Yet Another Simple Delivery Complaint. Sorry.

[fuddyfudpucker]

Had a bit of a holiday from  eBay and have just jumped back in. I probably sell mostly Blu Rays and CD's from my own extensive collection. I only ever used Royal Mail for postage, choosing to drop off at my local Post Office. Padded envelopes are my preferred postal option and, depending on weight or value ( Usually always below £20 ), postage costs would be either be £1.55 ( Below 100g ) or £1.90 ( Over 100g ).  I used to be able to purchase postage at the Post Office and then I did start using the online option with a downloadable QR Code. Either option always gave me a proof of postage, not that I ever had cause to claim when using Royal Mail. All good.

So, apologies if already discussed, why is there an overcharging on Simple Delivery for what is exactly the same option that I was using before? A £12 sale will cost the buyer, or me, £2.72 now, whether under or over 100g in weight, yet compensation is still the same £20. If I just took a sale to the P.O.  and bought postage there, it would only be the true cost of sending it. What are eBay offering for an extra £1.17 that is so very special and are Royal Mail in on it?

I feel like I'm in one of my movies, where a hood walks into my shop and tells me I must pay him money or he'll ruin my business. It just doesn't seem very ethical to me.  Does anybody know if The Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis has had a sniff of this? If it is simply a case of eBay wanting to make more money, then at least be honest about it. I would prefer that they said, "We are going to reintroduce a selling fee" rather than the garbled non-sensical Simple Delivery that they have introduced, and seemingly they did so with a straight face.  

[thepillenwerfer]

e-Bay claim, though it's yet to be widely tested, that they cover Simple Delivery parcels against loss or damage up to £750 so you are gaining something, albeit something you don't need.

It certainly needs improving for very small items, and it's even worse for very big ones as they are plain impossible to send at any price.  The current system may suit a lot of people who, like me, generally sell various things of Small or Medium Parcel size but for those such as you who are clearing a personal collection of small items it's not very good.  Not paying Seller fees means you can lower your prices a bit and end up with the same amount as you would have in the past but you can't lower them enough to compensate for the Buyer Protection Fee AND a needlessly expensive postal service. 

[fuddyfudpucker]

Thanks for your input. Seems eNay, not a typo, can't seem to make up their mind lately. Just feels that the level I'm at as a seller are the ones they want to run out of town. 

[thepillenwerfer]

I've never subscribed to the — now long-standing — theory that e-Bay wants rid of Private Sellers; if they did they'd simply abolish Private accounts.  I think it's more down to lack of thinking things through.  It's also an American company and I wonder if Simple Delivery was dreamed up by somebody who doesn't really know how UK post works.

Your items are not silly-cheap but don't cost much to post and e-Bay is clobbering you.  Somebody selling tat for a pound or two that is more expensive to send is fine, in fact given that e-Bay are as likely to under-estimate postage as over-estimate it they are even assisting them.  That in spite of the fact that your items will make them more money either in the form of either the old Seller Fees or the new Buyer Protection Fee.

At least genuine Private Sellers can just hold onto their excess possessions and hope things improve and they'll be worth selling in the future.

[edwardian-dreams]

I always thought the buyer protection fee was stupid to be set at a blanket 75p 

should have been for items over a fiver say 

for low priced items like £1 plus the 4  it’s like a 100 increase on the price 

hardly gonna make eBay rich

well actually it probably will compared to fvfs on those items 

😐

[xyz307xyz]

Maybe you already know as you used £12 in your example but if a CD/DVD is no more than

-£10.00 excluding BPF,

-100g

-RM Large Letter size (including thickness)

you may be able to opt out of SD for that item. Some people can.

[infohelps]

Hopefully I haven't misunderstood your post, but I think that postage might be so much more expensive to you because postage through Simple (!) Delivery is tracked.  The RM prices you are quoting seem more like standard postage.  Some things are exempt from SD - but only if RM won't send it tracked.  For example, a postcard in an A5 envelope is too small/light for RM to offer tracking, so SD does not apply. 

As you've had a holiday from eBay, are you aware that you don't get paid until 2 days after delivery?  This is why SD sends everything tracked.  eBay want you to pay extra postage so that you can get paid more quickly.  Great idea isn't it?!  But bear in mind that if the post man at the other end doesn't scan that the item has been delivered you will still have to wait for your money even though you have paid for tracking. 

