New postage policy seems a bit dodgy...

[lord.ford]

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

[ankocat]

This too has just happened to me, I sold a 132g videogame in a LL packet to an international buyer, I fill everything out, even writing the weight on the customs form, all the usual stuff. I thought it was a little pricey, but the buyer selected RM International Tracked so I thought it was ok.

After I post it, I go back into the order when I get home and of course it's been sent it as International Standard Small Parcel for 1000g, I didn't see any option to change it or select anything different when I paid for the label, the buyer had paid the correct price for tracked that I had put in my listing for the 132g so I ended up paying the difference myself from which was already lowered funds from it being an offer.

But now I feel so bad for the buyer I'm also going to have to apologise and give them a partial refund since they paid more for a delivery service that they didn't get AND they have no tracking at all which eBay seems to want to push, so this is just super frustrating.

Why are they doing this?!

[jess123_blue]

I will not be selling on eBay anymore. I have recently cleared a family home and sold hundreds of small items all collected from my home by Royal Mail. If I had had to drive 5 miles to the nearest EVRi collection point and pay to park when I got there it would not have been worth it. Also EVRi are so unreliable that I imagine many items would never arrive 

[jckl1957]

You can still choose to send only by Royal Mail if you use Simple Delivery.

If you can print your labels, you can still have your items collected by RM - although they have just introduced a charge of 30p per item for collecting parcels.

[edwardian-dreams]

You don’t have to use evri

you can deselect them as an option in postage preferences under courier options 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf

[sin-6737]

Nope, I can’t find a way around SD and yes you are right re 30p!
Sent from my iPhone

[jckl1957]

Simple Delivery is being rolled out as mandatory across the site for private sellers so there is not a way around it.

I said you can choose not to use Evri.

Opt to use Royal Mail only here  https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf

Go to 'Simple Delivery' and 'Courier Options'.

[darrenyeomans634]

It now looks like ebay are forcing me to use their postage, as the custom choice has been removed. I just canceled a sale due to this, and was already being made to wait 2 weeks for payment on each sale. I totally new that so called free selling was a total B.S. lnstead, they have switched to buyer protection fee's, and now controlled postage like Amazon, who have been ripping people of with their postage for years. I was told to get an ombudsman involved if i didn't like their conduct. I am totally *bleep* off, and will probably be leaving them. Talk about moving the goal posts. Pass the info on.