Ebay confirms when Simple Delivery will be Mandatory

[wintersdawn1]

Someone else posted this as a reply to an existing thread but thought I would post it separately.  It appears to be taken from one of ebay's terms and conditions pages but I do not have a link.

 

[ear2fear]

😱😱😱🤯Oh crikey! That’s the most scary part, not just new listings but existing listings will have the postage changed!!!

[comicscotty477]

I think my time on ebay may be coming to an end..... 

[*devils.advocate*]

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

At the very bottom.

[tressygirl]

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@*devils.advocate* wrote:

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

At the very bottom.

Was there not an updated notification after that  link to the eBay help page was made that SD has been moved from Q1  to somewhere before Q2  ?

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[andha-21]

@tressygirl 

7th April is Q2?

[tressygirl]

There has to be , in my humble opinion, a definitive date made on its own and clear, as to when this is to happen.

At present it's sitting at the bottom on a help page written last year.

Then, again my humble opinion means nowt, so it's I suppose,  a wait and see on the 7th April.

@andha-21 

[andha-21]

@tressygirl 

For transparency I'd agree, but after reading all the posts I have here I don't get the impression that transparency has ever been eBay's goal.

Do you disagree?

[*devils.advocate*]

Well, that's today's version.

There could be/will be multiple other versions to come, of course!

eBay aren't particularly hot in getting things right first time. 

[tressygirl]

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@andha-21 wrote:

@tressygirl 

For transparency I'd agree, but after reading all the posts I have here I don't get the impression that transparency has ever been eBay's goal.

Do you disagree?

---

Transparency and clarity?   Nope, it hasn't been a virtue I've witnessed. 😐

@andha-21 

[abrahamtoast]

If they're going to amend existing listings, starting on April 7th, they need to let us know precisely how these listings will be amended.

Obviously, they will remove all postage prices, etc, from the automated processes, but what happens to any terms contained in the text of the listing? Very often, alternative, or non-standard methods and prices are contained in the text. These will still legally form part of the sellers "offer", yet eBay will attempt to over-ride them.

What happens if the product being sold is on the exclusion list of the available carriers under SD, yet eBay mandate that it be sent that way? Other couriers may be willing to deliver such items, but eBay won't allow sellers to use them.

How do sellers justify the sudden increase in postage prices, in cases where products are sent as "large letters". SD pricing is more than 50% more expensive than Royal Mail for large letters weighing under 100g.

How does it affect items listed now or in the future with free postage, as has been encouraged by ebay for many years?

There are many other questions which remain unanswered. I've always tried to downplay (while not defending) eBay's changes, reasoning that I would soon get used to them, and everyone was in the same boat. However, I just can't see how this one will work.

[ruby*ryan]

When the question about when this would become mandatory was asked in the weekly chats we were constantly told, 'We have no information about this yet, if anything changes there will be an announcement'.

Will there still be a proper announcement kat@ebay   

[andha-21]

@abrahamtoast 

In all honesty, I think most of the answers to your questions are already there.

No, they haven't written it in black and white, but everything they have written points in certain directions.

As I've said elsewhere, I think this looks like a trap.

They told sellers we would have 3 days for turnaround. As of yesterday all the new SD listings were showing 2-3 days for delivery, the exact dates for BIN being 2-3 April.

So how do sellers have a 3 day turnaround?

If you look at the combination of releases regarding Simple Delivery pricing, terms and conditions and the announcement where they allow sellers to deselect a courier.

That looks like another trap.

Yes, we can deselect Evri, but they allowed themselves a backdoor to override that whenever they want.

So if we deselect Evri what really happens is that eBay get to charge buyers the highest of the 3 tariff rates and still use Evri anyway. Maximum profit and when buyers complain they can tell them postage would have been cheaper if the sellers hadn't deselected Evri.

The sellers fault...

Potential postage price mark downs ...

& then you still have the EDD issue where eBay are saying 3 days.

Yes, Royal Mail 48 Tracked can deliver within that timeframe, but it isn't guaranteed and definitely depends on distance. How many hubs it needs to change through to get there.

So potentially item not arrived claims too ...

If we can see this, so can they? 

Unless we're smarter than they are.

So if they can see this, it's safe to assume problems are the goal.

WHY?

WHAT CAN THEY GAIN FROM THAT?

What I see is the performance metrics angle, combined with fund holding.

I think the entire thing is a trap so they can make excuses to hold money longer.

[allsortsallsorts22]

What happens if we just select 21kg as the weight of every item, even a postcard, doesn't this then auto-opt us out of a mandatory SD and we can then sort our own postage out?

[andha-21]

@allsortsallsorts22 

From 7th April they will be going through current listings and changing them to SD where necessary.

Think it's fair to assume they will be looking for stuff like that.

[vinylscot]

As a business seller, I am obviously relieved that this will not (yet) affect this account, although I do have an entirely separate personal private account.

No matter how I try, I can't envisage a situation where this will work.

eBay needs to explain it much better, or the only reason anyone will see is that eBay see it as a money-grab. (with their deals with the couriers, eBay will make well over £1.00 for every single parcel sent under SD - this may make it difficult for them to back-track)

Maybe that's all it is, because there is no way on earth it can be described as an improvement.

[cobwebcottage]

I would think this will now cause another mass exodus of PS who are of the generation where QR codes are alien ( and don't have a printer) and prefer to hand write the details on the parcels.

Plus wrong parcels being sent to the wrong buyers.

A small tip which I use on another site who use QR codes. If you have more than one parcel, write the postcodes on them.

Packlink at present, give you an alpha numeric code which you can write on the parcels which works well for me on my BS account although you don't get one with the QR code on the other site. Not sure if this is visible with SD but if Ebay were to generate these codes with SD, it would save a lot of hassle.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

I KNOW my time with e bay will end!!

[andha-21]

"eBay needs to explain it much better, or the only reason anyone will see is that eBay see it as a money-grab. (with their deals with the couriers, eBay will make well over £1.00 for every single parcel sent under SD - this may make it difficult for them to back-track)"

@vinylscot 

I haven't been using the community for that long, since Feb 3/4 but I've read alot of posts here on many different subjects and the one thing that consistently comes across is that eBay aren't big on transparency so I reckon we may have more chance of Vlad nuking us than that happening.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

there will be an awful lot of cancellations if they change listings  because i for one will not be using SD.