Dear Eve

[suelel1968]

It would be good to see everyone else's "Dear Eve" letters here. I can't post the email addresses, but just ask copilot. Feel free to copy mine, post the one you have already written. Even if you are just quitting the platform, don't tell us on the forum, tell her. It's high time we got some answers.

Dear Ms. Williams,

As a private seller on eBay UK, I’m reaching out with a simple request: please listen to the voices of individual private sellers.

One pressing concern is the rollout of Simple Delivery. Whilst we know it is here to stay the message is not being heard. Many private sellers feel it adds complexity and cost without improving the experience. 

May I draw your attention to one of my listings below. Currently listed at £4.25 with £1.55 Large Letter Royal Mail postage. If I try to list anything similar or relist this one it converts to SD at a minimum £2.70 postage. You can see from the listing photo, the item is 1 1/2" long and 1/4" wide and weights less than 20 grams. It won't sell with an extra £1.15 on postage.

Private sellers are a vital part of eBay’s identity. We bring character, variety, and uniqueness to the marketplace. I hope you’ll take time to hear our concerns.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[edwardian-dreams]

I thought this was a letter to an agony aunt 

she isn’t one of them

she tells us simple delivery will benefit us all and save us money 

doublespeak person

But high ranking employees of large corporations are not persons their parrots imo

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"We bring character, variety, and uniqueness to the marketplace."

I don't think those things will cut any ice with ebay.   All ebay care about is how much money we bring to the marketplace.  Which could be said of all profit-making organisations, although companies have a choice as to how they are going to generate extra income.  Some companies, for instance, are always thinking of ways to give their customers added-value, thereby increasing numbers of customers as well as sales, whilst generating oodles of positive PR and goodwill in the process.  Other companies... well, some take a different approach, like squeezing the life out of their existing customers without adding value.

[papso22]

There is no point complaining about the way Simple Delivery has been set up, and very little point in complaining about the fact that it doesn't actually work as it is meant to.

As with all changes there will be winners and losers, but at the very least we should get a system that works as intended, from the outset.  This particular 'innovation' is the worst implemented one that I have ever seen, the people behind the mechanics should be ashamed of themselves. 

[suelel1968]

Hi moon @moonlight-rhapsody my point is, to tell her, it takes no extra time to bang an email off saying exactly what you just said to Eve, than it does to reply on here.

Sellers keep saying "im off", but to what end? Tell her!

I know lots have people have writtem to Eve already, it would be nice to list those letters and responses.

Im not off my head, I'm just suggesting breaking out of the circle of forum posting and trying something different. Show her in pictures why it is real issues, not just "i don't like change".

The text you highlighted is what stops eBay becoming Temu. They should care. 

[suelel1968]

Hi Papso @papso22 there are other issues that you care about which business sellers have been writing on the forums about for years and still are. Fair play, but it proves there is no point bringing up issues on here over and over. We know that doesn't work. Tell her. No need to be negative if you don't agree with me. Just move on. 

[foresterdon]

Don't waste time emailing Eve.

Email media organisations, newspapers, BBC.....

Get her to justify her changes to eBay in public.

[goodibags]

"As with all changes there will be winners and losers, but at the very least we should get a system that works as intended, from the outset"

... with a seller OPT-OUT for those items where having one would facilitate the possibility of making a sale. 😁

[suelel1968]

@foresterdon Hi Forest, great, post your emails to newspapers here too, can't wait to read them! I agree with you by the way, but getting people from the forums to the newspapers is a big step, but glad you have done it. 

[goodibags]

On the one hand it looks pretty obvious what the problem is. A buyer will look at your item and baulk at the cost of postage. You could price it at 99p and still the postage is TOO high.

On the other, Ebay doesn't make policy up by accident and nobody has been embarrassed by the chaotic rollout either. The changes are deliberate and there is (probably) some kind of coherent strategy behind them, even if the effect includes eliminating most of the low value items from the site (and the buyers/sellers of those items).

At the end of the day Eve W will have access to the best available metrics and she'll know how the changes are going down with the users. Now that SD is a 'revenue generator' all of its own it may be fair to assume that sale volumes just aren't as important as they used to be. If sales are down you can always hike the postage charges? Call it a positive feedback loop? Just don't call it a death spiral.

