Private sellers are forced to use Simple Delivery even the items are less than £10

[ang-7348]

Starting this week, my private account can no longer choose Royal Mail or any custom delivery option when listing or revising items — only Simple Delivery is forced, even though all of my items are under 100 grams and worth less than £10. Anyone else having the same issue? Any solution?

[gi1b0]

At an overpriced forced tracking rate. Items under £20 are covered by Royal Mail yet eBay are forcing sellers to overpay on postage for a service they simply don’t need. Good luck if you have any stamps at home, you won’t be using them with eBay.

[captainsbadges]

I have the same problem, My items never weigh more than 100g so I can send second-class large letter at £1.55. Now with SD it is £2.72!! Hopefully this won't affect my sales. Who knows.

[mattdark86]

Glad to see I'm not the only one having issues.  Starting selling for the first time since this was introduced, and was unaware of the change to the system (No pop-ups or alerts about how it works)
Just the other day, had someone buy 2 items, so I combined them into a single parcel, and posted them off, only to find I cant confirm the dispatch or add the tracking number.
Feels like an extremely frustrating issue, and the helplines response was basically 'yeah, your not supposed to do that'...

[tressygirl]

Combining postage has been,  and frustrated many,  an issue now for a long time with Simple Delivery and combining postage,  it's just not possible.

If postage was purchased though Simple Delivery and you now post all the items together the buyer will receive a refund for the unused labels they paid for, might be worth sending them a message explaining this,  and that it may take up to / over 30 days for the refund to appear.  You will though,  only have one tracking number for all those items,  and a potential opener for  an item not received case.

If you need to do this again,  the best way forward would be to cancel all items, of course,  with the buyer's acceptance, and relisting them as one, so there's one  important tracking number, one postage price. Ensure any message to your buyer makes it very clear the reason why the items are being cancelled,  that they are to be relisted on eBay again,  for the buyer to buy, leave no room for doubt that this is Not an off eBay sale.

Some sellers are leaving a message on their listing,  for example.....   ' If you wish to buy multiple items,  please let me know before buying,  I will relist them as one listing so only one postage cost is charged, combining postage is not currently possible. '

I realise not ideal, if you want some reading matter the link below explains how Simple Delivery works:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/postage/simple-delivery?mkevt=1&mkpid=2&emsid=0&mkcid=8&bu=43952...

@mattdark86 

[johnsw19]

In absolute fairness to eBay I believe it has listened and we should applaud the following two corrections to its original change in policy…

1 making the buyer protection fee fair for low priced items 

2 allowing people to use custom postage on items under £20

I now believe eBay is keen to make this site better for sellers and in that spirit - and with a nod to some of the excellent posts on here - I believe two more changes are needed 

1 make it easier to combine postage on all purchases after a buyer has paid. It’s in all our interests for buyers not to be charged unnecessary postage 

2 allow buyers to select simple delivery even if custom postage is offered. Or at least allow sellers to offer both. Even on cheap items, some people and are prepared to pay for the tracked postage. More choice on delivery methods for buyers mean more sales!

[bill.payer]

I also find this extremely frustrating.

I have been ignoring the simple delivery option & shipping my items as I did previous using my own choice of courier. However, there is nowhere for me to add the tracking details, so all my orders permanently show 'delivery overdue' even though I have confirmed the were all delivered!

Come on eBay give us back the choice!

[brainuk]

That is a very dangerous state of affairs to be honest. Are you paying postage or does the buyer pay postage?

[dunstun365]

oh no I won't bother with cassette tapes on here then

[dunstun365]

yes & most music CDs & tapes are def not worth selling at £2.70 SD postage. small job lots are the only way around it  as postage will cost very little more than a single item

[dunstun365]

Whoever is responsible for the changes has a serious problem with the moral values of a shark they will NEVERR go to heven. Unfortunately there are no laws to stop corporations from ripping people off yet if a small seller does it they are soon reprimanded

[dunstun365]

why not become a business seller & do multiple choice listings to cut down on listing fees? I used to be a business seller but had to do small record job lots to make sure things sold quickly so I wasn't lumbered with huge listing fees which would have caused me to loose money. Sadly my business account (as well as my private) got hacked in to by some wierdos & ebay blocked them but only my private account was re-instated - maybe you were no-long allowed to have both. 

[dunstun365]

Why not try Discogs for records it's free to list although selecting the correct version of the record on the listings (takes some getting used to but no photos are required so sometimes quicker to list than ebay.

[dunstun365]

quote  'then claim back the cost of the labels from ebay.'

good luck with that.

[dunstun365]

I thought only business sellers were supposed to make a profit & there's no SD for them - yet 

[the-black-jackal]

"Your buyer has reached out about their order. Since you used Simple Delivery, we'll work with your buyer directly on any delivery related questions."

just deleted all my listings, got a buyer who has paid but ebay won't reveal his adress...clever business skills!

I don't have a smartphone for QR codes, item was under £10, insane.

[dunstun365]

and its impossible to compete against the likes of music magpie for media because they get postage much cheaper than SD

[dunstun365]

combining postage is also never been possible on amazon but at least buyers are not ripped off on postage prices which are set very low there

[dunstun365]

do you get the SD label costs back from ebay?

[podlingsmum2007]

You can see the address if you go to print the order. I do this on my tablet. I don't have a printer but when I click on print it gives me the choice to download it. Then I can see the address.

[saintetienne]

There was a point in time when eBay went after folk who over charged for excessive postage fees/costs. And as the old saying goes... "we have met the enemy and he is us"