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.

[eddypolak]

Your workaround appears to work. I don't think I dare use it though. If it's breaking ebay terms and conditions and they find out who knows what they'd do.  I imagine they would cancel the order for starters. A worst case scenario is you've shipped but the money is still with ebay .

My specific situation is that I have a camera body and 3 lenses for it. Each piece is worth about £250. I could try sell the whole lot as a bundle but with this kind of gear lenses and bodies are usually sold separately. Still it's worth a shot! 

I suppose they wouldn't find out but they are monitoring their messaging and will send dishonest warnings so who knows what they are capable of.

[department28]

'Just out of interest - do these 'auto messages' only happen with SD'

A friend recently bought an item posted with SD, and they got a nice, normal message about dispatch from the seller - so perhaps it depends if SD is specifically mentioned in the message?

Or maybe the message has to be sent from the link next to the order, to trip the auto-messages? Perhaps a buyer who has tried this 'auto messaging' thing could let us know how it looks.

I wouldn't think eBay could completely automate contact between buyer or seller about other, non-postage questions, could they?!

[lucy_farmer]

'Your workaround appears to work. I don't think I dare use it though. If it's breaking ebay terms and conditions and they find out who knows what they'd do.  I imagine they would cancel the order for starters. A worst case scenario is you've shipped but the money is still with ebay .'

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I wouldn't worry too much : 'rick's workaround' has been given out on the phone by CS(!) to people who have large parcels that can't squeeze into the S.D. pidgeon-hole. 

I'd imagine the computer is getting used to it by now......!

[eddypolak]

Let's be generous then! If ebay are providing the workaround doesn''t that suggest they don't want SD to be do restrictive. Ooops sorry applying inappropriate common sense !

[punzel9072]

If it's breaking ebay terms and conditions and they find out who knows what they'd do. I imagine they would cancel the order for starters.

Well the worst they can do is cancel the sale. They are not in a position to impose a financial penalty.

A worst case scenario is you've shipped but the money is still with ebay .

But they can't keep the money if the item is delivered to the buyer, that would be theft. If it's not delivered to the buyer, then if you have used Royal Mail Special Delivery you can claim compensation, but it's highly unlikely in my experience for a RM SD to go missing as it is tracked at every stage of its journey. The worst I've known is on one occasion an item was delayed by a day (and they compensated me by refunding the entire Special Delivery cost).

[goodibags]

Yes, technically the workaround is for those items that are oversized and beyond the limits of what SD postage services can provide, so need custom postage. In your case it may not be worth risking that service as these parcels often get mishandled and thrown about.

And RM always prioritise Special Delivery. Even when all the 'tracked' post has been sitting for a week in a sack at the depot the 'special' ones will usually get through.

[eddypolak]

You are probably right and I'm getting paranoid. I didn't mean they'd keep the money just that they could make it a painful process. Anyway it's all academic now as I've decided to part-ex the gear for my camera. I won't get as much as I could get from a direct sale but it's way less hassle.

[eddypolak]

I  now see this in tracking for my SD package -The courier confirmed receipt of the package Hurrah!

Now that I've calmed down a bit I am going to say that SD could be a good thing. What has made it a bad thing  is compelling sellers to use it and then not only being very poor at their own communications  getting in the way of buyer and seller. 

It's probably obvious to most of you here in the real world that in any aspect of life if you make someone do something they will resent and resist it even it's actually not a bad idea. That's just human nature. Also if in any deal one party feels they have been 'had' they won't forget. You may get them once but not a second time. Forcing a response is the act of a bully.

To make SD a blinding success with customers what eBay needs to properly is make it a compelling choice for most people in most situations. Let's say in that happy scenario they get 90% as much revenue compared to what they could get if they forced everyone to use SD.  An ebay manager just looking at the bottom line might be 'laser focused ' (groan!) on that and regard 90% as 10% left on the table. A broader long term view is that 90% from happy customers is way better than 100% from resentful customers. And that's not a company just being all warm and fuzzy it's because it's not a stable and tenable long term positon.  It's because, as many have said here,  they will be getting 100% of an ever decreasing pie and they will be seriously damaging their reputation. Quite soon a new company  might be formed  funded by some person or thing with very deep pockets that see an opportunity and the complacent dinosaur is going down. How many times have we seen that in business?

