eBay

abbotstamps · ‎20-04-2025

I made a complaint to the CMA. It was answered in 10 days

Specifically my complaint was aimed at small lightweight items that can be sent letter or large letter post. This is basically covered by Royal Mails Universal Service Obligation which means that it is one price anywhere in the UK, including NI, Isle of Man , Channel Islands, Highlands and Islands etc and this method of postage is VAT exempt as is signed for and Special Delivery Guaranteed.

EBAY have made a small adjustment.

In simple delivery the following exception has appeared

Opting out

From 15 April, Simple Delivery will be the only delivery method available for private sellers who list eligible items on eBay.co.uk. The option to opt out will only be available for items under £10 and weighing 100g or under.

For buyers that have to use some type of parcel post EBAY may be cheaper. It would seem from various forum posts that in some cases Simple delivery will just NOT work.

However they are still trying to impose a Vatable service on small letter post items over £10, This is detrimental to the seller and buyer where it costs only 87p to post 2nd Class. That is the main basis of my complaint and that it imposes unfair terms on sellers and forces prices up for buyers. It is always a balance as to when a tracked service is used by the seller. I now tend to limit this to letter post items totalling over £30.

The other issue is that I use stamps and the Post box is 125 metres away. Why should I have to go to the Post Office to post anything.

Unfortunately this is typical of the unenlightened senior management that run EBAY especially the CEO in the US who has very little or no retail expertise and who, at the moment , is running scared of the shareholders because profit declined over 38% in the y/e 31/12/2024. I do not know if there were any exceptional items that contributed to that decline.

As I have previously stated per Capita (population) the UK is EBAY's largest market. Therefore it is quite possible to make life uncomfortable for the top brass.

They need someone who is experienced in all aspects of retail and who can understand the differences in each and every category of items sold and by whom. Until they do, in my opinion, their profit will continue to decline. After all EBAY really is only a sophisticated software program that connects buyers and sellers. They are now facing competition from the likes of Vinted, Depop, Etsy etc in the UK .

Their complacency in keeping high selling fees drove many people away. and is continuing to do so.

One of the problems faced is listing fees, which is a problem mainly for businesses turning over £12,000 to approx. £40,000. A buy it now listing for a business flips over monthly. Every time it does so a relisting fee is charged unless you are paying inclusive of VAT £524 per month for an anchor shop. If your listing is unique for 1 item only that is a hideous monthly expense. I have 1500 virtually unique listings with 1 item only. Another seller might have 150 items but have 10 items of each one. I think in this case the monthly flip over would only attract fees on 150 listings.

EBAY you business is built on retail foundations , so please learn to understand retail and stop putting up barriers to smaller sellers whose turnover may well be between £3000- £8000 per annum.

papso22 · ‎21-04-2025

So what did the CMA say?

abbotstamps · ‎22-04-2025

The more people who complain to the CMA the better. In my opinion EBAY are inflicting unfair terms and certainly disadvantaging the buyers.

Thank you for your recent correspondence about ebay UK.

We value people contacting us with information. This helps us to tackle anti-competitive behaviour and protect people and businesses from being disadvantaged by unfair practices.

Please be aware that the CMA has no powers to take action or open a case on behalf of an individual customer or business (for example; to pursue compensation, refunds, or to intervene or adjudicate in disputes).

What happens now?

Our Intelligence Team will now analyse your enquiry using our published prioritisation principles. We prioritise the cases that are most likely to make a real difference for people and the UK economy based on our available resources and the likelihood of a successful outcome.

Can I get an update on my enquiry?

We are unable to give you an update on your enquiry. We find all enquiries useful to inform our current and future work. However, we offer no guarantee as to where or how your enquiry may be used.

Will the CMA investigate my enquiry?

We review all the enquiries that we receive. This helps us to understand:

whether different industries in the UK economy are competitive
if competition law is being broken
if shoppers or businesses are being disadvantaged.

Even if we don’t immediately investigate your enquiry, it may lead to us taking further action in the future.

4minutemile · ‎21-06-2025

It is unacceptable for any item in the Stamps Category to be posted by Simple Delivery.

Philatelists expect to receive stamps on the envelope that is posted. I can't even opt out of Simple Delivery for sub-£10 items.

Moreover, I have a very large stock of stamps for postage that I need to use up that are already paid for.

Simple Delivery needs to be axed from the Stamps Category.

If you are going to force me to buy labels I will still continue to use postage stamps and bin the labels. But ofcourse, the buyer will be paying for postage twice.

4minutemile · ‎21-06-2025

1. Competition law is being broken because I cannot choose with whom I post.

2. Shoppers and sellers are being disadvantaged.

How can ebay reasonably expect philatelists and postal historians to post using plain, boring printed labels when they are posting to people who collect stamps?

4minutemile · ‎21-06-2025

If ebay does not backout of Simple Delivery and allow us to post the way that we want to I will go back to selling the old-fashioned way that existed before ebay. Will go back to the auction houses and abandon ebay altogether.

edwardian-dreams · ‎21-06-2025

Stamps are exempt

the question for eBay to answer is why it isn’t possible to list them with custom delivery

even a we haven’t got round to sorting yet would suffice or because were staggering mandatory simple delivery some people have custom others don’t

its not good enough

instead of sitting there watching people struggle day in day out and wasting their time

and saying nothing when they know full well what the issues must be

fotherbale · ‎21-06-2025

The exemption comes with significant restrictions. As with all other exempt categories, stamps are only exempt where the listing is valued at £10 or under and fits within the Letter size category with a total weight of 100g or less.

