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.

[ruby*ryan]

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@andyf117 wrote:

Not trying to twist anything - my understanding is that Large Letter is an SD option, and there have been screenshots showing it as such.

And my post was termed as a query - hence the question mark...

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Large Letter IS an SD option - but only as tracked, so only with a service that is VATable.

Here is a screenshot of the options for SD:

And here is a screenshot of the price when you choose the Letter option - £2.70, so tracked. (LL is the same cost)

[andyf117]

Thanks - that confirms my preceding post querying the SD LL price of £2.70, as opposed to £1.55 as can be bought 'normally' - albeit without tracking which has been established is not necessary in terms of compensation value.

Proof positive that eBay does indeed intend to alienate consumers by forcing them to pay higher prices for no added benefit. 

So the 99p magazine that used to be able to be sent for £1.55 now costs £1.79 with BPF and £2.70 to send - £4.49 instead of the previous £2.54. How exactly does that benefit anyone?

[craddockcourtsales]

 "that confirms my preceding post querying the SD LL price of £2.70, as opposed to £1.55 as can be bought 'normally' - albeit without tracking which has been established is not necessary in terms of compensation value."

If there is no benefit to using Royal Mail Tracked 24/48 why do Royal Mail sell it for more than standard  services?

[tommystrezures]

Because the standard service has no tracking, you are only covered for £20 compensation versus £150 on the tr24/48.

[gmij1961]

Any Royal Mail label or stamp  that has a Unique ID  is traceable and if its traceable its trackable   regardless and can always be  scanned to register delivery .  Ebay have been registering delivery status on all mail purchased through RM for quite a while now. If you know the unique ID then providing it hasn't been lost it should register as being somewhere . IE waiting for collection.

Ebay SD labels are a customised version of the services that Royal Mail or Evri sell on line but its not the same product .  What ever quality of service is an agreement between them and Ebay so comparing things aren't going to be a direct match .

Ebay's vision is they are the provider of postage and  the actual courier will be their call  . If they manage handling issues   arising after collection or drop off  then they think no one can argue against it .  The only issue the seller will face is condition etc and it is not described or faulty and a return is needed they charge the seller for a returns label of their choice . kerching  !! .  If it is lost on return they refund you by charging the courier , and it arrive they refund the sale price minus the return postage . 

For RM I would assume every thing will eventually fall under the umbrella  of  RM48 / 24  service level  regardless of name 

[ruby*ryan]

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@andyf117 wrote:

Thanks - that confirms my preceding post querying the SD LL price of £2.70, as opposed to £1.55 as can be bought 'normally' - albeit without tracking which has been established is not necessary in terms of compensation value.

Proof positive that eBay does indeed intend to alienate consumers by forcing them to pay higher prices for no added benefit. 

So the 99p magazine that used to be able to be sent for £1.55 now costs £1.79 with BPF and £2.70 to send - £4.49 instead of the previous £2.54. How exactly does that benefit anyone?

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Oh, I agree totally. There are a whole heap of paper items I have that have been happily selling slowly with £1.55 postage. With the BPF and £2.70 postage there is no point selling them singly any longer 😞

[punzel9072]

Likewise the DVDs that I sell, er, used to sell, for which I charged only £2, plus the postage was £2 as a second class large letter with a free certificate of posting. Absolutely no need for buyers to pay for a tracked service at £2.70. They often arrive with the buyer the following day anyway, even second class. As for the so-called Buyer Protection Fee, if an item got lost by Royal Mail  (which was extremely rare), the certificate of posting means Royal Mail would pay me the postage and the cost of the item, and I would refund the seller.

[andyf117]

It has benefits when used appropriately - but for low-value items it has absolutely none whatsoever, and all SD forcing it upon buyers/sellers does nothing but part them from more money.

[andyf117]

Thereby the exact opposite of the claim in their email announcing 'Simple Delivery' that it will "save you money" - it's costing you money by aking it uneconomical to sell.

[gmij1961]

This is more to do with BPF but I saw some mentioned  it today , that occasionally instead of seeing the bid price + BPF , just the initial bid price is seen . I have seen it quite a bit today and I think it is scripted within the page your are viewing as I have seen it change dynamically  .

Without spending hours trying to debug it , I am happily retired , this is a potential bug if the  page doesn't load properly which happens quite a lot . There should really be 2 prices presented , with or without BPF 

Ebay need to take notice of all these issues  as at some stage someone will an auction or buy an item without BPF 

Whereas I am happy to complain to anyone about Ebay, raising a case with Ebay is too much like hard work  

[andyf117]

It may have been a post of mine you saw (screenshot below), and I actually did screenshots of my 'Watch' list a couple of days ago, when - as has been happening occasionally - the prices showing both in that list and on the items pages themselves were displaying without BPF. A few minutes later, they reverted back to 'full' prices again...

....I deleted the screenshots last night as there hadn't been cause to use them - but unless it happens on 'Buy It Now' items too (the ones I'm watching are all auctions) and you timed it perfectly, not sure that you would actually end up with the 'reduced' price when the system processed the transaction...

[fatbob*ian]

As it would appear we still have some time before SD is rolled out across the board it might be worth anyone still wishing to sell using custom postage to do so on a buy it now basis along with the provisio to buyers that should eBay change their listings to SD then the item(s) will be removed because they are "no longer available" ON THE POSTAGE PREFERENCE OF MY CHOICE.

