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.

[akemp1]

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@gmij1961 wrote:

Something  a bit odd today is I have 2 separate  but identical emails today from 2 different  sellers I have probably bought stuff from in the past telling me to "check out Yodel direct"

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I had that too today from a seller that I bought something from years ago.

It seems that somehow Yodel are sending unsolicited marketing via ebay messaging using the identities of  sellers who have previously used them. There doesn't seem to be any way to unsubscribe.

[gmij1961]

Ebay do monitor and probably read these  mails  as that is how check sellers are doing anything "naughty" , whether they can stop individual mails , I don't know.

I would imagine that Yodel have taken quite a hit as a result of SD , so it could be they are having a dig at Ebay here .  However it could be they have just done a promotional email based on a stored mail list . What is interesting it identifies the seller but gives the buyers email  and in that respect they are spoof  mails and are a bit naughty.  

Would be interesting to see what happens if you reply and whether the advertised seller receives it 🙂

[akemp1]

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@gmij1961 wrote:

Ebay do monitor and probably read these  mails  as that is how check sellers are doing anything "naughty" , whether they can stop individual mails , I don't know.

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I doubt the sellers are aware of the Yodel spam being sent in their name.

There must be some kind of API where ebay have allowed trusted carriers to send member-to-member messages spoofing ebay seller identities to give them updates on their delivery. I've always thought it's a bit wrong using the seller's name like that on messages they wouldn't even see.

Yodel probably have no loyalty to ebay anymore after SD but it might have commercial implications if ebay wanted to pursue it with them as ebay messages shouldn't be used as a method of spamming us.

[infohelps]

I also got an e-mail from Yodel.  When I sold things I only ever sold using Royal Mail so this has to relate to a past purchase from a seller who used Yodel.  It does seem that Yodel are trying to get business but surely they must know by now that they are not an 'authorised' courier under Simple Delivery. 

I didn't know that you could get the email addresses of buyers.  This is news to me.  Is this a function for business sellers only, or can private sellers get the email addresses of buyers?  (Not that I would want to use them even if I was still selling.)  If it is the former, have I given permission somewhere for my e-mail address to be given to a third party?   As you say, this seems a bit 'naughty'.

I must admit that I have had the odd update from couriers regarding eBay sales but I ignore them because it is never clear what purchase they are referring to unless you go into your purchases and check which seller it is. (This was back in the day when I bought several things per week on eBay!).  It never occurred to me before now how they got my e-mail address.

[sunflowers4me59]

We are on holiday at the moment, and my husband walks to get a newspaper each day ( yes we are old fashioned and still read a paper), he got talking to someone who worked in IT and he said it was so complicated nowadays, my husband mentioned that I sell sometimes on Ebay and that I moan about the changes, SD, and the man said eBay have really "male chicken" up eBay!  ( only he used the actual word). 

[jhb7140]

Hopefully yodel do come onboard.. I know Royal Mail are upping their RM24 & 48 prices by around 25% from October, so I’d assume simple delivery prices to increase also.

[gmij1961]

The way Ebay keeps track of  ebay member communication is to map the real email address to their own members.ebay.com which means all email is forwarded via Ebay mail servers and can be checked and read as a result . 

Given the email I got was from a buyer I bought a plant stand over a year ago means this mapping is static which isn't necessary as the user string contains 20 alpha numeric characters so there are  probably billions of random combinations so Ebay should really be deleting (and not reusing ) on a regular basis .  I could take a closer  look and see what other or any  insecure email credentials are being passed across  . What Yodel have done is exposed a potential weakness in Ebay Email set-up which means it could be  open to other interference .

I think in this case Yodel really wanted to mail shots the sellers and not the buyers but  as the strings are members.eaby.com  for  both they have done this , which really isn't good

Probably not related directly to SD but could easily be driven by a drop of in business. A long time ago if I could use RM for parcel Collect+ ( now Yodel)  was the 1st alternative as they had a drop of up the road and Hermes was lesser known 🙂

[punzel9072]

Hopefully yodel do come onboard.. I know Royal Mail are upping their RM24 & 48 prices by around 25% from October, so I’d assume simple delivery prices to increase also.

The Royal Mail tracked 48 price increases from October are not around 25% - for letters and large letters it's just 5p, and for small and medium parcels it's between 10p and 50p.

[akemp1]

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@infohelps wrote:

I didn't know that you could get the email addresses of buyers. 

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I don't think Yodel have our email addresses which is why they are hijacking ebay seller identities and sending their spam using ebay member-to-member messaging under the method designed for delivery updates against old items we have purchased years ago. It's pretty unethical and probably a violation of their agreement with ebay.