Quite often people will be buying larger quantities, more valuable stamps (or quantities of stamps) which sell for more than £10, or may be contained within albums or stockbooks that will exceed both the size and weight for a letter.

I would also note that whilst philatelists are always pleased to recieve a package with an array of stamps used for the postage, nowadays the unfortunate reality is that unless posted at a Post Office counter that takes the trouble to hand cancel the stamps properly before consigning them to the mail bag (the majority don't), the stamps invariably either don't get cancelled, so are disappointing for a collector, or are cancelled by being defaced with a ballpoint pen or a Sharpie, which renders them philatelically worthless.

4minutemile · ‎22-06-2025

Mint no gum stamps still have value. They are not philatelically worthless. You would know that if you were a collector. Moreover, pen marks do not devalue stamps when collectors know that postmarks are rarely used.

4minutemile · ‎22-06-2025

Stamps are exempt when the value is below £10. But the ebay software inflicts Simple Delivery where it says it does not. I have actually complained about this by telephone and they said that they were trying to fix it. But it's been a week now and I've heard nothing back from them.

ebay is dying a death of a thousand cuts and it totally deserves to.

4minutemile · ‎22-06-2025

It makes no difference if you list for less than £10 and at a lower weight because you are only offered Simple Delivery in the Stamps category.

I just had a delivery of five albums in one lot from Australia. The sender used stamps. ebay will work their way around to Australia eventually. Would I have bought that lot knowing that I would not get real stamps on the wrap. No I would not because I paid quite a lot for the postage. ebay expects us to pay even more for the postage and we get no stamps on the packet.

ebay will get fewer sales and there's little motivation for philatelists to engage with ebay. I've already listed quite a lot that I would like to sell.

** I WILL NOT LIST NEW STAMP OR POSTAL HISTORY LOTS ON EBAY WHILE WE'RE FORCED TO USE SIMPLE DELIVERY. I'LL JUST KEEP RELISTING WHAT I'VE ALREADY LISTED. I'M GOING TO SELL FUTURE LOTS USING OTHER SERVICES WHERE I CAN USE REAL STAMPS FOR POSTAGE. I WILL ONLY LIST NEW LOTS ON EBAY THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH STAMPS OR POSTAL HISTORY. I WILL ALSO BUY LESS BECAUSE RECEIVING STAMPS ON THE PACKET MAKES A DIFFERENCE. MOREOVER, SIMPLE DELIVERY COSTS MORE THAN POSTAGE STAMPS.**

4minutemile · ‎23-06-2025

Due to the lack of responsiveness from ebay to telephone calls and completely ignoring what's said on this forum I have registered with a specialist website that doesn't charge commissions to buyers (only to sellers) that I know is very popular and have started listing there.

I'm not putting up with ebay anymore. I will keep relisting what is already listed here. But I'm not listing any new lots in the stamps section. ebay does not deserve philatelists or postal historians.

fotherbale · ‎06-07-2025

@4minutemile wrote:
Mint no gum stamps still have value. They are not philatelically worthless. You would know that if you were a collector. Moreover, pen marks do not devalue stamps when collectors know that postmarks are rarely used.

I have been a collector for something over 50 years, and I know very well that to longstanding serious philatelists a used but uncancelled stamp is of no real interest. They can serve as placeholders until a properly cancelled stamp is found to take its place, but that is all. There are ample first day cancellations available for genuine philatelists to place a properly cancelled stamp in their collection (although many will also view these as only place holder as many FDCs are cancelled-to-order and therefore not genuinely postally used). I do realise that some more recent collectors do try to make a case for them having value, but frankly they are 'barking at the moon', and there are a lot of philatelists who disagree with them.

There are older stamps for which it can be a sensible move to remove any gum from a mint stamp to avoid the drying and cracking of old type gum which can result in damage to the stamp. In this case a mint without gum stamp is acceptable and worth no less as a result.

Cancellation by ballpoint pen renders the stamp philatelically worthless for the simple reason that literally anybody can take an unused stamp, stick it to an envelope and strike it across with a ballpoint pen without them having been anywhere near a postman. If you want to put a value on such stamps, that is your choice, but don't expect everyone else to grant them anything remotely approaching the value of a genuinely postally used and properly cancelled stamp.

xyz307xyz · ‎07-07-2025

Postally valid stamps are prohibited from SD, no matter what value, size/weight of package.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/posting-items/setting-postage-options/simple-delivery?id=5575#se...

Unless things have changed recently there is no way to list SD prohibited items with custom postage.

You can try my method: https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Simple-Delivery-failed-now-a-test-case-worried/m-p/78... I suggest trying it on only a small number of items to begin with/at a time, in case ebay "contact you" about it. Since I wrote it, you can now update the tracking number on the all orders page (apparently).

4minutemile · ‎08-07-2025

Nicely written.

Unfortunately, we still can't avoid Simple Delivery in the stamps category for items under £10. I've already started listing on another website and will allow what's listed to run and run without listing any new items.

ebay deserves to be punished for complacency and lack of emotional intelligence.