Simple Delivery now optional for items under £20 including Large Letter

[moonlight-rhapsody]

New email just received says:

We’ve listened to your feedback and made Simple Delivery optional for more items priced £20 or less. This includes items in categories like Trading cards, Coins and Stamps, which are typically letter or large letter-sized and 100g or under. 

It’s an update that gives you more choice. You can choose a low-cost, untracked delivery option when protections aren’t essential, or stick with Simple Delivery to benefit from prepaid labels and automatic tracking, all at competitive prices. Learn more about this update. 

I note it specifically includes "Large Letter"

[ell567]

I suspect what they mean is items in a category which is 'typically' under 100g and fits a large letter are exempt. For example, a single cased DVD is 'typically' about 100g so that's an exempt category - and that means you are still exempt with e.g. two 6-DVD sets side by side in a large letter (I'm not trying to justify the lack of clarity in the announcement, of course).  It worked just the same way when the limit was £10, I think.

[leighbayuk]

It’s a move in the right direction. Now it just needs to be extended to all categories. Presumably all the clothing categories are already included, given that eBay recommend Large Letter for sending sweaters.

[thepillenwerfer]

I don't know how they think a sweater or work gloves would be less than an inch thick, unless they were for dolls.

As for auctions, I'd take it that it's the start price that matters.  That's how the coverage against  loss or damage works: the item has to have a starting price of less that £750 and is still covered if it sells for more.  That said I really can't see them covering something that went for thousands and is another thing that's open to interpretation.

[akemp1]

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@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

PS.  Perhaps they're waiting for everybody to custom-list heavy items under £20 and that's when they'll implement the policy and switch the listings to SD.....  Cynical, moi? 🤣

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I don't think ebay would be competent enough to execute on a conspiracy theory. When I worked with central government I realised the same was true with them.

When you get enough people working together the end result is usually very underwhelming. Ebay must have had an huge team working on SD to get it so wrong.

[mabel.meadows]

Nothing has changed for me. I have tried to list 5 dust masks that are large letter weighing under 100g and Simple delivery is still being enforced. It looks like it is a PR exercise for certain products only.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"We’ve listened to your feedback and made Simple Delivery optional for more items priced £20 or less."

If they'd really taken any notice of feedback, they would have made SD optional full stop.  As it is, what they're doing is incremental roll-backs to see how many people take the bait after each roll-back.  If they manage to entice sufficient people back, the roll-backs will stop.

[*maetrix*]

I'll try not to upset you in future...might be best if you just don't read my posts.

Just sayin' folks - be careful what you say to some on here or they'll get you a 28 day ban.

(during which ebay didn't get a single penny out of me)

[thetrackz]

No good for me as it's under 100g and non tracked.

Try again ebay. That's just poor.

[gjbooks]

Ebay's latest change sounded promising, but I can't get it to work for postcards - Simple Delivery seems to be the only option for these, even for less than £20 and less than 100g. So only their selected categories are allowed... and postcards are not among the lucky ones, it seems.

[thepillenwerfer]

It's just worked for me in Collectables > Postcards & Supplies > Postcards > Topographical Postcards.

You do have to enter a price of less than £20 before Custom Postage will show-up.  In fact that's what it defaulted to.  You then click "Add Primary Service" and you can choose a standard letter from there.

[akemp1]

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@thetrackz wrote:

No good for me as it's under 100g and non tracked.

Try again ebay. That's just poor.

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Yes ebay should have thought better than sending out an email with such a wide ranging good news headline when it's clearly a very limited offer and going to disappoint so many people.

If they had sold us that email we would be raising INAD cases to get a refund.

The whole category thing is so stupid - ebay need to have an epiphany and mend their ways.

They seem to be in a mental tunnel unable to properly adapt to the reality of this mess.

[thepillenwerfer]

The more I think about it and mess about with pretend listings the more I think my reading of it is correct, ie for items under £20 in certain categories I can dispatch things in the same way I would have before the advent of Simple Delivery.

If there's a limit of 100g why am I allowed to choose carriers like Parcel Force?  If it only applies to Letters and Large Letters they'd be all I could choose.

[akemp1]

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@thepillenwerfer wrote:

The more I think about it and mess about with pretend listings the more I think my reading of it is correct, ie for items under £20 in certain categories I can dispatch things in the same way I would have before the advent of Simple Delivery.

If there's a limit of 100g why am I allowed to choose carriers like Parcel Force?  If it only applies to Letters and Large Letters they'd be all I could choose.

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The categories approach is crazy as it's causing some listings that I would be OK to send with SD eg small parcels to be custom postage and other listings that need cheap 2nd class (low value LL items) to be too expensive as SD-only so from the mix of things I have been selling it seems they are losing as much in SD volumes as they are gaining by forcing things.

Plus as a bonus the ebay selling experience is inconsistent, wasteful and deeply irritating.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

My guess is that they've made the 100g thing deliberately ambiguous so that they can test the water.  Depending on how they judge the reaction from sellers, they've then got the flexibility to go one way or the other on the 100g.   Possibly for the same reason, they haven't clarified what happens if the auction price goes over £20.

[honeymonster007]

Think its a 1000g limit if you use RM

[thepillenwerfer]

Again to me there's no ambiguity.  The trouble is that some people are so suspicious about e-Bay that they instinctively interpret things in the most negative way possible.

If I were to say "I do most of my shopping in a supermarket but get odd things from a corner shop, typically bread and milk" would you read that as my saying I ONLY buy bread and milk from the corner shop or that that is all I am able to?  Or "I see traffic passing my house, typically cars and vans" mean there are no lorries, 'buses or emergency vehicles to be seen.

No doubt it will become clear in time.  Sadly even if a Pink pops up to clarify things the clarification will be in corporate gobbledegook and only serve to darken the darkness.

[akemp1]

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@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

My guess is that they've made the 100g thing deliberately ambiguous so that they can test the water.  

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The other possibility that occurred to me is that whatever committee drafted that email, to make it into the vogon poetry word-soup we are experiencing, was either unaware or had forgotten that ebay had dropped the 100g requirement on the 'letter' exception a number of months ago. I guess at least they are being clear this time that large letters are included in whatever exception they now seem to be offering.

I think it was somewhere in the mega-thread that a forum member had compared the ebay SD webpages via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to show that the 100g words had been specifically removed as a requirement without any concession announcement.

I see the gift-horse but my strong preference is to not try and take advantage of loop-holes and operate my listings within the ebay rules - whatever they might be and if they seem reasonable.

[akemp1]

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@thepillenwerfer wrote:

Again to me there's no ambiguity.  The trouble is that some people are so suspicious about e-Bay that they instinctively interpret things in the most negative way possible.

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I honestly don't understand it. If they were just using the categories and 100g as typical examples of things that might be listed under the new wide ranging exception and it's not a restriction then why are members finding they are unable to use 2nd class LL in certain categories yet when they can they are able to go above 100g?

[thepillenwerfer]

"Vogon poetry word-soup" sums things up beautifully.

You do wonder if some of these things are drafted by either AI or people to whom English is a second, or third, language.

[akemp1]

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@thepillenwerfer wrote:

"Vogon poetry word-soup" sums things up beautifully.

You do wonder if some of these things are drafted by either AI or people to whom English is a second, or third, language.

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I sometimes find people who have studied English as a secondary language express themselves clearer than me as they have been forced to learn the structure and are not just just babbling along like me!