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 

[try-another-time]

Agreed - so it looks like we will have to add an amount to cover the cost of packaging, it will have to be included into the basic selling price

[incredible_how]

if you exclude evri, the royal mail postage for small parcel up to 2kg goes up to £4.27!!! The mark up for medium parcel is even worse. So my customers are penalised for my living 8 miles from an evri drop off.
And if you are in an postcode they deem unable to do "express" you can no longer offer tracked 24/first class post.
Yes ebay have been great, and I was beginning to accept the buyer protection but Simple Delivery is not simple and is very expensive, despite the implications that it will be cheaper

[maujohwai]

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@jigosawrus wrote:

[...] Royal Mail Tracked 48 Small Parcel costs £3.39 to buy online. [...]

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It's actually £3.45 since yesterday. Many of Royal Mail's other annual price changes are typically weird, triggered presumably by short-term considerations of competitiveness, e.g.

1st Class Large Letter up to 100g: up from £2.30 to £3.05 (+ 32.6%)

2nd Class Large Letter up to 100g or 750g: no change

2nd Class Large Letter up to 250g or 500g: down 10p

[moonlight-rhapsody]

I've realised that this will probably affect me as a buyer as well as a seller, because if private sellers leave ebay, it will remove the amount of choice I currently get.   Even if private sellers only sell items under £10, I bet many of them will leave anyway because they haven't discovered that those items are exempt from Simple Delivery.  I only know about it because I initially saw it on this forum, but how many people know that this forum even exists?  You can't see the link to the Community at the bottom of the Home page due to infinity scrolling.  So not only is SD is terrible for private sellers, it's bad for buyers too.

[sishi_5545]

Don't forget the opt out is only for items under £10 and weighing 100g or
less which pretty much rules out most things. What I object to is that
having made low value items almost impossible to sell with the addition of
the Buyer Protection Fee, they are now going to make buyers pay over the
odds for postage. I sell CDs which if they are in a jewel case are over
100g but can be posted with Royal Mail for £2.10 currently (going down to
£2 from 7/4/25) but Simple Delivery is £2.70 minimum. Yet another nail in
the coffin for private sellers, and as you say less choice for buyers. I
speak as a seller and a buyer, having bought over 1600 items off ebay over
the last 5 years according to an email I received from Ebay congratulating
me on my 5 year anniversary. What a joke !

[incredible_how]

anyone who buys from me is going to be paying a lot more postage than they did before, and won't have the option of 1st class (because I am too far from an Evri dropoff and in my postcode you can't offer express). Actually even if I did offer Evri & Royal Mail the 2kg parcel is £3.71, when it is £3.39 online with Royal Mail and will be, from 7th April, £3.45, definitely more expensive

So much for:

"Save 20% off postage costs*: Get competitive rates to offer standard and express delivery with Royal Mail and Evri.

*Comparing the average Simple Delivery and non-Simple Delivery buyer postage label cost savings data on eBay from Oct 2024 to March 2025."

[7174wool]

it will be from 15/04 - its a disaster for me, as I only post small light weight items using my own stamps.

I dont need or want this option. unless some way can be found to avoid (simple delivery) will have to stop using ebay and find another seller platform.

[incredible_how]

I've been reading that under 100g and under £10 (though whether that includes buyer protection fee or not I don't know) can be exempt. But don't know how that works

[elabam-42]

I’m sure you will know by now, but from April 7th 2025 all current listings postage will be changed to their postage only (“simple” delivery!!!!) and this will be the only way to send anything. This gives eBay  full control over aspect of buying and selling now. Postage is none of their concern but they’ve now made it their business to take control of. Post office staff have been told to refuse nearly all pre-labelled posting from eBay from this date as the size, weight etc with their robots and postage will not be correct. Their foreign robots have zero concept that Royal Mail and post office are two totally different businesses so they are unable to get their robots to work out correct postage. Also parcels will have to be packed pre sale to try and get a vague idea of the parcel size and weight of which their AI will say is not correct and will charge far less on postage.Buyer will then choose which courier they want (as you have to choose more than one courier-they “recommend” selecting all of them) but the postage will be calculated incorrectly and post office will refuse them and who knows how long they will stay in the parcel lockers for collection for the same reasons. EBay has put the final nail in their coffin of greed. This is the beginning of the end and I, along with many others, will be leaving as I am not prepared to be dictated to any more by a company that’s not even British. 

[incredible_how]

"Also parcels will have to be packed pre sale to try and get a vague idea of the parcel size and weight" 

How on earth did you work out postage costs before Simple Delivery? I've read several people talking about having to work out size and weight now, when surely you already do that? I do otherwise \i might be under or overcharging the customer.

