delivery: 3-7 working days after seller receives cleared payment. Postage service: Royal Mail Tracked 24 - Any Dropoff Estimated delivery: 3-7 working days after seller receives cleared payment.

[manyanslot]

OK, thanks for the information.

One thing though: to see postage services information through "contact seller" link on listing pages, it is possible to see the postage information from other Sellers listings, but that won't work for our own listings. What I mean is this:

If we (as if we are a buyer) open listing page of a product from another Seller, click on "contact seller" link, (login to ebay), the page that loads is (the one you mentioned):

***not full real link - just using as example***: https://www.ebay.co.uk/cnt/FindAnswers?ShowSellerFAQ=&item_id=.................... 

(a.k.a the "Find Answers" page - with pull-down menus for "Details About this Item" + "Postage" + "Returns")

If we (as if we are a buyer) open a listing page that we made ourselves, click on "contact seller" link (bit crazy but there is method to this madness), (login to ebay), the page redirects to is:

***not full real link - just using as example***: https://www.ebay.co.uk/cnt/ViewMessage......................

(a.k.a the Sellers Account "Messages" page)

Basically my point is I would like to see the information showing what my Postage Courier options are on my own listing pages (as if I were a Buyer). We can see that kind of information on other Sellers listing pages, but not for our own listing pages - except for if we log into out Seller accounts and edit our listings....

The thing is though, this kind of goes back to my original point of this topic thread - I originally removed Royal Mail as Postage Courier option for my listings, but I don't know how and why people were still somehow seeing and using Royal Mail as a Postage Courier option for my listings.

Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter now though - I have now kind of decided to go all "print out my own labels" (even though I don't like wasting ink and paper). And since I'm doing this I think I can now safely have both Royal Mail and EVRI activated as Postage Courier options (no need to worry about not using one or the other due to me not having a Phone for the QR code image, or the Courier not having QR printing machine thingy, or whatever).

Thanks anyway everyone for your help.

Now I just wish I had set the "Package Sizes" for all my listings correctly... I have fixed all my listings now (I think) but I've sold two items so far in the past couple of days since I started selling, and... er.... I kind of set the wrong "Package Sizes" for them. They went "Large Letter - 35cm x 25cm x 2.5cm" instead of "Small Parcel - 45cm x 35cm x 16cm" but I had already made pre-paid Royal Mail labels for them and "Simple Delivery" dispatched them before I noticed.

What happens when products aready dispatched get accidentally sent with the wrong "Package Sizes", anyway? Do EBAY just auto adjust the postage costs or something? The buyers who bought my two products got "free postage", so I paid for the postage costs as "Large Letter - 35cm x 25cm x 2.5cm" for each - so do EBAY just auto fix this mistake and make the postage costs and size "Small Parcel - 45cm x 35cm x 16cm"?

Sigh, "Simple Delivery" - a complete contradiction.

[sml192]

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@manyanslot wrote:

Basically my point is I would like to see the information showing what my Postage Courier options are on my own listing pages (as if I were a Buyer). We can see that kind of information on other Sellers listing pages, but not for our own listing pages - except for if we log into out Seller accounts and edit our listings....

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to see the carriers that are actually being used for your own listings as it may vary depending on the buyer's location.

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@manyanslot wrote:

What happens when products aready dispatched get accidentally sent with the wrong "Package Sizes", anyway? Do EBAY just auto adjust the postage costs or something? The buyers who bought my two products got "free postage", so I paid for the postage costs as "Large Letter - 35cm x 25cm x 2.5cm" for each - so do EBAY just auto fix this mistake and make the postage costs and size "Small Parcel - 45cm x 35cm x 16cm"?

EBay's contract with the carriers is based on averages rather than actuals so any size/weight discrepancies aren't an issue provided the item is within the maximum dimensions permitted by the carrier.  

[xyz307xyz]

Easiest answer to the first question/only one I can think of - create another ebay account.

Note you can print Evri labels at some Evri drop off points. You need the 6 character PIN.

Another member has reported (yesterday, I think) that with Simple Delivery Royal Mail, you can now book the collection - and have them bring the label with them. Different members do see different things, also on different browsers, using the app etc. But worth looking out for if you are going through the RM SD process anyway (if that is of benefit.)

[xyz307xyz]

With the sizing, you should select the correct size when listing. For the two already sold, the theory is that Royal Mail will still deliver them and sort it out with ebay. I doubt they do this per packet, I would guess they take an average (possibly on a sample, if they don't automatically weigh items) and either surcharge ebay or more likely (I'm guessing) just use it to renegotiate prices next time they are doing so.

And if you printed the label RM Simple Delivery labels at home, I doubt they had the size or weight on them anyway.

(In the early days of SD, a fair number of people did get rejections/surcharges as people at the PO/RM didn't know about SD. I think it's less now.)

[thepillenwerfer]

I can confirm that home-printed RM labels do not state a weight, size or amount paid.

[sml192]

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@xyz307xyz wrote:

With the sizing, you should select the correct size when listing. For the two already sold, the theory is that Royal Mail will still deliver them and sort it out with ebay. I doubt they do this per packet, I would guess they take an average (possibly on a sample, if they don't automatically weigh items) and either surcharge ebay or more likely (I'm guessing) just use it to renegotiate prices next time they are doing so.

With a contract the size of eBay's they definitely won't be adjusting on a per packet basis.  Any discrepancies will just be monitored and, as you say, taken into consideration when it is time for the contract to be reviewed/renogtiated. 

[brainuk]

This is only true if the item is sold under the Simpleton Delivery system. Not all seller's items have been transferred across. If the item is sold under the old pre SD system, and the seller prints off a label it will tell you size and weight.

[sml192]

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@brainuk wrote:
This is only true if the item is sold under the Simpleton Delivery system. Not all seller's items have been transferred across. If the item is sold under the old pre SD system, and the seller prints off a label it will tell you size and weight.

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I would have thought that was pretty obvious really! 

[brainuk]

Not to everybody