[infohelps]

OK, that makes more sense.  Thanks. 

[jonatjonatjonat]

Behind your eBay profile is an anonymised email address. It’s likely this that has filtered through to Yodel, but depending on how that email was received would depend on what Yodel could use it for.

i do find it unlikely that it would have triggered marketing permissions however.

[jhb7140]

£4.25 for 48 (23.1% increase)

£5.40 for 24 (25.8%)- both prices are for small parcel upto 2kg 

so yes, the increase is 20-25%…

[punzel9072]

so yes, the increase is 20-25%…

I really can't see how you claim increases of 23.1% and 25.8%. I know it's a very long time since I went to school, but I'm still pretty good at maths (and using calculators). The reality is as follows for Royal Mail Tracked 48:

online prices
Large letter up to 750g increases from £2.70 to £2.75 - 5p - 1.85% increase
Small parcel up to 2kg increases from £3.45 to £3.55 - 10p - 2.89% increase
Medium parcel up to 2kg increases from £5.15 to £5.35 - 20p - 3.88% increase

Medium parcel up to 10kg increases from £6.80 to £7.05 - 22p - 3.67% increase

counter prices
Large letter up to 750g increases from £2.80 to £2.95 - 15p - 5.35% increase
Small parcel up to 2kg increases from £4.05 to £4.25 - 20p - 4.93% increase
Medium parcel up to 2kg increases from £6.55 to £6.90 - 35p - 5.34% increase

Medium parcel up to 10kg increases from £8.19 to £8.60 - 41p - 5% increase

small parcel up to 2kg Tracked 24 online from £5.15 up to £5.40 - increase of 25p - 4.85%

[gmij1961]

So  for  those buying the equivalent  service from  royal mail  its  £3.55  ( 48)  up 10p  and   £4.45 ( 24 ) up 16p

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2025-09/online-price-guide-october-2025-v2-ta.pd...

Noticeably the compensation has changed which is not  a good thing at all . The price rise is not unreasonable 

For Ebay SD  strictly speaking although the service is the equivalent to RM 24 & 48  in reality it isn't  exactly the same .  However the elephant in the room is Ebay are actually charging more in most cases, while forcing their customers to use SD  !

No wonder SD has such a bad reputation  etc etc

[jhb7140]

Yes, my mistake I had used the new retail pricing from the previous online pricing but my maths was still correct 🤪

[sml192]

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@jhb7140 wrote:

£4.25 for 48 (23.1% increase)

£5.40 for 24 (25.8%)- both prices are for small parcel upto 2kg 

so yes, the increase is 20-25%…

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You are looking at the wrong prices.  The prices that you have quoted are the new over the counter prices not the online prices. 

[sml192]

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@gmij1961 wrote:

For Ebay SD  strictly speaking although the service is the equivalent to RM 24 & 48  in reality it isn't  exactly the same .  However the elephant in the room is Ebay are actually charging more in most cases, while forcing their customers to use SD  !

No wonder SD has such a bad reputation  etc etc

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Simple Delivery provides better compensation/protection than Royal Mail and also has the benefit of not having to stick rigidly to the weight bands (admittedly an alien concept for most sellers which is causing a lot of confusion).

Are there any other differences?

Simple Delivery prices are generally cheaper than Royal Mail with the exception of Large Letter which is currently 2p more for the equivalent service (if you opt out of Evri).  The main problem where Letters/Large Letters are concerned is of course the existence of much cheaper Standard Tariff options. 

[gmij1961]

Over 90% of any package I  have sent were within the  RM small packets size and weight criteria and that is probably true for what I receive as a seller . From what I can work out Ebay's offering for RM small packets is significantly more expensive than what I could buy from RM directly . 

The fact I could get Medium parcels under 2kg cheaper isn't that bigger advantage  , especially if it creates a higher price for small packets in the 1st place .  

RM compensation at £150 was difficult to beat and was far cheaper than RM special delivery . Reducing to £75 is backward step in my opinion especially as RM now lose so little with these tracked services 

But a point here is given Ebay don't sell exactly the same in terms of their RM then they could either just offer full compensation regardless  or negotiate something with RM . 

From what I see of the Ebay price screenshot and the RM pdf  Ebay appear to charging significantly more  and as Ebay are not transparent with the buyer as to what courier they are paying for it isn't just sellers who are not happy 

A truly daft and alien concept to basic reality is  Ebay weight and size guessing AI as not using easily obtainable factual data such as weight and size plain stupidity .  There used to be specific fields for this in each listing and without debugging the code they are probably still available but  just hidden

Weight and size are key requirements of any logistical set-up changing that just causes confusion which is precisely what SD  has done and is still doing .