Simple Delivery a very mixed bag

[m1kegibson]

As a private seller I can see some benefits of Simple Delivery - it's generally good for buyers of items in the small/medium 0-2kg range as the rates are lower than standard RM shipping (which is what I use).  The issue for me is that it does not account for the cost of bubble wrap, boxes etc.; if I didn't have plenty of boxes from my family's online purchasing habit, I'd be out of pocket.  However, putting that aside, my biggest gripe is what to do with heavier items.  Recently, I have sent out a few items in the 2kg-5kg range and Simple Postage requires I select "Up to 15kg" charging over £12 for what should be a £5/£6 charge.  There is supposed to be a 2-10kg category but it does not appear.  I also find many items are given a recommended 2kg postage cost BUT I know they weigh over that and am not going to risk falling foul of RM despite eBay's assurance that if they recommend that postage rate, that's all okay.  I suspect I am going to ignore simple postage for most items and simply use my own - assuming it is not one of those categories where I am forced to use it.

One does have to wonder whether there is anyone who actually engages brain when coming up with this stuff.  Why not allow the seller to add a packaging cost for example?

[wildavdavi]

I doubt the reasoning behind all this is visible on the facade we see. Something that may be connected is that the 30p charge for RM collection was introduced around the same time as it was made mandatory to use Simple Delivery, this may be something that was pulled out of it's 'Free' status  to discourage marketplace sellers from swamping RM Collection services.

Now we have Simple Delivery that isn't friendly with Collection out of the box, I have a feeling that Simple Delivery was never intended to be Collection friendly and they may have been trying to push people to Post Offices to reduce the load of those having to deliver on the same route they are collecting from (even though we can use Collection if we have a pre-printed label).

As for the options available- they aren't tailored to everyone and I have some items that don't fit in any of the categories. If I select the Freight option it seems to cancel and revert back to Simple Delivery, I'm wondering if that's an error or  an automated process where their AI is determining I'm trying to avoid SD as it's determining what the item is without having any solid info on size/weight.