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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@infohelps wrote:

Have you tried Music Magpie?

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Yeah I've done Music Magpie and WeBuyBooks over the years but even they don't seem to want the more popular DVDs and old computer games now. I did a price check on them before giving them away as I'm not that charitable (although maybe I should be...).

[infohelps]

No, I did exactly the same thing!!  We check everything now before giving it away, since hubby gave a bit of old 80s music tech to the local charity shop, and then found people were paying about 600 quid for them.......  However, I must admit that we usually check eBay to see if things are up for sale and for how much, but whether we'll be able to do that in the future is uncertain, as private sellers with interesting vintage items disappear into the sunset. 

[akemp1]

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@infohelps wrote:

No, I did exactly the same thing!!  We check everything now before giving it away, since hubby gave a bit of old 80s music tech to the local charity shop, and then found people were paying about 600 quid for them....... 

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Ouch. I am optimistic that the charity shop I gave them to will be able to sell them as it seems popular and there are frequently people walking out having bought as much stuff as they can hold in both arms.

This morning I had a nice couple collect something large I put on the social network marketplace yesterday as I can't be bothered creating new collection-only listings on ebay after they changed my collection-only listings to SD and I had to change them back again. I still have existing collection-only ebay listings to move to the social network.

I also posted 2 ebay sales as I am fortunate enough to still be able to sell with standard postage.

I also have more of my ebay listings to move to the clothing marketplace. 162 is my lowest number of ebay listings in years. I don't have many listings elsewhere as stuff tends to sell quickly in those places. My house has been cluttered up with junk as I could never let go of the potential cumulative value of low value items and it's starting to look more like the home I want to live in and invite people back to.

I have some ebay listings where I disassembled broken things to sell as parts but sales on them seem to have dried up so I might just group up the remaining parts and sell as parts joblots.

The rapid sales I am getting at the clothing marketplace is also helping me get rid of my massive spare used box collection which takes a lot of space.

Less stuff makes cleaning the house easier too!

[vinylscot]

eBay won't be able to exempt large letters from SD, as their contracts with RM and Evri will be based on the average weight of parcels, assuming large letters are included. Exempting large letters might increase the average weight of SD packages over the agreed amount in their contract.

To a certain extent, that's also the reason other couriers won't be added to SD for the foreseeable future. RM and Evri will have been guaranteed certain volumes of business through this contract. Introducing another option would almost certainly mean one or both of the existing couriers would not get their contracted amount of business, which would cost eBay. Depending on how well SD goes, there may be other couriers willing to join, whenever the current contract comes up for renewal, but that is likely to be two or three years away.

[grapecr-30]

Do you think SD is going to stop alot of people selling on eBay, and do you think it will make any difference to eBay continuing to make SD compulsory,in other words.... Is there any chance eBay may decide to make SD optional again?

[azathothdreaming]

eBay is a very large company and as a very large company they only care
about money: any business of a similar scale that acts like it cares about
user satisfaction is employing a tactic because they've calculated that
people thinking positively about them gets them more money. The only
scenario in which eBay reverses this decision is if it costs them money, be
that by a drop in users or having to pay for more support staff to deal
with the issues. It sucks but it's an inevitability of a company occupying
a dominant market position.

[grapecr-30]

Thank you for the reply.... I guess I am just curious as too what people really think or do about SD... I have used eBay since it first started, and seen many changes over the years,most of them have annoyed people, but people(including myself) have eventually sucked it up, and gone crawling back, but I really feel it might possibly be different with Simple Delivery, where people like myself have stopped selling and going to stick to their guns this time, as SD is a genuine problem 

[azathothdreaming]

In terms of my own opinion, it's a case of eBay rent seeking and making the product worse at the same time: they want a slice of money from all postage on their site but in doing so have made their own marketplace worse because it's more expensive in many instances and removes choices buyers have had for decades. I am housebound a lot of the time and don't have a printer so I'll be literally unable to sell on eBay once I get Simple Delivery, without using a workaround at least. You can have the unused label refunded within 30 days but such a length of time is clearly punitive.

[vinylscot]

As eBay has entered into contracts with Royal Mail and Evri, I really don't think they have the option to make Simple Delivery optional, so I reckon private sellers are stuck with it (I have a small private account too). In some form, it will come to business accounts too, but there may be more leeway there, at least for larger accounts. - in short, nobody knows.

[grapecr-30]

Thank you for your reply.... I guess I'm just clutching at straws,and hoping people are going to tell me what I want too hear.... But in all honesty, I already know the answer too the question I am asking.... I don't think I've ever seen eBay listen too or care about what it's user's are saying or reverse decisions.... I will continue to sulk in silence....!!

