NO LONGER SELLING DUE TO SIMPLE DELIVERY

[rugbyguy1960]

AS OF 15TH APRIL MY DAYS AS A PRIVATE EBAY SELLER WILL STOP AFTER 19 YEARS.

I AM FED UP OF THE GREED OF EBAY AND I HOPE OTHER EBAY SELLERS DECIDE TO NO LONGER LET THE EBAY CONTROL FREAKS HAVE THIS MUCH CONTROL OVER PRIVATE SELLERS.

[parsley2003]

My face--book page says it all 😁, off to bed to have nightmares about giant drones dropping thousands of pounds worth of cheap tat in my garden overnight

[rugbyguy1960]

I've always believed and gone by if you don't trust or believe something or someone your better off without them.

[action_man]

Actually, I think I'm beginning to warm to the changes we've had. After all, what's not to love?

You can spend ages on your listing and filling in all the item specifics.
Then upload and have your description divorced from your item.
Then have it crowded out by 'sponsored' identical items from big sellers*
Then have the price inflated by 75p + 4% for no personal gain.
Then have it hidden or put down on page 35 where virtually nobody will ever find it.
Then I can have simpleton delivery where I play a roulette game to see where I will have to go to post the item (So, exciting to see if it is my local post office or maybe some drop off point which could be 16 miles away).
Then if I happen to make a sale, I can have the joy of wondering what to spend my lovely money on once it has been released.... which might be 2 days after delivery, 14 days, 30 days, 170 days........ or never.

(*sorry, but where in the terms and conditions does it tell me that what I'm really creating is landing pages for the search engines so eBay can funnel the buyer on to their preferred seller?)

Then if there is any issue, I can spend 20 minutes chatting to an AI bot.
Then if I go to the weekly chat, my question might be forwarded to the team as feedback.
Then if I come on the forum to express how I feel, my post may or may not be seen depending on the whim of a moderator.

Actually..................... how tiresome it all is.

Exploitative
Bureaucratic
Aggressive
Yuk!

[rugbyguy1960]

Absolutely great post. In fact I can't pick certain parts that I like as I like all you said. It really has got to the point where I don't trust them, I now have no faith in them, for my own sanity I just want to find somewhere that doesn't change their policies more often than I've ever known and who doesn't use draconian measures to get every penny from me that they can.

[action_man]

Thanks.

Generally people are decent. I don't know why private sellers are suddenly being treated like they are hoodlums from the ghetto out to defraud everyone. (Hmmm... maybe that is projection on eBay's part! Thinking we're like them when we're not).

Another thing which really bothers me is private sellers are on the whole people who haven't got time to go running around to different drop off points. Most of us actually have jobs and have to fit this in around that. If you work 9-5, you generally have to find a way to either get to a post office after work, during a lunch break, or on the weekend. You can't be having a sale on Monday that needs to go to the post office and then on Tuesday have a sale that needs to go to some drop off point where you have no clue where it might be and try to find out. There's literally no thought for any of us, especially not those people who have no transport, or have a disability or are elderly.

I think it's all a bit suspicious that a company of this size is all of a sudden so incompetent. It's much more likely that it's designed on purpose to drive us all to leave the platform. After all, the CEO wants the platform to become a place for luxury goods and high rollers. His vision is that eBay will be the place that "high value buyers" (his words, not mine) will come to buy their £1500 watch and then while they're here pick up a £500 pair of sneakers.... and why not add that £200 trading card..... might as well. We can't have George selling his £1.50 postcards and making the place look downmarket, can we? That just won't do. Not if we want Tarquin from Mayfair to shop here.

It's a shame to trash the platform chasing a pipe dream.

[dragonsoulworld]

So ebay are forcing us to use simply delivery where they decide postage price and courier but am i allowed to ignore that and just pick my own courier, purchase my own label to send it out? 

[buffster1963]

---

@dragonsoulworld wrote:

So ebay are forcing us to use simply delivery where they decide postage price and courier but am i allowed to ignore that and just pick my own courier, purchase my own label to send it out? 

---

If you did that you would not be paid the postage and have to pay out of your own pocket. You also would not be able to show the item had been posted or delivered so would have to wait for your funds to be paid to you. 

[dragonsoulworld]

Ah that sucks. Thank you for your reply.

I think I am going to have to sell elsewhere as I can't drop off at delivery office or parcel shop, I just use postbox, and royal mail wont collect from my address. I am certainly not using evri. I'm thinking of selling on Whatnot does anyone sell on there? Are the fees better? You can choose own courier on there right?

[moonlight-rhapsody]

action_man, you've really hit the nail on the head, with both your posts.

I can add a few more things to your “what’s not to love” list, this time as a buyer.

The fact that ebay now asks the buyer to give feedback on the item rather than the seller.  As a buyer, I want to know whether the seller is reliable and trustworthy.  If I wanted product reviews, I’d go to that other well-known site.

The fact that with Simple Delivery, ebay is going to give 100% feedback to the seller automatically once the tracked item has been delivered.  Again as a buyer, that gives me no clue or confidence as to whether the seller has given an accurate listing, posted it promptly, packed it securely etc.  

