SIMPLE DELIVERY AND BUYERS PROTECTION FEE WILL NEVER BE ACCEPTABLE TO SELLERS & BUYERS

[crn303]

Simple delivery will never be acceptable to sellers and buyers.

Inflated postage prices created by eBay just to make them more money.

What was wrong with sellers deciding for themselves how THEY wanted their items to be despatched … what service to use, preferred delivery source etc

eBay should NEVER have introduced Buyer Protection Fee.
It inflates the item price that the buyer sees and will obviously be a deterrent in achieving that sale.

Don't penalise the buyer.

I note on these community postings, a preference to return to the previous features such as buyers fees, occasional free listing promotions etc. 

Whilst this would make sense, I doubt if eBay would want to appear stepping down and admitting they have make mistakes.

If they were to compromise I feel they would regain the respect they have lost or is their greed more important to them ….Probably the latter.

[hummingbird-curios]

Well said and I couldn't agree more but to eBay, each private seller is just a grain of sand on the beach and they couldn't give a toss what we think.

Buyer fees are a revenue raising scam as buyers are already so heavily covered b the Online distance selling regulations,  the sale of goods act,  consumer law, the card/payment provider and the eBay money back guarantee.

Simple delivery is so over complicated, it's ridiculous, they're going to use AI to guess the size and weight of existing listings (AI is for Artificial Intelligence - Artificial means Not Real)

They've come up with a solution for combined postage - they'll refund the buyer for any unused postage labels after 30 days!!! WHAT DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND ABOUT INTERNET SHOPPING.

There is a saying - if it ain't broke, don't fix it but eBay thinks the saying is - if it ain't broke, keep fixing it till it is broke.

Every time I ask Customer Service anything about BPF or Simple Delivery, I get a different answer, they are clueless and obviously don't get any training, they just make it up as they go along.

I've had enough of the changes over the years, some good, some not so good but these recent changes are a disaster. Would you let Evri lob your parcels at your customers doorstep. I've taken all my listings down this evening and I won't be buying any more, buying is so much easier elsewhere on eBay

Good luck to all this who decide to stick with it

[department28]

Unfortunately, despite all the outcry over the BPF & Simple Delivery, it seems unlikely eBay will backtrack. They must be confident that enough private sellers will ultimately knuckle under...

However, you can only push people so far. Maybe if enough worms turn...? 

[vinylscot]

Instead of forcing everyone onto SD, why didn't eBay just force private sellers into purchasing postage through their own system which already existed? It gave far more choice; the seller would still pay (and could therefore recoup packaging costs more easily); and, as it was being paid through eBay, they could still have negotiated very favourable rates with the couriers/RM, etc?

It would also have been much cheaper and less disruptive to implement, as the infrastructure is already there. (And they probably wouldn't have needed to add the extra protections against INRs and damages, which nobody either wanted or asked for.)

The only reasons I can think are

1) the name Packlink is so toxic that they had to get away from it, although I understand they are still hovering around in the background, as a "partner".

OR

2) to drive bogus private sellers onto business accounts. Genuine private sellers can't get away from this. Private sellers who are really businesses have a choice. SD will be very fiddly and inconvenient for pseudo-private sellers posting dozens of items at a time - it might be enough to push some into doing the right thing.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"Whilst this would make sense, I doubt if eBay would want to appear stepping down and admitting they have make mistakes."

I agree, they'll never admit to making a mistake, which is what they should do if they want to try to salvage the remnants of their reputation, trust and goodwill.  If they realise that they need to reverse, this is how they are more likely to present it IMO:

- The bulk of longstanding private sellers have exited.

- New private sellers have come in who don't know how it used to be.

- Ebay trumpet some changes which they say are going to make it easier and beneficial for both sellers and buyers - sellers will be able to deal with carriers themselves, there will be no buyers premium and payments will be made once the buyer pays.

- New sellers think ebay is doing them a favour and aren't they wonderful.

- After a suitable honeymoon period, ebay introduce a fair and reasonable sellers fee.

- A while later, the fee is increased.

And here we go again.

[aphystykqa]

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@crn303 wrote:

Simple delivery will never be acceptable to sellers and buyers.

Inflated postage prices created by eBay just to make them more money.

What was wrong with sellers deciding for themselves how THEY wanted their items to be despatched … what service to use, preferred delivery source etc

eBay should NEVER have introduced Buyer Protection Fee.
It inflates the item price that the buyer sees and will obviously be a deterrent in achieving that sale.

Don't penalise the buyer.

I note on these community postings, a preference to return to the previous features such as buyers fees, occasional free listing promotions etc. 

Whilst this would make sense, I doubt if eBay would want to appear stepping down and admitting they have make mistakes.

If they were to compromise I feel they would regain the respect they have lost or is their greed more important to them ….Probably the latter.

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There is a possible compromise that Ebay UK could apply to Private Sellers, which would please everyone.

