6th August

[sellingmystuff642]

So 6th August is when everything is supposed to switch to Simple Delivery, even existing listings. Not sure how that will work because I don't have dimensions or weights listed for any of my items. It will also be the day I take down my listings if it becomes mandatory and I can see myself buying very little in the future on ebay becuse the funds won't be there from sales. How to ruin a decent selling platform...

[vinylscot]

If an item with Simple Delivery issued labels is accepted into the networks, and is properly packed, eBay fully covers any claims for loss or breakage.

There is no "shortfall". eBay's contracts with RM/Evri are based on average weights  spread over literally millions of packages. As long as the average is maintained, the weights of individual packages don't matter, as long as they are within the maximum weight the carrier will accept.

You're fairly regular on these boards. I can't imagine you would have been unfamiliar with these basics. 

[moonlight-rhapsody]

What on earth do you mean "As you know you are completely wrong".  You do talk utter bunkum sometimes, vinylscot.  (I'm loving that term, by the way, thanks for introducing me to it).  Please don't tell me "what I know" - and I certainly know more than you think I do because although you might find this hard to believe, you don't know everything. 

"There have been no more than a few hundred different posters on these boards complaining about SD."

I can see that you prefer to make up figures rather than use factual ones, so you can blatantly refuse to accept factual figures if it pleases you, but I prefer to refer to facts.

[jokers_toybox]

I can answer this, eBay are, how do I know this? Because as a business if I send enough I can negotiate rates.

Royal Mail and Evri would have 100% done this, because eBay can send waaaaaaay more through an account than most businesses and it'll average out to cover most if not all of the costs involved so I imagine their rates are very cheap compared to the saving I get.

Don't assume they weight every parcel either, I have a friend who negotiated an average weight, so the bag/trolley gets weighed that is then divided by number of items to get a cost, 

Just another way costs can be negotiated if you have the power to do so. 

[honeymonster007]

Have been using SD since April, had a bumpy ride but just about got the hang of it now. Have a handful of items on custom post 2nd class but am thinking about switching them over to SD, will loose 90p odd a sale but will have piece of mind with them being delivered and being paid within a couple of days. At the min funds for one item wont be released until the 12th!

Looking in as a buyer ebay's strong for bargains and collectables, for run of the mill items its going to get slaughtered as the likes of the river offer that excellent delivery service, 2nd class every other day post just isnt going to cut it when you can get something the next day. Just my opinion though.  

[technthread]

eBay are going to take a lot of hits on the postage side and unfortunately it seems that there are a lot of no questions asked refunds going on for alleged damage to parcels but I expect they will tighten up. 

As a shareholder I’d look at the positive side of this where they are mitigating risk. Simple delivery and the integrated tracking makes some scams much harder to pull off.

It also forces certain types of private sellers who are really businesses to move to a business account to be able to operate as they can’t use the postage labels if they are dropshipping. Leaving aside the various issues there, it means more fees for eBay.

I think there is a good chance SD will be extended to business sellers in time in return for more protection with late delivery metrics as an incentive. As it stands it is very wonky that a private seller is so heavily protected with INR’s, adverse feedback relating to delivery and late delivery defects whilst the business sellers are far more exposed. Rather than make an essay of this I think people can guess the different side issues that eBay are fixing as you break it all down. 

I don’t mean to annoy private sellers, I know there are lots of valid issues with SD for some, I’m not treating those as insignificant, I just think eBay have decided some of their most loyal sellers who don’t want to use SD will have to drop by the wayside for the overall good of the site. 

[edwardian-dreams]

There’s a few legitimate reasons not to want to use sd

ie needing to send something valuable or not covered by carriers with special delivery when it’s not been clarified by eBay that any item sent will be compensated under SD

Another one is being forced to send a £2 item or example with tracked postage when it’s totally unnecessary 

theres also a  few reasons not to want it when forced to do so but when eBay says you don’t have to use it 

it’s messed up

in the main though for run of the mill stuff like small and medium parcels  sd is ok 

I won’t mention ebays incompetence at not fixing some weird problem that doesn’t allow people to send parcels larger than medium or easier than 20kg  that they ve had the best part of 7 weeks to grapple with it 

oh I just did 

[gjalp]

Ironically, I have zero late delivery defects on this ID (business) where I have full control of how and when I post and yet Im getting an uptick of late delivery defects on my private ID whereby ebay has the tracking number. Ive never posted late but deliveries have arrived past the EDD

[technthread]

I get the impression if their carriers take it you’re pretty much covered. There may need to be some test cases with certain valuables, I’ll accept if I’m wrong there. 