[gmij1961]

I have just done what I normally do on a Saturday afternoon listen to football scores and go through Ebay listing as a buyer .  Not put on single bid which seems to be the current trend !

There are a lot of private listing processing that clearly have custom postage on and although Ebay said they would change from the 15th its probably technically too problematic to it dynamically  change and it could be they haven't actually gone fully SD  and switched on all relevant flags in the code  .

I am also seeing new private listing with custom postage .  I think some are relists . Ebay clearly are  NOT doing what the said they would be from the 15th with SD 

I am also seeing what are SD under 1KG  small packets and the postage being quoted is not consistent i e £2.94 & £ 3.44. Also I think I the sellers does not want Evri it still quotes 2 prices £3.44 and £4.25 ( Express Rm24)  but I also see  Express being quoted as £4.45  for items I would say under 1KG .    They are clearly charge a variable  for what are normally a fix price within  a range and these prices should really be consistent  .  These all seem to be RM services .  It would be worth tracking some auction to see if the postage cost varies with end sale fee . Anything RM48/24 has £150 compensation and the for small packets the weight ceiling is 2KG  and these are definitely not oversize

SD is not behaving in a consistent fashion which may be why there are still a lot of custom listing 

Coming from an IT background I like to reverse engineer the process and the methodology  behind it as their will technical constraints that dictate the process  I think the 15th was key date as the long  Easter weekend will be seen a period where new listing should  be increasing .  Most new listing seem to Business sellers in what I look at 

[parisd*21]

It has no benefits for items weighing over 2kg and under 10kg either - as the price that ebay are charging is £10, when royal mail price is £6.80!

[sinbinthecat_sinbadthecat]

If I have time I might put in a complaint to the ASA if I see another 'free to sell' ad. It's not true- BPF is simply sales commision. 

Everyone on this thread understands the following, but hey why not have an example.

Seller sells an item for £10, seller doesn't receive £10, it's not free to sell. For whatever reason. Whatever you call the fee or commision, because any buyer calculates what the overall price is to them- they don't care the division of fees/commision etc.

It's like checking out of the Hotel Califiornia being advertised as 'easy.' You can check out, but........

SD also demonstrably doesn't save me money, as before I'd send a banknote sold for £20 or less in a harbackk envelope to protect it (cost around 20p) with second class postage valued at 85p (which I'd pay aound 30-50p for). All of this with free insurance via a Certificate of Posting. With SD it cost much more than the max 70p it would cost me. 

[sinbinthecat_sinbadthecat]

Oh and just to say, I have no objection to paying a commision or fee to ebay. They are providing a worldwide customer base after all! 

Although like many other hobbyists, I did hold out for the reduced fees sales weekends, and then try as list as much of my accumaltion. I also realised that the no fees sales period couldn't last forever.  However, I didn't think that they would make such a *bleep* up of what came next. I sould like a grumpy old man but all the random penny prices are annoying, and I just want to be left in peace to post my own letter how I want.  Surely most people are happy to use SD, but why can't they let those of us who don't- probably the minority- continue to do as before? 

[parisd*21]

I am thinking of avoiding all this by changing to a business account. What do people reckon?

All the items I sell are either inherited from my late father, or personal items of my own, so nothing is subject to income tax. Although I may appear to be a business via ebay, I am 100% confident I can justify to HMRC that all my items are my own and therefore not subject to income tax etc.  I have my own business on ebay where everything goes through my self-assessment.  These are just my personal things not subject to income tax. I am happy to pay ebay a fee for selling, but I am not happy to be told what I can and can't use for postage, especially when the prices are ridiculously expensive.  Most my items are large letters and under £20, which royal mail have always been good at compensating if they go missing.

Whether I do or don't declare anything to HMRC is a matter between me and HMRC, not a matter for ebay.

[edwardian-dreams]

If eBay “recommend” 2kg you can send your item even if it weighs more, you won’t be charged extra (eBay says) …just thought I’d stick that in 

theres no 2-10kg (yet) 

If you wanted to pay the correct amount (6.80) you can’t 

Because the charge for up to 15kg (which is the only option after up to 2kg)  is £4 approx more than it should be 

and Royal Mail don’t have an up to 15kg they have10-20kg and that’s why the highest price £10 odd appears

as I’ve said before ebay are trying to fuse two different systems (couriers and royal mail) but it doesn’t work 

I bet the staff trying to work it are having  kittens 

[technthread]

I wouldn’t do that. You’d be presenting as a business and for HMRC that would be case closed.

You would be better off just selling those items in cash at a car boot or just list them on the existing business account and declare the income. You could use the funds to buy something for the business and cancel it all out as expenses.

[andyf117]

Another scenario which I don't think anyone's addressed as yet.

eBay have always 'encouraged' us sellers to despatch items promptly, and within our stated timeframe to do so - something which I've always endeavoured to beat.

My understanding is that with SD, there is no longer the ability to mark items as 'Despatched' nor add tracking - as there has always been - for items not sent via an Ebay-linked service such as Packlink, and I believe I've read somewhere that the SD label provided is only valid for three(?) days.

So what happens when a buyer requests a week or more's delay in sending their purchase and there's:

a) no longer the facility to mark as despatched or enter tracking, and

b) the eBay-supplied label has a 'shelf life' shorter than the requested delay?

On such occasions I've marked as 'despatched' on the same day as sending other items (solely to stop repeated 'despatch now' reminders), and entered the tracking details (when used) later, ie., on the day that the item is actually sent.