The feedback results.  You click on the seller’s feedback score and now ebay has started giving you a pop-up snapshot “About this Seller”, which shows half of dozen or so specially curated positive feedbacks, some of which may be a year old.  So you click through to “See all feedback” and again it’s a carefully curated list, and the top entries - all positive - could be a year old.  So then you switch to Classic view, and yet again, the top entries - all positive - can be a year old.  It’s only when you change from the “Most Relevant” default setting to “Most Recent” that you see negative feedback from more recently.  It’s absolutely disgraceful that ebay is trying to hide negative feedback from buyers, and it may even fall into the category of “sharp practice”.  And how long will it be before “Classic View” disappears and you’re forced to see only the feedback that ebay wants you to see.   

I could go on… the manipulated search results, the cumbersome Saved Sellers page, the incomplete purchase order details etc… all things which used to be good, until ebay changed them. Actually this is a classic example of a longstanding customer (18 years) putting up with a gradual and insidious erosion of a previously good service, until something happens to make you realise just how bad it has actually got.  I really should be grateful for Simple Delivery, because it’s jolted me out a certain complacency and opened my eyes as to what ebay has now become, and it’s very unpleasant.  

It doesn’t make me want to use this platform for buying if I can avoid it, and that’s a loss both to both sellers and ebay alike.  Little ol’ me is just a miniscule loss in the scheme of things though, so I’m pretty sure my absence won’t be noticed.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

WOW, one of the few times i have actually liked your posts!  You actually ranted in an entertaining and truthful way...

[nessy1656]

I’m stopping all my listings on the 6th , eBay will start adjusting your items on sale to simple delivery on the 7th, so getting out early.

[myoldbitsandpieces]

Finally decided to take the advice from an earlier post and have just submitted a report to the Competition and Markets Authority.  In essence I said that I felt they were abusing their dominance in the market place by enforcing unfair policies on buyers and sellers alike.

[fatbob*ian]

As are many of us 🤬

[jamaworks]

Brilliant well done hopefully more people on this forum do the same, its
pointless complaining to ebay customer service, they are paid by ebay and
act in eBay's best interests, not ours

[akemp1]

---

@myoldbitsandpieces wrote:

Finally decided to take the advice from an earlier post and have just submitted a report to the Competition and Markets Authority.  In essence I said that I felt they were abusing their dominance in the market place by enforcing unfair policies on buyers and sellers alike.

---

Well done I guess the first thing CMA would have to do if they investigated is establish if ebay really are the dominant second hand online marketplace (almost a monopoly) but I think the conversations people have had here about alternatives shows there really is no other platform that  support the full range of items where you would have a realistic chance of finding what you are looking for or selling whatever you might have. The alternatives either service limited categories or have low footfall.

It' positive for competition to see a competitor expanding into collectables but they still have a 'Vision' which specifically excludes many items people might reasonably want to buy/sell and they are also abusing their users to control the postage for no justifiable reason.

It would be good if the CMA could look at the market for online marketplaces as a whole and set down some guidelines about if it is (or is not) acceptable business practice to force their postage services on users as it's anti-competitive and the profit from such services is essentially an undeclared charge.

It would also be interesting to hear the Advertising Standards Authority 's view on the claim it's 'free to sell' where ebay run such adverts in relevant media as the seller is having to sell for lower than true value (which is not mentioned) to accommodate the layers of fees the buyer is now paying.

Selling something for less than it is worth is clearly an implicit charge. In financial services the regulator has required fund managers and platforms to be a lot clearer in disclosing such hidden charges. Why should ebay get away with it on this scale?

[wattiesdad]

I have just tried to list an item, purely to see how this "simple" postage works. Choosing RM as a courier they say the cost is £3.95, but I wish to send special delivery which is £12.75, can I input my own price? 50 pages on this issue so the answer may be here already, but life's too short.

[wattiesdad]

Just to add, at the moment there is the option to chose custom postage, but I'm not sure if that will stay.

[andha-21]

@wattiesdad 

Unless you are certain it will sell before the 7th April you shouldn't expect any alterations you make to stay that way.

From official announcement, that's when they start adjusting all current listings to Simple Delivery specifications.

Also, from posts here, that may have already started.

Also the AI system appears to consistently get sizing/weight wrong.

List at your own risk.

[gmij1961]

I think the CMA could also be interested in the "buyer protection" fees as the reality is they are a cost for both buyer and seller that are not  as transparent as they should be  , its  exposing a practice that allot of sites use.

I was waiting for the Ad to come again to hear what it says  but a complaint to the ASA wouldn't go amiss 

There is an underlying irony that the reality is Free to sell ebay is actually more expensive to sell then pay to sell ebay , despite what you are told by the market guru's advertising.

In terms of Ebay's current broken model as selling is made that much more difficult they might have to return to listing fees to restore revenue

One thing that is now working is the link in from emails to the relevant post 🙂 🙂

[wiganyankeeron]

Just tried a test listing of a postcard and the postage costs is showing to
£2.74 for letter / large letter??? Nothing showing for anything up to
100gms???????

RON,