Remote Locations Courier Surcharge

[tiship78]

If a buyer selects Evri (or other courier) but lives in a remote location, why doesn't the extra cost get flagged to the buyer? Had one the other day, buyer selected Evri at £2.94 and paid, postage for me was £5.46!! Swapped to Royal Mail at £3.45, so was still out of pocket. 

[xyz307xyz]

If it's the item I think it is, it wasn't Simple Delivery, so you could have put in £4, £5, £6 as the postage.

Or have you created a postage policy (or similar which I don't know about) which is supposed to adjust the postage according to the delivery address (meaning my first line is incorrect)?

[thepillenwerfer]

For Simple Delivery you can choose to only use Royal Mail so no surcharge.  You can also block Buyers from remote locations, which is what I used to do on the old system if I listed something that was too big for RM.

Of course the easiest thing is to let the Buyer pay the postage rather than offering it 'free.'

Actually I don't think Buyers have a choice on which courier delivers their purchase if the Seller has both RM and Evri selected.  When buying from Private Sellers recently the only choice I've been given is between Standard and Express Delivery with no mention of who will be making it.  Of course it may just happen that the Sellers I've dealt with have chosen to use either one of RM or Evri exclusively.

[3942rick2005]

I have found that Standard Delivery has always been Evri and Express is RM24 in the last few purchases that I have made. ( I have been alternating them to see which carrier is used) I know that this is not definitive but so far it has been true. Why it cannot be stated clearly by ebay is beyond me other than it is to drum up support for their preferred partner (evri) being the cheapest and buyers tend to go for the cheapest without thinking.

[tiship78]

I only have simple delivery as my option for postage, which is a choice of Evri and/or Royal Mail, and the cost is usually £2.94 for Evri or £3.45 for RM Tracked 48 for shoebox size under 1kg, there are no other alternatives for SD. I also couldn’t predict a sale to Northern Ireland, yes, I could’ve excluded, but didn’t realise that the postage would be anything other than what I was being shown. I would just have thought that when the sale is made eBay knows the postcode, shouldn’t the increased postage be shown to the buyer before they paid for the service they chose? I was alerted of the increase in postage after the buyer had paid the lower figure. 

[tiship78]

I did let the buyer pay the postage, but they were able to pay the Evri cost which was £2.94, but when I came to print the label it was £5.46 for me because of the buyer being in Northern Ireland. As eBay would know the postcode, surely the buyer should get a revised postage cost before they pay? Just like I did 🤷‍ I swapped to Royal Mail to pay the lower figure for me of £3.45, but still out of pocket slightly as buyer only paid £2.94 as that was the cost they were given by eBay. I don’t know why they had to fix something that wasn’t broken!!!

I think I may just exclude remote areas in future.  

[xyz307xyz]

I don't know which item it is but I thought it might be the voyox which wasn't doesn't have SD, just straight Evri.

[thepillenwerfer]

Sorry, I'm not following this.  If the Buyer pays the postage, ie it isn't "free", e-Bay send you a label.  Are you saying that e-Bay charged you even though you'd selected "Buyer pays"?  If that is the case then you have every right to be vexed.

However I don't see how the old system would have been better.  I used to use Hermes, as it was at the time, and once had a Buyer from Belfast so the amount I'd added for postage wasn't enough.  In that case I sent the item in question by Royal Mail, which was still slightly over the charge but by less than it would have been had I paid the extra to Hermes.  Following that I blocked Buyers in remote areas.  Since Royal Mail lowered their prices I've used them and been happy to sell to Buyers anywhere in the UK.

[ruby*ryan]

My very first SD sale was to a 'remote' area via Evri. The buyer just paid the standard 2.94, with no comeback to them or myself for any extra payment - and the item was delivered in time.

If you are not using SD you can set up a Postage Rate Table in your postage settings, so you can charge, for example, £3 regular, with remote areas at £5.75, and the buyer will see whichever rate is applicable to them.