Simple Delivery Address Labels

[kitchoct57]

I'm sure most eBay sellers will have had sales to buyers addresses containing some errors that require googling to make sense of the address, or sometimes require contacting the buyer for address clarity. 

In the good old days before the so called awful 'simple' delivery I could correct the errors in my hand written address labels and that was that. Yesterday I got my first sale in the simple delivery era and the buyer's address was crammed onto one line and not spaced out properly. The eBay message came with the usual warning about there being too many characters but it also had an additional warning saying that I have to cancel the sale and refund the buyer because the of address errors. I refunded the buyer and explained the problem. 

You might think that instead of putting the responsibility on sellers to cancel orders and inform buyers that they need to correct the mistakes in their address so that a label can be produced eBay systems would reject addresses that are incorrect for label printing. 

Judging by how many people have errors in their address information I don't think this will a rare event.

[davrman]

This has been a problem for years (decades?), but eBay shows no signs of solving it. Presumably it doesn't provide live validation of addresses as each lookup costs the company (very little) money, whereas invalid addresses cost sellers (more) money. 

[kyanyama]

When I had a sale, in the glorious days before Not-So-Simple-Delivery, I used to check every single address on the Royal Mail address checker and change it according to what the RM address checker showed.  I never had an item go missing.  Would say there were approx. 20% needed changing.

Not had any sales since being forced onto Not-So-Simple-Delivery (I ended all my adverts 🙄) so I wondered what would happen if the address wasn't recognised by RM.

With sales being so intermittent it must be galling to have to cancel one for an address problem.  But it's better to be safe than sorry!

[goodibags]

"With sales being so intermittent it must be galling to have to cancel one for an address problem.  But it's better to be safe than sorry!"

Except, as you point out, sales are so rare these days. Also, with SD, my understanding is that if an item posted with SD is lost in the post then the buyer is refunded and the seller gets to keep their money too. But ONLY if they used the dodgy label provided by SD.

It's tricky to know who Ebay has outsourced this problem to? It's clearly not the sellers' job to do it any more. And while the couriers may initially have to pick up the tab (if they're not getting paid for failing to deliver) you kind of wonder for how much longer that will be acceptable to them? 

SD is supposed to be generating more revenue for Ebay, not a back door to losing it.

[department28]

'The eBay message came with the usual warning about there being too many characters but it also had an additional warning saying that I have to cancel the sale and refund the buyer because the of address errors. I refunded the buyer and explained the problem.' 

It is this sort of thing that will drive us all mad... and away from eBay. I wonder how many sales have had to be cancelled since Simple Delivery was inflicted on us? The answer to any of the many ongoing problems with SD, whether it is combined shipping, courier problems, weight of parcel, buyer address issues etc etc, appears to be, 'you will have to cancel the sale, refund and relist'...

Who has the time, or needs the hassle, of cancelling sales, contacting buyers to explain issues we barely understand ourselves, filling in forms for postage refunds etc?! 😖

With the old system, if there was a problem with the address, it was easily fixed by the seller before purchasing the label. And the seller had the chance to check out the address for themselves, to make sure it was correct.

 Can't help thinking acting as eBay's guinea pigs for Simple Delivery, will be something many private sellers will be regretting...

[kitchoct57]

Thanks to all who responded to my comments about simple delivery and buyers addresses that have errors not being recognised for label printing. This really is something that eBay should be responsible for sorting out.  An address that is considered unacceptable for printing should not be on the system because it will then be rejected and the seller will have to cancel the sale and refund the buyer and inform the buyer why - as I had to. 

[goodibags]

"This really is something that eBay should be responsible for sorting out."

You might think so. But looked at another way, IF Ebay is telling you to contact the buyer, cancel the sale and refund them (from your cleared funds?), then relist the item, it's done its job of outsourcing all the effort there. While the payment is sitting in a holding account in the meantime?

Ultimately, the buyer may be inconvenienced by their own address details not being up to scratch and is wasting everyone's time, but Ebay may not be too bothered either way.

If and when business sellers are on-boarded with this mess it may be another story.