[grapecr-30]

Personally, I think....scrap Buyer Protection, Let people choose their own postage(I'm sure some people will use SD), and start charging sellers a REASONABLE final valuation fee.... And get buyers back onto eBay,who are able to buy cheap items again.... They are pricing cheap items out.....!

[akemp1]

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@grapecr-30 wrote:

Thank you for the reply.... I guess I am just curious as too what people really think or do about SD... I have used eBay since it first started, and seen many changes over the years,most of them have annoyed people, but people(including myself) have eventually sucked it up, and gone crawling back, but I really feel it might possibly be different with Simple Delivery, where people like myself have stopped selling and going to stick to their guns this time, as SD is a genuine problem 

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I think to some extent with the recent SD concessions such as splitting small/medium parcels to keep SD pricing within published RM rates, the hasty attempt at combined postage which just seems to push it up a postage rate, etc then many will suck it up but I also expect that many including myself will now be multi-platform in our buying and selling and that's not going to change as ebay is no longer compelling enough to be a one place to sell and buy anymore.

There are other places that it's clearly better to sell and buy certain things at. I have proven that to myself in the transactions I have been able to do there for example quickly selling things at higher prices than they were stagnating here for months/years not getting many views. My view rate per item and sales velocity (not that I am a business or looking for an avalanche of posting to arrange) are far better elsewhere.

I never would have expected to signup at the clothing marketplace or use the social network to sell until this year's changes were announced but now I see them as giving me a much wider range of choices so I am no longer a victim of giving ebay exclusivity. I am a free agent and they each have to be competitive to get my buying or selling activity. Not going to needlessly enslave myself to ebay again. This was the first time in my account's 24 years they lost my loyalty.

[akemp1]

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@grapecr-30 wrote:

Is there any chance eBay may decide to make SD optional again?

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I doubt it on parcels. I think there might still be hope on large letter rate items despise vinylscot's comments about averaging because the SD rates are so disproportionately high it must be significantly harming sales of such items so ebay would be collecting less buyer tax, getting less respend, losing user loyalty as people signup elsewhere, etc. Even then I expect it would be ebay providing the postage not simply allowing you to buy your own so they get the revenue recognition and it counts towards their RM spend commitments.

[zed1015]

SD is the main change that really eff'ed the whole thing up for private sellers .

The other stuff can be worked around or compensated for.

At the minimum making SD an option and returning the fees back to the sellers side so you know exactly what price the buyer see's would do the trick.

[akemp1]

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@grapecr-30 wrote:

Personally, I think....scrap Buyer Protection, Let people choose their own postage(I'm sure some people will use SD), and start charging sellers a REASONABLE final valuation fee.... And get buyers back onto eBay,who are able to buy cheap items again.... They are pricing cheap items out.....!

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My vote goes to

• renaming it to the less offensive 'platform fee' as most of ebay's users are not children and understand that ebay's services need to be paid for.
• vary the fixed element by category as they do at the clothing marketplace to reflect that some categories are far higher risk and cost to ebay than others.
• give a 'seller pays' option when listing as they do with the postage so the seller can decide if they want the buyer to see/pay the fee or not on their listings.

Ebay might not want the cheap items but they almost certainly don't want users signing up elsewhere to buy and sell them as that will start eating into the more expensive items where users might start buying them elsewhere with their shiny new non-ebay accounts. If they want loyal users they should have enabled them to buy and sell the cheap stuff with reasonable costs it's basically the cost of being in this business.

[grapecr-30]

Yeah, I really think dropping Buyer Protection Fee's and returning Final Valuation Fees, would get eBay going again, because it has been dead for a long time, even when I do list items, it's just Zero views these days never mind actually getting a bid..

[akemp1]

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@akemp1 wrote:

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My vote goes to

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oh and I forgot to add

• enabling the buyer tax to be combined on bundles so the buyer is not paying the fixed element multiple times on each listing. The clothing marketplace do this and it even works with the differences in fixed buyer fee element per category.

[grapecr-30]

Well, if I win the lottery tonight(3 Numbers if I'm lucky) I will make an offer on buying eBay right out, and expect some redundancies to follow....

[akemp1]

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@grapecr-30 wrote:

Well, if I win the lottery tonight(3 Numbers if I'm lucky) I will make an offer on buying eBay right out, and expect some redundancies to follow....

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Surely you could find some horrible sole-destroying job to reassign the people who came up with this strategy into? With some very stretching targets that mean their bonus never pays out. No need to pay redundancies when you have an active imagination. I hear the might need help in drafting individual replies to each user who is not happy anymore addressing all their points in detail. They could be bonus'ed on customer satisfaction with the users needing to rate their responses a consistent 10/10.

[grapecr-30]

Good point.... I will appoint you as director of operations...