Simple Delivery

[colcoo-616]

Is Simple Delivery mandatory now ? used to be able to select custom postage option but it’s not available now. Just tried listing and Simple Delivery is the only option for postage 

[headfodder]

Oh dear - yes this was highlighted as on the way a few moths ago, but again it feels like eBay fiddling around with something that was working well to the dis-benefit of Private sellers? I sell buy and sell a lot of vintage cigarette lighters (as a collector) and you simply should post these used items by Royal Mail: The reason is they send a lot of stuff by air and the chance of traces of lighter fluid or petrol traces in the lighter contravenes air safety regs; so used lighters are prohibited items under Royal Mail. The official Zippo website for instance recommends against using Royal Mail for sending repairs in, because they too have had too many cases of items being detroyed. So I only send lighters by EVRI who are fine because they send by road transport only.

I know some people hate EVRI and have had problems but I've had very few issues and full compo on a couple of lost parcels: those losses were years ago anyway and not had recent problems with my deliveries. 

It appears that I can't opt out of Royal Mall under the incoming simple delivery mandate so it will completely compromise my sales. It looks like stop selling or become a Business seller (where it appears you can still  self selected posting options?)

[dfernand101]

Today I just received an Ebay message stating that as from 15 April 2025 'Simple Delivery' will be the ONLY option for Ebay private sellers.

So myself being a private seller I have two questions:

1) For my EXISTING Ebay listings which I had made in previous weeks and months which are NOT marked as Simple Delivery but are using the standard delivery function, will those REMAIN as NON-Simple delivery items if a buyer buys post 15th April 2025 ?

2) For International sales where the buyer is located outside of the UK is Simple Delivery also mandatory after 15th April 2025 for Private Ebay sellers ?  I mostly use Royal Mail for UK and international shipments but on occasions for very expensive items over £150 I usually use DPD instead to the UK and I also use DPD to Italy (as the Italian Post Office isn't great). Will I still be able as a seller to select DPD to Italy ? or even DPD to UK ?

3) Regarding the cost of Simple Delivery how does it compare to just buying direct from say Royal Mail / DPD ?

regards,

dfernand101

[edwardian-dreams]

Existing listings will be changed from the 7th April overriding what you put as postage so you,L have to check listings see what they’ve done

SD is not for international sales unless you use gSP I think

[andha-21]

@dfernand101 

1) no and they start changing current listings from the 7th April. 15th is when it becomes the only listing option available.

2) not certain yet. 

3) it's more expensive and 3 different tariffs

The cheapest tariff is when you allow both couriers 

The middle is when you only select Evri 

The most expensive is when you only select Royal Mail 

[headfodder]

Typo above: Should read "... should NOT post these used items by Royal Mail: ... "

[edwardian-dreams]

You can opt out of Royal Mail in postage preferences 

just type that into the help pages and it should bring up a link to it 

[andha-21]

Think about what you're saying.

Royal Mail are the only courier with full coverage of the UK.

Evri don't have any presence on the Isle of Wight for example and limited in Scotland from memory.

So if eBay sees a buyer is from any of those places, they will override the seller choice.

[bulldogsamo]

So, I can't use Parcelforce for larger items now ?  I don't drive so I can't drop things off, also I'm In Northern Ireland and they charge us extra for shipping to mainland UK and extra for collection. How is that going to work for us?

[dfernand101]

On 7th of April when Simple Delivery starts RETROSPECTIVELY applying itself as the only mandatory option on all your historical Ebay listings made weeks, months and years ago ? what is it actually KEYING on (which fields / criteria) in order to determine the postage weight class (tranche) and cost ?  Is it "Package Weight" and "Package Size" fields on the Ebay Item ? at the moment it's showing as "(optional)" and sadly it's showing all the fields as blank as I never had time to weigh everything and measure the dimensions and input them, nor was I asked to do so before this forced Simple Delivery option !!

I'm currently using 'Postage Policies' under the Ebay 'Business Policies' section here:

 

So what do you think Simple delivery will be keying onto in order to auto generate the postal weight categories on 7th April 2025 or 15th or whenever ?

Anyone ?

[edwardian-dreams]

What’s there to think about if Royal Mail is NOT an option at all for sending lighters, it’s a prohibited item the poster said that’s why they use evri 

It’s up to EBay to ensure goods can get to all parts of the country, at the moment SD does not cater for this

eta in any case I understand custom postage will remain for these kind of items so seller can pick and chose who to use when listing

see extract from a chat I had today with ebay

———-

If an item doesn't meet the Simple Delivery programme requirements - for example, bulky items or prohibited/restricted items, or eligible for Authenticity Guarantee - sellers can choose the Custom postage option instead.

[andha-21]

It's pointless recommending they deselect a service when eBay can override it at will.

It's false hope.

[edwardian-dreams]

I didn’t “recommend it”

I told the poster how to do it as they were under the impression they couldn’t  but wanted to

It appears that I can't opt out of Royal Mall under the incoming simple delivery mandate so it will completely compromise my sales.

[jobdone*jean]

It’s complete tosh. My husband sold several First Day Covers to the same purchaser. EBay informed him he could not send an invoice for combined postage, charged the buyer over £5 and generated a label for a RM medium parcel even though the package was Large Letter 🤷🏼‍  I can’t be bothered to list anymore. 

[mod81]

It sounds like its time to start marking all my <£10 items as weight of less than 100g and for anything over £10 saying it weight is +20kg so they are ineligible for simple delivery and I can arrange my own postage like ive managed to do for the past 20 years of selling without ebay interfering.

I wonder how much Evri and the Royal Mail are paying to Ebay to be the exclusive carriers on simple delivery?Since we seem to be missing a lot of other couriers we have available now before SD becomes mandatory when we also get Yodel, Fedex, DPD, UPS etc as a delivery option.

[little.angel]

Simple delivery is a nightmare! I can’t use my post office drop and go account anymore. I’ll be leaving eBay and going over to vinted where sellers have a choice 

[buffster1963]

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@little.angel wrote:

Simple delivery is a nightmare! I can’t use my post office drop and go account anymore. I’ll be leaving eBay and going over to vinted where sellers have a choice 

---

I thought they used the same postage system on vinted with buyers buying the postage. 

[silverw53]

Thanks, but how do you speak to e-bay?

Peter Williams aka SilverW53

[silverw53]

Totally agree, just relisted some 60 items and all the small, large letter, items were SD'd at +33>66%. Larger items were seriously underpriced, eg a Bentley wheel weighing some 14Kg and about 48cm diameter was quoted as equivalent of medium parcel up to 2Kg. around £7 but it is too big for med parcel. I had it quoted as Parcelforce 2 day up to 20Kg at £17.95. This pattern was followed throughout my many larger and heavier old stock of spares. And I now hear on here that e-b will auto convert postage options to SimDel...

Lost the plot.

Peter Williams aka SilverW53

[andha-21]

@silverw53 

Be careful, there are already examples here where eBay are charging sellers if their postage label is insufficient.

People are half reading their announcements and not paying attention to their legal exemption parts.

They always leave themselves wriggle room!

[wendybing]

This is why I think combined postage will no longer work. Most of my items are small parcels under 2kg. If someone buys two of those items together, it could go over the 2kg. So I would either have to have two separate labels which is unfair to the buyer, or pay the excess postage myself

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