What with SD, BPF, holding onto payments, and all manner of horrors that you can read about on eBay's Trustpilot page, (19k+ unreplied to reviews, average 1.2 stars) you might (like me) want to make that holiday permanent. 

[thepillenwerfer]

The BPF may make e-Bay relatively rich if they were loosing money on some transactions under the old system.  Obviously I don't have the information to know what they pay in credit card processing fees and the like but a lot of costs are going to be the same if something sells for 99p or £99.  There have been lots of Sellers over the years who've remarked on here that they get more hassle from Buyers of cheap items than more expensive ones.  If that translates into more work for e-Bay sorting them out it's easy to see why they'd make those types of sales more expensive to either cover those costs or discourage them from taking place.

The old Seller fees were 12.3% + 30p and had been since Managed Payments came in.  Prices in general have increased in that time so it's not surprising that e-Bay have increased theirs.  The only other price rises I can think of were when e-Bay started taking a cut of the postage cost and PayPal upped the fixed part of their fee from 20p to 30p.

Prior to Managed Payments e-Bay took 10% and PayPal 2.4% + 30p.  Remember the squealing about Greed-Bay then simply because a lot of Sellers had previously thought they were only paying 10% to e-Bay, who had then raised it to 12.3%, failing to realise they'd also been paying PayPal and the new total was less. 

If the new arrangements aren't to your liking don't use e-Bay; whatever their faults, they don't employ press-gangs forcing people to.

[worribeads]

I've just done a live chat with customer service complaining that Custom Postage does not come up for  items that are eligible for it.  This is the suggestion of a "Workaround" (though why should a workaround be necessary if the system is working as described in Opt out of Simple Delivery?"

"A workaround to not use Simple Delivery would be to list your items as 1000GBP price and 120mm x 20mm x 20 mm in dimensions postage and the listings will be automated out of simple delivery, then after listed you can change the prices to what you want and custom postage size and the listings will still stay opted out of Simple Delivery."

If that makes sense to you, please reply!

[xyz307xyz]

Yes, I believe the main issue is the dimensions boxes are often hidden by default and defaulted to null or above large letter dimensions. If you put the price over £750, they should hopefully appear and you can enter the correct dimensions. You should be able to change the price back to under £750 even before listing and still have the custom postage retained.

[worribeads]

P.S. In the 2 listings of mine that you can see, I was able to get custom postage by following another member's workaround which was to list in Stamps - other thematics and explain in the description that the category was wrong because of a system fault.  But even that doesn't work now, presumably because the workaround was spotted and prevented!  I think ebay is playing games: it gives instructions for  Opting out of Simple Delivery but makes sure they don't work.  They are determined to make Simple Delivery the only option but all the complaints made them offer a "kind" (but very limited) Opt out.  They're just making sure the Opt out doesn't work! Customer service have claimed in an email that it's a technical fault and the Technical team is working on it with "high priority", but nothing changes for the better.  If anyone IS managing to get custom postage to come up for eligible items, please share YOUR workaround! 

[xyz307xyz]

What subcategory are you trying to list in, that you can't opt out of? Is it on the opt out subcat (examples) list?

[3942rick2005]

Customer services have jumped on my workaround and are now touting it as their solution! Pity I couldn't patent it and charge them every time they suggest it 🙂  (They would charge if they could)

Here is my solution as I posted it:  https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/how-do-you-list-anything-bigger-than-61cm/td-p/788244...

[worribeads]

That didn't work either!  The Package size box has only 3 options and they can't be altered.  A more detailed instruction would be appreciated. 

[3942rick2005]

Use my workaround, link above^^^^^^^^^^^

[worribeads]

I've tried stamps, coins, doll clothing, events tickets and more.  Please tell me which category works for you and I'll try it!    

[worribeads]

Thank you for your reply but I fear that doesn't help with my items that are Large letter size or less and under 100 grams!

[thepillenwerfer]

I'm all too ready to believe that it's a technical fault and the Technical team is working on it with "high priority" given e-Bay's long history of glitches and the length of time it takes to fix them, if ever. 

The biggest problem with Simple Delivery is that it obviously was neither fully thought through nor adequately tested before launching it.

[worribeads]

And don't you just love it when, after you've wasted a big chunk of time on useless emails and live chat, they tell you to have a great day!

[3942rick2005]

You cannot use any of these at all?

and the rest?