Simple Delivery free postage flaw?

[comicscotty477]

Is this a flaw with Simple Delivery or am I missing something?

I want to sell my LP collection on ebay and I want to offer free postage.

With SD I select a courier for my LPs. My preferred option is to use Royal Mail and to exclude Evri.

RM Standard Delivery for an LP is £3.74. I then set up with £3.74 added to the BIN price and set myself as paying ebay £3.74.

If a buyer then buys one LP, things work out ok.

If the same buyer buys more than one LP at the same time, it means I pay ebay for each additional LP that person buys, although it will only cost me £3.74 to send up to 3 LPs.

There doesn't seem to be a 'simple' way to combine postage for the seller when they are offering free postage.

Is there a way to sort this?

[jonatjonatjonat]

As it stands that is correct as eBay generate a label per item.

[wintersdawn1]

Somewhere on here a while back I did see a postage price list posted for simple delivery combined items, the price for the additional items was less than the first but not as low as a seller would reduce for additional items.

Could just be another ebay money making scheme as they make money on each postage label they force either the buyer or seller to buy from them so they're going to capitalise on this to the max in line with their greed.

[edwardian-dreams]

So if you put five items say in your basket from same seller and go to pay you have to pay 5 lots of postage. ? When it’s not necessary ?That sucks 

[comicscotty477]

I believe so. 

It certainly keeps ebay happy though 🙂

[edwardian-dreams]

That’s out of order

i don’t know anywhere else that does this 

[vinylscot]

I understand OP being annoyed with the fact that combined postage is not available on Simple Delivery.

However, if he is offering free postage on his packages, it would never have been available anyway.

SD sucks, but it's not the reason for every problem.

[comicscotty477]

You're not getting my point.

I'm not offering free postage on my listings right now.

Pre SD, offering free postage wasn't a problem as you weren't obligated to pay the postage costs for every individual listing that is bought - as you are with SD.

If I go down the route of free postage with SD, I'll be out of pocket for the postage costs if a buyer decides to buy multiple items.

For example - if someone buys 3 LPs from me at the same time, that will cost me 3 x £3.74 - £11.22 in total postage costs, rather than just £3.74 as it does pre SD.

That is what's annoying me. 

If I'm missing something about this or if there's something I'm misunderstanding, I'll more than happy to be pointed in the right direction, as I do want to start offering free postage on my listings.

[vinylscot]

I see now. You want to benefit from the free postage on multiple purchases, but not pass that on to your buyers - yes?

Although eBay will take 3 x £3.74 in your example, you will still receive the full amount for the purchase of the albums (less charges obvs.) So you're not out of pocket.

You do say in your original post "There doesn't seem to be a 'simple' way to combine postage for the seller when they are offering free postage." - and that's what I was going on when I commented that there never was, if you were offering "free" postage.

At the moment, SD isn't set up for combined postage, although a couple of eBay reps have assured us that it is on the list of improvements to be made.

[comicscotty477]

You're still not getting it.

I'm not looking to benefit at all from postage on this. In fact it's the exact opposite. I'm looking for the buyer to only pay one postage amount for the 3 items.

The buyer in that scenario is basically paying £11.22 postage, when it should be £3.74. 

If I were offering free postage I would be totally transparent and point out that the listing price incorporates the postage cost. 

I would except buyers to be savvy enough to understand that they will be paying 3 postage amounts to receive one package with the 3 items inside.

They will quite rightly ask for combined postage - I would - and the only way for me to that is refund the excess postage as ebay has no facility for combined postage.

That's what I mean by me being out of pocket in this scenario.

Pre SD  you could send invoices and refund buyers for multiple items bought, if the free postage cost was built into the  item list price.

That's why I will not be offering free postage under SD.

SD is glitchy as hell at the moment but I would certainly welcome the return of the combined postage facility you mentioned.

[suelel1968]

I understand what you mean. Trying to help the buyer pay less postage. I just had to explain to a would be buyer that it is not possible under SD.

Hopefully, it will be implemented quickly and isn't ruled out by the already signed contracts. 

[akemp1]

It's not just that the buyer has to pay multiple postage, and that some of those rates seem extortionate, they also pay the 75p fixed element of the buyer tax multiple times.

At the other place ebay is struggling to compete with the buyer tax is lower and combined, the postage combines and is at published carrier rates (OK they may keep any incentives) and there is even a facility for sellers to automatically offer % discounts on multiple different item orders.

[zoomingmouse]

It beggars belief that Ebay have rolled out Simple Delivery without the ability to combine postage.

Combined potage is the main reason why I will look at sellers other items when I've found something to buy.

[edwardian-dreams]

You can ask them which items they want to buy and then delete those listings and make a new one with the items all together

or just leave one listing, delete the others, and amend the one listing

[emw-designs]

---

@edwardian-dreams wrote:

You can ask them which items they want to buy and then delete those listings and make a new one with the items all together

or just leave one listing, delete the others, and amend the one listing

---

That just makes the whole process far too complicated for both buyer and seller. And it doesn't work at all for auction sales. 

Buyers want to be able to just click on the items they want, pay, and then wait for them to arrive. 

Sellers don't want to be constantly revising listings for each buyer. Especially when the buyer might get fed up of waiting for the new listing if it can't be done immediately and just buy from someone else instead.

I have all my buy it now items set to automatically combine postage for multiple items. With auctions, I send an invoice or refund excess postage when I post the items. It's simple for me and for the buyer. 'Simple' delivery makes this impossible.

[vinylscot]

I am "getting" precisely what you are saying.

If there's a misunderstanding, it's because you have not been at all clear in what you have written. I have re-read your posts, and while I can answer your points from my point of view, it really didn't look like you were coming from the same viewpoint.

I'll leave it to others to guess what you really mean.

[comicscotty477]

Condensed version of what I mean.

I want buyers who buy multiple items from me to be able to pay only one postage amount - not multiple postage amounts.

As it stands with SD, that can't happen.

[suelel1968]

V ted have a system for this so I'm sure EBay are copying it as we speak.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

so once again simple delivery is being made more difficult for the seller!

[wintersdawn1]

Is it possible that ebay is so blinded by greed by forcing buyers who want more than one item from the same seller to pay full price postage (bought from them) on each item as well as charging them the 72p (at present) on every item as well?

If so, can't they see this will ultimately drive buyers away and their greed will backfire on them?