Anyone else find the ‘new’ postage process for sellers frustrating and a bit suspicious?
Specifically:
- Ebay now require sellers to select the postage service during the listing and only allow them to use that postage service once the item has sold.
- This would not be too bad but they do not display the costs for the various services at the point of selection (as they used to when selecting after sale) and so buyers are committing to buying a postage service without knowing the price - as such this is not technically a valid contract (under UK law at least).
- Ebay also no longer allow sellers to insert tracking numbers for items they have posted themselves (i.e. sellers who did not buy postage from eBay directly). This is bad for buyers but also disastrous for sellers as eBay also now only releases funds 2 days after delivery has been confirmed - in the absence of the ability to add tracking numbers or for buyers to confirm receipt, it means sellers not buying postage from eBay now have to wait up to 2 weeks(!) for funds to be issued.
I’ve been an eBayer for 18 years and never once posted on these forums but these changes seem a bit ‘dodgy’ at best.
OK, so eBay are trying to reduce seller fees and recoup it by selling postage services, I get it. But at least allow sellers the choice of not buying postage through eBay and at the VERY least give us an idea of what the postage service we are buying through eBay will cost.
Questions to eBay: why are you to forcing sellers to confirm delivery service at point of listing with no way of changing it afterwards? Why do you not list the prices for the deliver services at the point when the seller is forced to select? Why do you not allow sellers to add their own tracking numbers? Why do you not allow buyer’s to confirm receipt (same way as you can for collections)?
In the hope of getting some response from eBay, I’m not even sure forcing sellers to choose postage without knowing the price is legal in the UK - said it.
LF
