Simple delivery headache

[bish38]

For the first time this evening simple delivery has been forced upon me.

i am a diligent and honest seller and normally add a small margin for packaging materials as a lot of my items require double boxing and some effort. I always use Royal Mail 48 tracked and have become fluent with it all. I sometimes negotiate combined orders and now ebay have removed and cut out my way of working. I very disappointed and disillusioned with it all.

this is on top of the buyer protection ( which is really a buyer premium like a traditional auction house )  and its making the whole thing non- viable from what i can see. I’ll give it a go but i can see myself being out of pocket. These changes and their ripple effect are just making it all unnecessarily difficult and i may well quit.

[**peaseblossom**]

You can add a bit onto your item price for your packaging.   And if Royal Mail is your preference you can opt out of using Evri here:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf

But you're certainly not alone.   A lot of people are struggling and upset with this.   

[kd-vintage]

I agree, Simple Delivery is a pain in the butt for small items, adds a minimum charge of £2.72 for items I could post for £1.55 as a large letter via Royal Mail.

If I add the increased postage on to my items, people just wont buy!

Come on EBay, get your act together or you're going to lose a lot of sellers on here - you're not the only internet selling option!

[bish38]

Perhaps a way forward is to change to a business account and then not suffer the simple delivery, which is something that i have considered although I’m not a big seller in any shape or form.
This could of course open a whole new can of worms, such as getting used to new templates and pages etc……..
And once you change private to business you can’t go back.
It’s a one way ticket to a somewhere place that we might not like !
Apparently there are more S.D. changes happening on the 1st September / Monday.
Last time i sold anything was well over a month ago and it required combined postage and it was a bit of nightmare as I couldn’t do it because eBay wouldn’t let me, so much time taken up and wasted trying to keep a grumpy buyer happy trying to maintain my positive feedback.
And more recently I bought 2 items from the same seller and he had the same problem trying to combine and part refund and ebay wouldn’t let him do it, again loads of time wasted messaging and going round in circles. Total brain drain pain in the ass.
I got so cheesed off that for more than a month I haven’t even looked at eBay let alone sell anything.


Sent from my iPad

[micks-music-and-magazine-emporium]

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@bish38 wrote:
"Perhaps a way forward is to change to a business account and then not suffer the simple delivery, which is something that i have considered although I’m not a big seller in any shape or form."

Do you understand the legalities of calling yourself aa business when you aren't? 
You will have to complete annual tax returns, and if you are employed or draw a pension outside of your ebaying that will also be taken into consideration as combined income. Plus you will need to keep full records of transactions, expenses etc. Not to mention that legally (although most don't) if you run a business from your home then that should be declared and that has a whole new lot of ramifications ie insurance, council tax etc

Just claiming to be a business when you aren't to avoid simple delivery is really not a sensible option. 

As for combined postage: Any half informed buyer would contact a seller BEFORE purchasing multiple items to ask about combined postage if they were expecting it. Best thing to do is mention in your listing that you cannot combine postage so it is clear to all before purchasing, or do as I do and offer free postage, then there is no need for combined postage from the buyers point.

I have found simple delivery to be ok tbh, it even saves me postage costs as some SD prices are cheaper here than at the post office, that said, ebay could *bleep* it up by making more changes at any point.

There is also still the Custom Postage option for items under a certain price where you add the size and weight manually and don't have to send by SD

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[bish38]

Thanks for your helpful reply.
I did ask regarding combined postage in the instance i mentioned but i think the ebay changes had only just happened and it was the sellers first encounter with the issue.
Anyway, like everyone else I’ll just have to get used to it.


Sent from my iPad

[brainuk]

They're the only ones with a 1.2/5 star rating on Trustpilot though!!

[bish38]

It’s almost unbelievable, the shockingly low Trustpilot score.
As a disgruntled private seller who’s been on strike / not selling for over a month I’ve just spent a wet and windy afternoon reading community posts.
Business sellers seem to be having loads of issues but obviously not the S.D.
Private sellers are having loads of issues.
Trustpilot poor score ( I’m assuming ) is only from buyers, so they’ve got issues.
What the *@+# is going on ?
Seems the more ebay try to improve it gets worse for users - buyers and sellers, so this must mean that the software engineers / brain boxes / designers are actually somehow
disconnected from the requirements to arrive at the required outcome.
It was much better a few years ago when an honest seller could look after a buyer.
Of course some sellers took advantage of the flexible way that eBay worked back then and things like being able to put a phone number in a listing and then cut ebay out of deal, and unscrupulous sellers sending dodgy stuff etc……etc…..so it seems to me that a lot of these recent changes are as much about protecting ebay ( which I completely understand ) as protecting buyers.
If was darts they’d be nowhere near the bullseye unfortunately.
Fingers crossed for better days.

Sent from my iPad