I’ve also heard that the dimensions of a parcel aren’t much of an issue. Private sellers are sending parcels above the RM limit, yes post offices may turn them away but the sellers who are getting home collection are finding RM take them without question. 

I totally accept the other points.

From the outside it seems that some private sellers are taking advantage of the looseness of SD and making it work for them.

[technthread]

I am putting a positive slant on it as it seems some really good sellers are about to jack it in and it would be a shame, eBay would lose part of its heart and soul. I do get it though, some sellers have made their mind up and I don’t want to come across as an out an out eBay apologist on this. 

[edwardian-dreams]

I get the impression if their carriers take it you’re pretty much covered. There may need to be some test cases with certain valuables, I’ll accept if I’m wrong there. 
I’ve not read anything here where eBay didn’t cover something under sd when lost or broken 

I only mentioned it because Kat at eBay said everything would be covered but ebays term as and conditions don’t confirm that 

I’ve also heard that the dimensions of a parcel aren’t much of an issue. Private sellers are sending parcels above the RM limit, yes post offices may turn them away but the sellers who are getting home collection are finding RM take them without question. 

eBay say do not send anything larger than the maximum for sd/Royal Mail (whilst making it impossible to send a large parcel )

if home collections are bypassing this then well I don’t know ..but you can’t take a large parcel to the post office with a medium size parcel label and expect it to get accepted 

I totally accept the other points.

ok cool

From the outside it seems that some private sellers are taking advantage of the looseness of SD and making it work for them.

its not taking advantage if the system says you can 

for example if eBay AI recommend your item is 1kg small parcel and you click recommended size and weight and it turns out after packing to be 2kg medium parcel they pay for it 

anyway my bedtime 

[technthread]

It’s one of these subjects where every argument has a weak spot, nobody can entrench their views and fight off all the counter arguments 😂. That’s basically why I’ve just gone ok, this is what it is, work with it where you can, where you can’t leave those items to one side for now and hope it gets fixed…

there’s another counter argument, “well I only sell 1 type of item so I can’t make it work”.

I have thought about it as if I was eBay and it is a nightmare to get right across the board. 

[suelel1968]

Hi Tech, @technthread, l like this bit of your post

"I don’t mean to annoy private sellers, I know there are lots of valid issues with SD for some, I’m not treating those as insignificant, I just think eBay have decided some of their most loyal sellers who don’t want to use SD will have to drop by the wayside for the overall good of the site.“

It was said, perhaps by Eve Williams herself, that ebay wanted to reduce the amount of low value items and encourage higher value products, which BPF seemed to support and as you say, some sellers would be sacrificed. But then they changed BPF to make it much more beneficial to low value sellers, so clearly the sacrifice was too great.

Similarly, with SD, i think, i hope, the sacrifice will be to much to accept and changes will be made. I don't understand why if SD is bringing in so much money from the contracts with RM and evri, why they have not put Large Letter £1.55 & £1.80 on SD and most peoples issues will go away. I realise there are other issues too but this would solve alot.

Privare sellers make quite a commitment to selling on eBay and more flexibility has to be factored in somehow. Yes, some sellers will never come around to it, but with just a few adjustments most will.

One thing is definite, a 30m usd investment is not going to be scrapped, it will be rolled out to other countries and other sellers, and we have been user acceptance tesing and have found it woefully inadequate as it stands. 

[technthread]

Yeah I agree with that.

It makes my head hurt, if we take £1.55 100g large letters for example, and Evri want to be competitive with RM prices as the alternative carrier, all of a sudden you’ve got a RM large letter with a 2.5cm thickness limit and Evri postable which I believe is 3cm, it isn’t compatible. That doesn’t matter so much as they have made square pegs fit in round holes with other parcel sizes but Evri are then effectively exempt from large letter vs a £1.55 alternative unless they crash their price by over £1 and I don’t think they will do it. Except for the largest parcel size, from what I remember eBay have been careful to give them both a share of the pie. Maybe I’m overthinking it.

[technthread]

I should add I am a few whisky’s in with black sabbath on the headphones so my thought process may be off too haha. I’m also off to bed shortly. 

[theelench]

"...the total number of complaints about SD isn't even a drop in the ocean, and won't even register, as it's so insignificant."

You can dismiss all the comments on the 'mega-thread' and all the other threads if you want.  As you say the reaction on the boards is that of a tiny minority ebay users.   But the CEO had to acknowledge that the opposition to the latest changes in .uk were one of the 'headwinds' that affected the latest quarterly Earnings Statement from ebay.inc.  That cannot be 'insignificant' or it would have been ignored.

