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.

[dantwocats]

Its a very odd offer ,Warhammer 40K books still only SD but Warhammer lord of the rings books have the opt out ? its just the name of the cover that's different ?? now doing by spare star wars ones and back to just SD ALL UNDER £10 ? and some being recommended as small parcels ? 

[24-bridgest]

Agree....remove the BPF and go back to eBay taking their commission from sellers selling price.. and allow sellers to choose how they despatch their sold items.....that's simple to me!...

[blacksea213]

Too simple for eBay !

[gmij1961]

It's has become laughably pathetic, when I have bought or won an auction on Item from a private seller since this Ebay imposed this nonsense  ,more often than not its been sent by Evri .   I am only buying a fraction of what I used to . Before the amount of parcels sent by Evri by any seller had dwindled to virtually nothing

As a buyer I get an Email from Evri with  subject header "We've got your eBay Simple Delivery parcel" .   As a buyer the fact it is being sent simple delivery means very little to me , as an ex-seller  the words "simple delivery" are an insult !  

However the question needs to be asked why are Evri promoting Ebay Simple delivery in this  cheesy fashion  , for them it should be just another parcel that will deliver to their normal underwhelming standard .

One of the truly unsavoury aspects of SD is way Ebay are channelling more and more packages through Evri when it was quite clear before the announced imposition that the majority of sellers preferred and trusted Royal Mail . 

 I have little doubt that once  DHL Evri can handle  the same range of parcels and UK addresses then SD will no longer offer RM as an option  . 

If SD was genuinely about making the delivery experience easy for novice or low volume sellers then it might have  had some worthwhile merit , but the longer this goes on that is clearly not the case and "Simple Delivery" as a marketing product has lost all credibility 

[lucy_farmer]

'If SD was genuinely about making the delivery experience easy for novice or low volume sellers then it might have  had some worthwhile merit , '

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Simple Delivery hasn't been shoved on to private sellers to make their live easier or simpler.

It's been developed to be an 'income stream'.  No more, no less.

[gmij1961]

No doubt Ebay launched this as projected money spinner , as that is what Jamie Iannone told his backers.  Should never been called simple delivery in the 1st place .

Simply not winning the existing  customers over  and upsetting a hell of a lot could be classed as  significant flaw that will choke its expansion .  It will never be that money spinner if they can't get beyond UK private sellers 

If Ebay leadership  had any sense they would bin it and start again or  even better just forget about it altogether .

A simple delivery offering works with the likes of VTD as it is a simple platform that is just evolving  , Ebay is a very complex platform that evolved over 2 decades plus .

A simple test of its current success along with the other changes is has it taken any market share away from VTD .  For what VTD current sell then they are still a more effective market place . 

[4minutemile]

They're totalitarian like our government. We never voted for any of it.

[blacksea213]

Very true

[lucy_farmer]

'A simple test of its current success along with the other changes is has it taken any market share away from VTD . '

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I wonder if ebay have noted that it appears to have had the *opposite* effect?

Vint*d are expanding their categories to take advantage of the ebay sellers who can't face the thought of Evri having anything to do with their sales................... although Vint*d use a form of Simple Del, their big advantage, delivery-wise,  is the much greater choice of delivery companies.

[akemp1]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

Simple Delivery hasn't been shoved on to private sellers to make their live easier or simpler.

It's been developed to be an 'income stream'.  No more, no less.

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I wish they had come up with an income stream that wasn't so extremely annoying.

[theelench]

Back when I was a regular buyer on ebay I always avoided sellers who quoted for hermes/evri delivery, or perhaps I should  say I tried to.  One of the main reasons I cut back on buying on ebay was that even if some sellers quoted for RM delivery, all too often the parcel was still sent by evri "tracked".  It became too obvious that to these sellers the most important feature of evri's "underwhelming standard" was the supposed tracking which got them off the hook with ebay for lost/mis-delivered/stolen parcels.  

All they required was a "Delivered" on the tracking log and they had no case to answer.  That I found a large box on my door-step recently, clearly addressed to my next door neighbour (who was in) doesn't lead me to believe that they've improved since I had similar experiences with them.

I don't think ebay will remove RM from the "choices" offered to sellers.  Ebay will use RM's full coverage of all addresses to fill in the gaps where evri will not deliver to, but at a "premium rate" extra cost to buyers, while pushing most buyers towards the significantly cheaper evri 'choice'.  Isn't ebay already getting that next step ready by overcharging buyers from sellers who offer RM Only?

Also it does surprise me that ebay seems to have got away with limiting buyers and sellers choice to only two delivery companies.  Would ebay be able to get away with only offering a choice of one carrier?  Even if DHL/evri were able to match the universal service that RM offers?   Would the CMA allow such monopoly and price control?

I must admit I'm falling behind with the (still) constantly changing details of SD but have to wonder, along with you (in your next reply to @lucy_farmer ) if ebay is turning this mess into the income stream it anticipated.  If, as you say, ebay is even now pushing a huge amount of deliveries towards evri with their usual rate of delivery fails, how much is ebay paying in compensation for INR cases ?  If they are using the excuse that previously bad sellers used, that "tracking says Delivered" (so hard luck on the buyer), how many buyers are they losing ?

Perhaps ebay has bitten off more than it can chew this time ?

[technthread]

I can only go off what I have seen work here on my own account  but there is a way of avoiding SD entirely. I have a private account and set the same business policies for postage that I do on this one.