[3dprintstar]

My only problem with simple delivery is the overcharging of postage.

My item is 100g and fits in a large letter. It use to cost £1.55 to post, now it costs £2.72 because simple delivery wont go below the 1KG weight. They just need to add a few more options so that I dont get screwed over where postage costs more than the item I am selling...

[4minutemile]

I just sold two items that I had listed without SD. They have both been sold with SD. I had offered free postage. The free postage that I had offered was standard second class postage with a Certificate of Posting. So the postage cost in one case is roughly 3.5x more than I would have paid and in the other approximately 50% more than I would have paid. If either item were lost in the post the buyer would have been fully compensated (that's the risk that I take).

In my opinion that is stealing.

[goodibags]

That's really bad. The 'risk' being that you think you think you know what postage you'll be paying but SD deducts a completely different amount from your sale proceeds?

I have a few items with the buyer being charged for stamps to send, so will be interesting to see how that pans out (should they ever sell). If Ebay deducts postage from me for an unwanted and unused (and completely unrefundable) SD postage label I shall be cancelling the rest of them!

[eddypolak]

I won't ever use eBay again to sell something valuable but I do have some photographic accessories to shift that LCE weren't interested in.  We are talking £10 value each or thereabouts. What will be interesting is whether SD will offer suitably cheap prices. If not it's to the charity shop! I will keep you all updated.

[department28]

'I just sold two items that I had listed without SD. They have both been sold with SD.'

Did you alter those listings at all before they sold? If not, then it looks like any items we still have with Custom postage can be changed over to SD when they sell - which would give no opportunity to have deselected a courier, or made any other adjustments...

[eddypolak]

ebay site confirms -

Issues with the acceptance of Royal Mail Tracked 48-hour labels at the Post Office have now been resolved. Please drop these items off as per the normal process.

Makes me laugh that they didn't bother to make the statement 'RM tracked 48 broken' a few days ago.

[wellingnorth]

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@department28 wrote:

'I just sold two items that I had listed without SD. They have both been sold with SD.'

Did you alter those listings at all before they sold? If not, then it looks like any items we still have with Custom postage can be changed over to SD when they sell - which would give no opportunity to have deselected a courier, or made any other adjustments...

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Quite a few of my items which were auto-relisted auctions on custom delivery were switched over to Simple Delivery last week - this included some items that will be too big for simple delivery.

[department28]

Did any of those items sell before you realised they had been switched to SD - or did you notice in time to make adjustments?

[wellingnorth]

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@department28 wrote:

Did any of those items sell before you realised they had been switched to SD - or did you notice in time to make adjustments?

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I realised that they had been switched over but didn't touch any of them, I'm taking ebay at their word that they will cover any discrepancy where they've automatically determined the size / weight. I've already sent one medium parcel that they guessed as a small parcel (via the delivery office as I know the Post Office are likely to query). The oversized ones I have left also and will have to deal with that with customer services if they do sell.

[sml192]

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@wellingnorth wrote:

Quite a few of my items which were auto-relisted auctions on custom delivery were switched over to Simple Delivery last week - this included some items that will be too big for simple delivery.

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According to today's announcement DHL is being added soon as a carrier option to accommodate items up to 30Kg and will include free collection. 

[wellingnorth]

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@department28 wrote:

Did any of those items sell before you realised they had been switched to SD - or did you notice in time to make adjustments?

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One annoying thing about it actually is that all the ones that have been automatically switched over have been set to 2 working days dispatch where I previously had them all as 3 working days.

[wellingnorth]

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@sml192 wrote:

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According to today's announcement DHL is being added as a carrier option to accommodate items up to 30Kg and will include free collection. 

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I guess anticipating this may account for them not adding back an easy way to opt out for larger items.