Yes, ebay in total is far larger than ebay.uk, but .uk is the second largest market within ebay worldwide and has put some sort of dampener on ebay.inc's performance, big enough to have to be acknowledged in the Statement to shareholders.  So however small a minority are vocal on the UK boards the reaction of UK private buyers and sellers has been noticeable.  You can't dismiss that as 'bitter', 'silly' or any of the other  epithets you use to try to characterise everyone who disagrees with you as hysterical and over-reacting.

That ebay is now offering a few concessions on SD, the BPF and even on Payment Holds (for qualifying sellers only) shows that the original intended cash grab is being revised down to more modest levels in an attempt to find a level of restriction that will be acceptable to enough users to repair the damage.

IMO if private sellers want more concessions and less restrictions they should keep on complaining everywhere they can and also hit ebay where it's hurting them by not selling, not listing and not buying on ebay until they get them, whether that upsets a few business sellers or not.

[goodibags]

Yes, it's entirely conceivable that the number of users complaining about Ebay correlates with the total number of users. Thus one possible 'solution' for Ebay to reduce the number complaining to double digits could be to ensure that only 100 or so people use the platform?

[foresterdon]

"It was said, perhaps by Eve Williams herself, that ebay wanted to reduce the amount of low value items and encourage higher value products,..."

I make no apology for having said this before but Woolworths reduced the amount of low value items and "encouraged" higher value products -    and went BUST.

Ebay exists because it filled a need for private sellers to clear out unwanted mostly cheap items, Business sellers came later. Firms that leave one segment of a market and try to enter another almost always Fail.

This will not work. Private sellers hate it and business sellers are always quick to move elsewhere that is cheaper.

[suelel1968]

@foresterdon hi, i didn't say i agreed with her, only that they appeared to have back tracked by reducing fees for lower priced items and i hope that in line with that, they back track somewhat on postage for lower priced items.

I mean, what on earth has category got to do with whether you use SD or not? Another easy fix they could make. 

[dls-online]

I’m sorry, I’m fairly frequent on these forums (at the moment), but completely missed the fundamental questions which were (validly) raised by drgwalker having been answered. I believe ebay member Kat confirmed one point somewhat “unofficially”. But the wider questions I thought had been left unanswered.

Obviously, with such a brushoff of someone’s post and with such confidence in your tone, it would be great to see confirmation of these points. Obviously as (and I quote) “the answers to these questions you are raising have been readily available for a number of months now”, it should be very easy for you to locate them…right?!

So, when an item is sent via SD but is unfortunately damaged (for example) during transit, and the item was (for example) a porcelain lamp (which the SD T&Cs state will not be covered), who will be responsible for assessing the claim and paying out to the seller? Will it be the carrier (in this example Evri, whose own T&Cs state it won’t be covered)? Or ebay (who’s T&Cs also state it won’t be covered)?

As a reminder, ebay's Simple Delivery T&Cs currently state:

“Items posted with Simple Delivery also need to comply with the prohibited and restricted items guidance and packaging requirements set out below, as well as the policies of the carrier.”

…and the Evri’s list of excluded from compensation items (linked to and directly referenced in the aforementioned SD T&Cs) includes “Lighting equipment such as vehicle lights and light bulbs”.

Honestly, I’ve been very keen to understand this, and wasn’t aware the answer had been provided and was so well known to allow you to be confident enough to post with such a tone towards another user! Would be great just to know if it’s ebay or the carrier covering the compensation on restricted/excluded items. Weird that the T&Cs say differently, but again, your confidence fills me with hope that an answer must be there and now so well known. So, is it ebay or the carrier providing this extended compensation above and beyond what’s described in the T&Cs?

As for the other mechanics of Simple Delivery, for example who covers any shortfall from incorrect weight/sizing, again I thought this was largely just assumed to be within a contractual agreement between the carriers and ebay and not confirmed to Joe Public. I’m less bothered about this aspect though, as it doesn’t seem to affect me.

The first point however does.

[goodibags]

A number of posters on this forum were warning about Ebay's additional terms and conditions for SD back when it came in. Ebay can and has changed these overnight, so they may change between an item being listed for sale and actually selling.

My understanding is that if an item is prohibited by SD (although was also magically opted into SD regardless) then things like damage in transit are NO LONGER covered and the seller is liable.

In these cases you'd be better off forcing an opt out of SD (say, by making your parcel oversize or changing to an exempted category) and buying postage direct from the courier, which will provide cover.

Goodness knows what'll happen when SD becomes compulsory. Without appropriate assurances from Ebay it may be safer to avoid selling such items completely.