Last week I sold a couple of vinyl records from my collection on my private account at £50 each, a CD for £14 and also listed a £6 CD. I list on the app. At no point was I ever able to choose SD as my own policies were the only ones I could select from. I actually would have preferred SD on the vinyl records and my own policies for the CD’s but unless I deleted my polices it was one or the other across the board.

I know private sellers may not want to create business policies as the term is a contradiction for the account type but it works and has done since SD began.

My take on it was when I came to buy my own labels on those sales I would have much rather had the eBay protection of SD on the vinyl records. Thankfully they got delivered ok anyway and i’m not planning on any more private sales but if I was I think I’d delete my policies moving forward.

[blacksea213]

Vinted seems to work!

[w.l.stubbs]

I drastically cut back on buying from eBay when Evri became the default courier for so many sellers, regardless of whether the listing stated Royal Mail or not. In my local area, Evri has been consistently unreliable packages go missing, deliveries are late, and communication is poor. I know some people say they’re great in their area, but for me, they’ve been nothing short of a disaster. Because of this, I now actively avoid sellers who use Evri, even if it means passing on items I really want.

Over the past few years, my spending on eBay has dropped to about quarter of what it used to be. I once spent between £2,000 and £3,000 a year on the platform, but the overall experience has gone downhill dramatically. It started with eBay’s constant tinkering with categories and search functions, making it harder and more frustrating to find the things I’m actually interested in. On top of that, there seem to be far fewer sellers offering the types of items I like to buy, which only adds to the decline.

I can’t help but wonder how many other long time buyers have drastically cut their spending like I have. eBay still seems to be pulling in massive revenue, but it’s hard to believe that their success is sustainable when the buying experience has become so frustrating and impersonal. For me, the site has shifted from being an exciting, reliable marketplace to something I now reluctantly use  and only when there’s absolutely no alternative.

[gmij1961]

I can understand Ebays  desire to control delivery and the financial rewards  but putting a massive great metaphorical pick axe into the platform really is not the way to achieve it, and that is what they done

From what I hear there are still private listing that are not being set to SD and that suggest there backend databases are tied up in knots which is not surprising for a platform that has evolved over 20 years . As the main differentiator is "private" seller definition it really should have been simple but I suspect one of the practical complexities is a lot current business sellers started as private sellers and those legacy settings have been a major spanner in the works . They really do seem to have issues with "data migration"

A reality for Ebay is they have invested a lot of money in getting to this point , they have spent a lot on new systems and IT work while at the same time losing nearly 6 months worth of private seller fees.

There has to be a point of make or break when someone within Ebay has to pull the plug ,  and that perhaps is more likely to driven investor and share holder confidence  which is probably pretty strained at present.   Perhaps the biggest fault with Ebay's SD rollout program is they don't have an roll back plan and are now stuck somewhere without a paddle 🙂

I probably would a been cheaper and easier to just buy VTD instead and push suitable categories that way . 

The big differentiators between private and business sellers , is whatever their motives to sell , they don't really have to sell anything in a hurry and can simply sit back and watch if they choose 🙂

[1956glyn]

My spending has increased rather than decreased............not on Ebay though.

IF i am honest........too many fake items are being offered nowadays and i would rather pay the extra and order from a Brands official site. 

We  could spend a lot on Ebay at the minute as we are remodelling a house.    I get frustrated with the search function so go elsewhere. 

[abrahamtoast]

I find it odd when posters bemoan the fact that there are only two choices of carriers under SD. It shows that these posters are not sellers (as you have stated yourself on many occasions).

One of the biggest gripes of SD, from a seller's point of view was that there were two carriers, so sellers may need to visit two drop-off points, a post office and an Evri drop-off point. This was (rightly) portrayed as being inconvenient. How much more inconvenient would it be if sellers had to visit four or five different drop-off points?

I live in the city of Glasgow, within 400 yards of my post office, and an Evri drop-off pint, but some of the other couriers' drop off points are considerably further away.

[akemp1]

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@gmij1961 wrote:

A simple test of its current success along with the other changes is has it taken any market share away from VTD . 

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Haha SD made me signup and start buying and selling there! Very familiar with it now.

I doubt many people who use that site will be rushing to use ebay's second rate implementation.

[fantailsforme]

And that was the beauty of Custom Delivery - you posted wherever it was convenient to the seller.

[theelench]

I don't doubt you would find it odd unless you think about it a little. 

I, like so many others ATM, will not put up with ebay having any influence or control over how or why I decide which carrier or which of their services I will or will not use.  Under no circumstances will I allow that to happen.  

So no, I'm no longer selling here and won't be until the current restrictions are removed.  That's my choice having been given the "Take it or Leave it" options handed to me by ebay.

Perhaps you might think in broader terms if you sold items that weren't exclusively thin, flat and relatively difficult to damage if packaged properly.

Something that I did for over a decade, mostly selling vintage glass and ceramics.   And I will add, I did so successfully and without having one single item broken in transit and without ebay's unwanted interference.

Perhaps you would understand my reluctance better if only you were thinking correctly.  I'm not bemoaning that ebay only offers two choices but that it seems determined that I offer one that is so well known for being second rate and unreliable and down-right careless.  They might be OK for your items, but I wouldn't trust them with any of mine.  I will stick with my tried and tested carrier who has worked well for me for so many years.  Thank you.