Having to opt out of Simple Delivery on EVERY LISTING

[zax93]

OK so listing some items tonight

good news first - even though Simple Delivery is now being pushed I can opt out to custom settings and select my standard shipping rates

bad news - I have to opt out of Simple Delivery every time I list even though I am listing similar items. Really? 

This is from ebay itself:  You can opt out of Simple Delivery when you're creating your listing by selecting Custom Postage from the delivery options. If you'd prefer not to use Simple Delivery at all in the future, you'll need to opt out each time this programme is recommended when you're creating listings.

I mean what does that last sentence mean anyway?

[raven-hammer]

Why would it save you money if business sellers were forced to use Simple Delivery? My average buyer would pay 15% more per order if I went from custom delivery to SD on single items and a hell of a lot more if I lost the ability to combine deliveries for different weights. SD adds NOTHING of value for the buyer, all it does is give eBay a small cut of every postage label they sell through the site. It's the same as the Buyer Protection Fee - nothing of value is added, just more profit for eBay at the expense of the buyer.

[techtomic]

Because it's cheaper, especially for click and collect orders, and eBay covers insurance for the full order value too which would save me lots of pounds per order.

The only bit that I would need to accommodate would be second class large letters which I send regularly, so hopefully they build that in soon.

[techtomic]

To your second point that buyer protection fee is just more money to eBay, this is nonsense when it is such a small percentage when compared to eBay final value fees it replaced, and covers credit card processing etc. 

These arguments are getting old quickly. It's much cheaper for private sellers in the new regime and as I say, I hope costs can be reduced for businesses too.

[raven-hammer]

You think the sellers won't adjust their prices to cover the cheaper postage they can offer?

[raven-hammer]

I used to pay 12.8% fee + 36p iirc. Now my customers have to pay 4% + 75p. I'll give you an actual case I had this week. I sell a lot of cheap items, I'll take £4 ones as an example as previously after fees I'd make £3.14 and now if I am to reach the £4 price point I have to list at £3.13. However I often sell three or four £4 items at once. Previously that would cost me £1.90, but now it costs the buyer £2.61. Now let's say two of those are 100g LL and one is a 100g small parcel. Previously I'd charge the buyer £3.50 postage, but now they're being charged £2.70 + £3.35. What was previously a £15.50 order now costs them £18.05.

The loser is the buyer, buyers have been protected to the hilt for as long as I can remember on eBay so nothing new has been added for them - when did you last lose a dispute with a customer? I've had buyers win cases due to complaining of a sun bleached book cover when the photo showed the damage, the title said "damaged cover" and the condition details was "sunbleached cover/spine". I've had a customer message me to say their item arrived but they didn't expect to pay customs tax so are reporting it as lost (eBay said unless I can provide tracking details on the untracked service they won't intervene, despite the literal confession in ebay messages that it had arrived). I've had a customer who reported an item as lost despite it being sent tracked and Royal Mail providing GPS coords on delivery - eBay refunded them within 15mins and I got a default on my account (admittedly I fought it and was reimbursed, but the customer did get their money back). I'm just a casual seller clearing unwanted stuff, I don't believe for one second that as a business account you've not suffered from fraudulent customers or benefited from protection as a buyer.

I do agree with you that business seller fees should be reduced inline with other platforms.