It's also worth bearing in mind that you can only claim a refund on an unused SD label if you meet all four conditions listed on the refund page - and one of those conditions is that the item was posted using a tracked service.
When I first read on these boards that - in cases where the seller has selected 'Seller pays postage' - you can bypass SD (sort of) by not using the SD label and requesting a refund for it, my initial thought was "Great! It'll be a bit of a nuisance having to request a refund for each unused label, but that's still better than not being able to choose my own carrier and service."
Then I followed the link to the refund page posted above, and was crestfallen when I saw that this workaround is still not suitable for me. From that page (my bold):
To process your refund, we'll verify the following:
- The label was paid for by you (you offered free shipping to the buyer).
- The refund request is created within 14 days from the item's sale.
- The label wasn't used within 14 days of the item's sale.
- The package was delivered using a different tracking number.
One of the reasons I don't want to use SD is that I want to use up the supply of stamps I have (and the vast majority of items I want to sell are over 100g and would be priced at over £10, so there would be no exemption from SD, although confusingly DVDs - one of the item types I'd be selling - appear on an SD-exempt list).
As many will be aware, you can't use stamps for tracked postage. In a SD-free world, this wouldn't be a problem (and wasn't in the past), as I usually sent items untracked (with a Certificate of Posting receipt). This worked fine for me and, I assume - since they went ahead with the purchase - my buyers.
Now, apart from in a few cases, eBay are, to all intents and purposes, forcing sellers to use a tracked service. The scenarios/options appear to be:
- Item under 100g and under £10 (what if item price is under £10, but BPF increases it to over £10?): Exempt from SD, tracking not required
- Item sent using SD (whether buyer or seller pays postage): Tracked service used (unavoidable)
- Item not exempt from SD, but seller doesn't use label and sends item using their own choice of carrier and service: If buyer paid postage, this will automatically be refunded to them within 30 days. If seller paid postage, they either take a loss on the unused (but paid for) SD label, or can claim a refund within 14 days - but only if all four conditions above are met.
- [There's also items over £750, but I'm even more confused about what happens there than I am about the rest of it, as are others judging by recent forum posts.]
The above is to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, so I'm happy to be put right!
Complicating matters further (in my mind, anyway) is the fact that there is nowhere on the refund request page to enter the tracking number (i.e. your actual one, not the SD one which would have automatically been applied). Presumably, this would need to be added in the Seller Hub, or maybe there's another page on the form where you enter it, a page you don't see until you've entered the order number and answered all those questions.
But what happens if you don't add the (actual) tracking number? In other words, you sort your own postage and use a tracked service of your choosing, but do not provide it to eBay, or you use an untracked service (and therefore have no number to enter).
Would eBay refuse to make the refund? Or would it just be the case that the seller got the postage refund, but didn't get their sale funds until 14 days (at least) later, as no tracking had been entered?
The wording that I copied & pasted above certainly reads as though the refund is contingent on using a tracked service.
Also, if you have no tracking number (obtained by your own arrangement) to over-write the pre-applied SD tracking number, then presumably, as far as eBay is concerned (and the buyer, unless you've already communicated with them), that SD tracking number is 'active'.
Sorry if I haven't explained myself very well - I think that my confusion is evident! I'm wondering if perhaps I should have started my own thread, not because this post is off-topic (pretty sure it's not given that the heading is 'Help with getting Simple Delivery fee back') but because I might get more responses that way (notice that I say "responses", not "answers" - even eBay don't seem to have many of the latter). I can't even decide on that!
Previously, I would have considered asking in the weekly chat, but... [Most regulars on the weekly chat reading this will understand the meaning in those three dots!]
Maybe I should try to re-phrase my confused thoughts into a clear (-ish) question:
If you select 'Seller pays postage', but do not use the SD label, will eBay refund the label cost (assuming you request it within 14 days) even if you do not enter your own tracking number (either because you used a tracked service but didn't over-write the SD tracking number with it, or because you didn't use a tracked service)?
Sorry, that's still quite a mouthful, but with so many conditions to factor in, that's about the simplest I can boil it down to (so, about as 'simple' as Simple Delivery, then).
If - and it looks from eBay's wording to be a highly unlikely 'if' - I can select 'Seller pays postage', ignore the SD label and arrange my own postage (using stamps), and successfully claim a refund for the SD label (despite not entering a new tracking number - since I wouldn't have one), then, although it would still be more complicated than it used to be (e.g. keeping tabs on the label refunds), I would be able to resume selling, or at the very least, I would feel more positive about the prospect.
Surely, there must be a definitive 'yes' or 'no' answer to this.
If it's 'no' (you wouldn't get a postage refund in the above scenario), then at least I know, even if I'm not happy with it.
If it's 'yes', then that has quite major (and positive) implications for private sellers like myself who have (or wish to buy) stamps to use for posting items. But it would also mean that eBay are being somewhat economical with the truth when they say "To process your refund, we'll verify the following [...] The package was delivered using a different tracking number." I'd also worry that this was a loophole that would soon be done away with.
Sorry for the meandering post. Any thoughts, experiences, or - dare I say it - answers would be most welcome.
P.S. One important thing that I haven't gone into is the buyer's 'experience' of this, e.g. how would a buyer feel if they made a SD purchase from me, got a tracking number from eBay which they kept checking (which would never even show the first delivery stage), then received the item either with no tracking number or with a different one? Obviously, communication could help mitigate problems - and I'm a firm believer in keeping buyers informed - but I'm sure there are some buyers who don't read messages (or at least, don't read them until it's too late). Thankfully, the buyers I've had in the past have not been in this category - they appreciated my updates and responded to them - but I'm sure there must be some whose level of engagement ends with hitting the 'Buy' button, at least unless some problem occurs. As usual, I'm tangling myself up in 'what ifs', but on the other hand, it can be useful having an anticipatory nature, especially on a site like eBay where you have to be on your toes constantly!
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