[suelel1968]

@goodibags dont be defeatest! Be a warrior! 

[goodibags]

But some of our best 'warriors' seem to have run away? Literally, voted with their feet? 😉

Nothing wrong with doing that. After all, Ebay may be just a short chapter in your selling career. Looking at it in that way, it's also up to THEM to retain US. And with SD they haven't been making a great job of it so far. 

Having said all that, if Ebay charged you to be able to opt your listing out of SD (say, as a 'special service') would you go for that?

[thepillenwerfer]

---

@goodibags wrote:

On the other, Ebay doesn't make policy up by accident and nobody has been embarrassed by the chaotic rollout either. The changes are deliberate and there is (probably) some kind of coherent strategy behind them, even if the effect includes eliminating most of the low value items from the site (and the buyers/sellers of those items).

---

I've long suspected than e-Bay would be glad to see the back of the low-value offerings from Private Sellers.  It's no secret that they've been trying for years to move away from their early Flea-Bay on-line car-boot image — changing the logo was part of it.  However if that is the case they could do a much better job by raising the minimum Buy It Now price from 99p to whatever level they believe to be worthwhile and introducing a minimum opening bid for auctions.  As they don't I can only conclude that they are happy to have the small revenue that they bring in but aren't going to gear systems to especially suit them or be bothered if they loose them.

The problem with any mail-order is that postage IS expensive and you often end-up paying more for that than the goods.  It isn't that long ago that suelel1968 could have sent most of her items with a normal letter stamp costing twenty-some pence, there being no such thing as a Large Letter, Small Parcel &c.

[goodibags]

As mentioned elsewhere and many times, if you're going to have a minimum buyer fee of 75p plus variable part you don't just drop it to 10p because you've rolled out a money-making managed postage system designed to scoop up some extra profit and are desperate for more people to use it.

Some thinking behind the whole set up would have been helpful.

[suelel1968]

@goodibags i would consider a postage surcharge that was less than the £1.15 i would currently have to pay as a buyer.

SD presumably pays little or no revenue if nothing sells. It is in all our interests to sell. 

[suelel1968]

@thepillenwerfer hi, i think they did want rid of small items and BPF did a good job for them and then they altered it to make it better than it ever was for a postcard.  No sales no fees, but there are overheads. I'm sure they could and probably do get some revenue  from selling the labels for custom postage no reason to lose out on it. They must be one of the largest customers for every courier. 

[goodibags]

Yup, I'm all in favour of lower surcharges. If SD can undercut Royal Mail for sending tracked small parcels they can certainly do so for letters and large letters too. Who knows, maybe one fine day they will?

Until then, an SD opt-out would work wonders. As you say, bringing in money from some buyer fees has got to be better than bringing in none at all!

[thepillenwerfer]

Normal post and Signed For are legally different to Tracked 24 and 48; they aren't liable for VAT for one thing, so there MAY  be reasons RM can't cut e-Bay a deal on those even if they wanted to.  Of course allowing Sellers to use these services at their own risk is certainly within e-Bay's gift.

[edwardian-dreams]

@suelel1968 

in the meantime you can list it under home furniture and diy, diy materials, other diy materials and you get custom postage 

[goodibags]

I wasn't talking about standard services or signed for. I was imagining the possibility of Ebay re-selling the tracked 48 service, just as they do with small parcels at less than the RM price.

Ebay knows (roughly) the weights of the items being sold and knows that most large letters don't weigh in at anywhere near their 750g (or 1kg?) upper limit. It can elicit help from sellers keen to use the correct bandings, should those be made available. My post office records the weight of anything coming in too, so there presumably is some value in knowing that?

Imagine wanting to buy a new door and having to take 7 new windows too? Ebay isn't just upselling  postage to a completely unnecessary service. It's also pushing the upgraded business to its couriers and presumably wants a share of the additional revenues. When I post a toy car the package with box is rarely more than 100g but the small parcel service covers weights up to 2kg. A similar thing is happening with large letters.

As 'solutions' go it may be a non-starter. But it was just something that might make the apparent overkill of tracking absolutely everything, no matter how small or cheap, a little more palatable?