[wendybing]

Totally agree. It is unlikely now that i will buy from ebay because I used to use my balance. No sales, less in balance, ergo no purchases. I also think it will be bad for businesses. A few years ago I sold my glass collection as I was downsizing. I had a number of businesses buy to resell because stuff was cheap. Similarly someone just wanting a clear out of their wardrobe will sell things cheap to get rid - again ideal for resellers. Then you look at gadgets sold for spares and repairs, empty print cartridges, bundles of jewellery the list goes on. Ebay was built on the back of private sellers but we are no longer required, it seems

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[buffster1963]

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@incredible_how wrote:

"Also parcels will have to be packed pre sale to try and get a vague idea of the parcel size and weight" 

How on earth did you work out postage costs before Simple Delivery? I've read several people talking about having to work out size and weight now, when surely you already do that? I do otherwise \i might be under or overcharging the customer.

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that always puzzles me too. 

[elabam-42]

Greed, greed and more greed from the foreign company that used to be known as eBay, a car boot sale online. Everything is now under their control which in my definition is a dictatorship. It’s the eBay way or, to keep it all as our choice, I prefer to use “the highway” and I’m going, unless the robots in foreign land abolish the most insane and profit driven law they have ever invented. You don’t defecate on the very people that have put your company in the position it is in today.  How many members are they trying lose????

[brookheather]

If you are listing with free postage then you wouldn't need to worry about the exact postal cost until you made the sale.  Otherwise I'm sure a lot of sellers would just accept the ebay suggested postal cost which might be greater or less than the actual cost to the seller.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

I’ve never worked out postage costs.  Mostly I know from experience that a certain size/weight will fall into X price bracket because I’ve posted similar sizes/weights in the past.  If in doubt, I suppose I would weigh/measure it, but I can’t remember the last time I did that.  What happens if somebody asks a question about the item and it’s all packed up? Presumably you have to unpack it, then re-pack it, and hope nobody else asks a question.  Sometimes I’ve de-listed items if they haven’t sold after a time and I don’t want to waste time (and materials) packing items up if I end up taking them off the market.  It’s possibly the difference between a serious seller who does ebay to make money and so needs to account for everything, and an occasional seller like me who just wants to get rid of stuff.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"It is unlikely now that i will buy from ebay because I used to use my balance. No sales, less in balance, ergo no purchases."

Yes, I agree.  Some of my sales have only been for small amounts of money, but it enables me to think, OK that will pay for a little "treat" and I'm no worse off.    Sellers who don't get me buying will be worse off though.

[maujohwai]

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@maujohwai wrote:

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@jigosawrus wrote:

[...] Royal Mail Tracked 48 Small Parcel costs £3.39 to buy online. [...]

---

It's actually £3.45 since yesterday. Many of Royal Mail's other annual price changes are typically weird, triggered presumably by short-term considerations of competitiveness, e.g.

1st Class Large Letter up to 100g: up from £2.30 to £3.05 (+ 32.6%)

2nd Class Large Letter up to 100g or 750g: no change

2nd Class Large Letter up to 250g or 500g: down 10p

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Apologies, Royal Mail goes up on 7th April. Thanks for mentioning it,

incredible_how  and sishi_5545 !

[elabam-42]

I was reiterating a few other people who had said this. I, myself, had digital scales and always used Royal Mail special delivery as this is the ONLY postage system that fully tracks, gets a signature and photo and pays compensation to the value of the item I was selling which were expensive items. “Simple delivery” does nothing like this. It says it covers it all but look at Evri compensation as the “golden courier of choice by eBay”, except you can’t because they don’t give it. So who is covering damage/loss/theft and to what value, 10p, 50p, £50???? Who knows as it’s all so vague and just another eBay scam that sellers are going to massively lose out over, again.

[maujohwai]

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@incredible_how wrote:

How on earth did you work out postage costs before Simple Delivery? I've read several people talking about having to work out size and weight now, when surely you already do that? I do otherwise \i might be under or overcharging the customer.

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I mainly include free postage so take a slight risk, but I can estimate pretty well, since most of my items are books and sheet music.

[incredible_how]

I don't completely wrap each thing up but do make sure I know the weight including estimated packaging plus size. Yes I have a good guess, but the difference in cost from small to medium and 2kg and above is a fair bit. It can be tricky fitting into RM small parcel. I've had things sent to me where it is clear that the seller has underestimated by a long way and ended up paying a lot of postage.

I will miss the Evri up to 1kg category as it is much larger size than RM. But I have to do collection not drop off and you can't do that with Simple Delivery