1) Use Simple Delivery and pay ZERO Sellers Fees and the buyer pays 4% + 75p Buyer Protection fees

2) Use the Original Postal System and pay the ORIGINAL Ebay Sellers Fees of 12.9% + 30p which Private Sellers used to pay on Ebay and the buyer pays ZERO Buyer Protection fees, but still gets that same buyer protection anyway.

That would mean that Ebay doesn't lose out financially, and ALL Private Sellers gets a Choice between both systems.

I absolutely HATE Simple Delivery, and it's certainly not Simple in any-way-shape-or-form, as if it was simple, then there wouldn't be such a Huge level of complaints about it. In my opinion, it's the single Worst change Ebay has ever made !!! - and I been an Ebay seller and buyer for 22 years - out of the 30 years which Ebay has been in existence, so that really is saying something.

[aymanalvi]

Leaving Ebay for good because of SD and BP. Ebay have become Greedy this will distory Ebay. The decline of Ebay has started.

[cbyjeffreydriver]

Although far from ideal, I can handle the Buyer Protection fee because customers see that it's a fee eBay have added. However, my items are cheap, so sellers of more expensive items might be heavily impacted. I can imagine that seeing eBay adding huge BP fees would dissuade customers. That's why I offer free shipping!

I've noticed that people are happy to pay £5 with free shipping, but much less happy to pay £3.45 with £1.55 shipping!

Regarding Simple Delivery, it's a farce. I offer free shipping, which is as simple as it gets for me and my customers. SD doesn't seem to account for small, cheap items, wanting me to spend at least £2.70 (at the time of writing). What really winds me up is that selling a similar item doesn't take into account that I rejected SD, and I have to set it each time, AND dismiss a pop-up. I list lots of items, and this really slows down my work process.

[game_raid]

I tell you what winds me up, businesses that are not correctly registered - you are an obvious business seller making items to resell but you complain about the issues that are affecting genuine private sellers, you know the ones that want to get a fair price for their unwanted items or collection and not have all these hoops to jump through.

[jil_3862]

I quite agree, SD is a farce!
But anybody who can say "I list lots of items, and this really slows down my work process." probably should become a business seller, and hey presto! problem solved. 😎

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[aymanalvi]

This is a Vinit business Model ebay are copying it. All changes Ebay have made are all aligned like for like on Vinted. 

[theelench]

If this is intended to "Drive bogus private sellers onto business accounts.", I've yet to see or read of any appreciable success.

I appreciate that some action on the "private" seller problem is long overdue but if this solution is the best ebay can come up with it shows total contempt for genuine private sellers.  To me it just shows that ebay is happy to sacrifice any number of correctly registered, long standing decent sellers who cannot get out of it on the off-chance that those who are incorrectly registered will re-register properly. 

Once again it seems to me that ebay is reluctant to take action against business sellers for fear that they'll go elsewhere but is only too happy to hit private sellers with un-necessary restrictions to persuade business sellers to play by the rules.

[cbyjeffreydriver]

I did have a business account. Ebay's fees and rules killed it off very quickly. 12 months of work wasted, and I've had to start again from scratch.

[papso22]

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@cbyjeffreydriver wrote:

I did have a business account. Ebay's fees and rules killed it off very quickly. 12 months of work wasted, and I've had to start again from scratch.

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That is no excuse for trading illegally. 

[cbyjeffreydriver]

I'm not trading illegally. Every penny of my income is accounted for in my self-assessment.

[papso22]

It's not tax law it's consumer law, and the law that makes it a criminal offence for a business to misrepresent themselves as a private individual. 

[jckl1957]

You have 'no returns' and your business address is not displayed on your listings.

You are trading illegally according to The Consumer Rights Act 2015.

[vinylscot]

I appreciate it's not going to have a huge effect. However, (correct me if I'm wrong) I believe every sale generated with SD generates its own label, which must be downloaded and printed off individually.

This will be significantly more time-consuming than running a Royal Mail account, where it's easy to print off a whole day's labels all at once.

Genuine private sellers will be selling much lower numbers of items, so won't have such a clumsy and error-prone process to go through.

In addition, nobody likes change, so even if this persuades a few bogus private sellers to register correctly, it'll be better than nothing.

[myoldpaperclutter]

They will reinvent something to keep their profits up, but I think SD, BPF & holding money for up to 14 days will affect their profits now. If they were that confident with these dreadful changes they would introduce them on their other country platforms. They are just using the UK as a testing ground. Here’s wishing them every un-success, and job loses for those who thought up the ideas as a pure money grab. There is confusion everywhere at present, especially the Simply Stupid Delivery, and they haven’t even got the bottle to put out a statement/apology. What a dreadful company ebay have turned into.

[vinylscot]

They only way Simple Delivery will affect eBay's profit is by increasing them massively, even with an enormous drop in sales volume.

Obviously, we are not privy to the contracts eBay will have with RM and Evri, but, based on what I know about smaller business's RM contracts, eBay will be making well over £1.00 in clear profit for every single package being sent by SD - that's all profit they were not previously making.

They would need to lose a huge percentage of their current sales for it to make any difference at all.

I am quite sure there will be tweaks and amendments to SD over time, but, sadly, I'm pretty sure it is here to stay.