eBay

williaugus · ‎12-05-2025

With custom postage being rolled out and eventually the only option, I am a little confused and trying to clarify something please.

If I am posting something of large letter size, less than 100 grams and low value - a DVD in it's case for example, I can post this 2nd class large letter with Royal Mail. With the current Royal Mail prices, this'll cost me £1.55. When I'm listing an item and look at simple delivery prices, the same classification of large letter shows a minimum cost of £2.74.

What if I happen to posting something that may fit in a standard letter size? This currently costs just under £0.90, but when settings this up on the item listing page it still comes up as £2.74? Why is that?

I can either take up this difference in cost myself or pass it onto the buyer. It feels like that I'm likely to lose money either way as the latter might discourage buyers from buying - due to a higher price point?

I just wanted to make sure that I am understanding this correctly and not missing any steps in the simple delivery set up. Is it really the case that it'll now cost more money to send smaller items? Thanks.

ferretio · ‎05-09-2025

A victory for the small people (and items)!

Vive la révolution!

jonjonjonnie · ‎05-09-2025

And, lower buyers fees too.. So it seems they are encouraging sales of small items after all??

akemp1 · ‎05-09-2025

@ferretio wrote:
A victory for the small people (and items)!

Vive la révolution!

It's not a victory just the trench lines have advanced a few meters.

Ebay's position on postage is still not reasonable forcing people into unsuitable products.

akemp1 · ‎05-09-2025

@jonjonjonnie wrote:
And, lower buyers fees too.. So it seems they are encouraging sales of small items after all??

I guess they saw the volumes drop off due to the double-whammy of the high fixed fee element of the buyer tax and the expensive SD on large letter items.

Maybe they also accepted the forum argument that if it was cost prohibitive to buy and sell small low value items here then people like me signed up to the clothing platform where things can be done at more reasonable costs especially with bundles.

They probably don't want lifelong loyal ebayers like me signing up there. I noticed that I then started then buying more expensive items there. Now I will never go back to only using ebay as my goto, Big mistake if there are others like me.

kazziesattic · ‎05-09-2025

I had another issue arise this week where an item of mine listed before SD, then it didn’t matter if I had the size of parcel wrong as it could easily be adjusted before purchasing the label. Well this item sold but it was a medium parcel needed, not a small parcel and it could not be altered as eBay had already generated the label before I had even purchased it, it was tracked 48 so is taken to delivery office and they don’t deal with extra postage costs, so I had to cancel the purchase and refund the buyer and tell them to re purchase as there was an issue with the parcel size, this is supposed to be simple delivery, so far it’s been a nightmare.

Sent from Outlook for iOS<>

seedbankers · ‎09-09-2025

Make sure item is UNDER £20.

Ignore the box LARGER LETTER please. RUN. IGNORE!

Click Custom Postage. Click until you see

Add additional services CLICK THIS LINK as this OPENS your choices

Click whatever you want I click Royal Mail and chose the service for the large letter which is £1.55 and get a proof of postage. In case item lost or deliberately stolen, get a claim form and fill everything. NOTE the claim form reference.

See graphics

BUY me an organic coffee if you get there. Joking! Hope all goes well

jonjonjonnie · ‎16-09-2025

As a final update.. As a workaround to the Simple Delivery fiasco, eBay told me to pay for Simple Shipping, get the refund.. Use my own shipping and request a refund.

This is exactly what I did over a 6 week period and ended up paying £12.40 for my own shipping, and £23.59 to eBay for simple shipping.

I filed refunds for each of these lables on the same day, and as of now, I still havn't had a refund... I contact ebay every few days and am told variations of the same story "its a glitch", "its been fixed", "we are aware", "your refunds have been processed", "wait 14 days" etc etc.. But nothing came through. My oldest refund was from the 24/7 which is 50 days longer than the 14 days they promise.

Anyway.. Yesterday I fired off another mail, this time giving numbers and to my surprise today they have credited me the £23.59 that they "owe" me.. I wouldn't call it a refund as such, as the labels still havn't been cancelled.. But I got the money back.

So if you are in the same boat, keep pushing them... Give them some actual number showing how much you paid... Thats what worked for me.

I know such noise over £23.59 seems petty.. But I provide "free" shipping on some low value items.. And for these 8 orders I made a relatively big loss, so it was important to me to fight this out of principal.

With the new Custom Postage tweeks, I am quite happy with how it works now, so hope this is behind us.

Good luck all!