Simple delivery is awful

[jezzagold]

I list a few things on ebay occasionally, but this new simple delivery is just rubbish for sellers. It assumes that ebay actually know the size and weight of items And that everyone can easily get to Evri or other courier services easily. Why did they have to stop the seller from deciding how to post items? Put me right off bothering to use Ebay.

[dunstun365]

too difficult it will just put me off selling completely

[dougbat20]

---

@dunstun365 wrote:

That's the problem I've got. I had badminton rackets I cannot sell because they're longer than 60cm but only weigh 1kg & a music keyboard weighing less than 5kg but is also longer & PO refuses to take it. But i need to sell these things & don't want to have to sell on a new site like V. I'll have to take down nearly all my listings & upgrade to business but then I'll have a new set of problems like EU safety regs which apply to everything (even books & records) so won't be able to sell to EU ore even N Ireland

---

If you select oversized parcel then you can use DHL to send anything up to 120x80x80cm and up to 30kg, through Simple Delivery. That is eBay's answer to anything over 61cm length.

Personally I would have it so that seller pays postage, then you get the address from the SD label, but don't use it, and cancel the label. There's a link somewhere where you can do this. Then use your own method of shipping.

Ebay needs to make SD optional, and fast.

[books1ecb]

Making SD optional is the key policy change. For many it is fine, but it
has so many flaws it cannot be used to provide a quality buyer
experience, ad EBAY no longer seems to value giving good customer
service to buyers.

Key deficiencies are (IMO)

No ability to combine lots - the most serious failing of SD

No means to switch to COLLECT or DELIVERY. I do this a lot as we are
disposing of a lifetime's book collection with many local books, so I
deliver to local buyers for free and refund the postage.

No expedited shipping, Tracked 24 is not an expedited service, Special
Delivery is.

No access to cost effective large parcel services

I use Seller pays as it gives more flexibility as I get the label refund
and can then buy the correct delivery service, usually with Packlink.

A number of categories allow you to specify Custom Postage for items
stated to be Large Letters at the time of listing. If you made an error
and it will not fit a Large Letter it doesn't matter as you can select
the correct label for the packed parcel once sold via Packlink.

[dunstun365]

The badminton rackets were only £3 value I think oversized parcel is £12.97 a rip off of cheap items buyer won't pay that because they took 3+ years  to sell at only £4.30 postage

[dunstun365]

Yes I'm on there already to look at clothes not sold anything though

[maggicassidy]

I’ve ordered 2 items this week. First time I’ve come across this Simple delivery system. Well is it simply rubbish. First delivery was going to be Wednesday. Then update from eBay there was a delay.
Seller  emailed me to say eBay  told him the labels are incorrectly printed so both items were being returned to him and to repackage and resend. Still no update from eBay to me.
This morning I had an email from EBay saying one item is ready for me to collect. As I arrive at the post office seller messages that he has received that particular  item back and will repost it. Thought I’d better check in case the other item had been delivered but no, nothing. Wasted journey but EBay still not giving correct information about first item and no news at all on the second item.

[books1ecb]

If both items were bought from the same seller than they would have been
able to send as a single parcel and save you postage had they not been
forced to buy SD labels. SD does not allow lots to be combined, I assume
so EBAY can make more money out of selling unnecessary postage labels.

[department28]

SD does combine postage now, but only if the buyer pays for all the items in one go. And the combined postage price is decided by SD, which may not be what the seller would have offered.

[books1ecb]

Yes I am aware of that thanks, but my experience is that buyers graze,
looking and buying as they go, and not noticing it is the same seller.
Also if I have something similar to a new order I often contact the
buyer drawing their attention to it and offering free postage if ordered
at the same time. It is a powerful selling tool that SD has taken away.
The only way out of it is to cancel all the orders, and then ask the
customer to re-order in on go.

The basic fact is that it is not possible to determine postage needs
until the buyer has completed all their purachases, and expressed any
special delivery needs.

[dunstun365]

Sadly even other sites like discogs forced sellers to determine the cost of shipping for ANY quantity of items in an order before the fact even if bought from abroad.

although like ebay you could partial refund if buyer paid too much for postage.

[department28]

'It is a powerful selling tool that SD has taken away. The only way out of it is to cancel all the orders, and then ask the customer to re-order in one go.'

Yes. SD has effectively taken away all the postal flexibility from the private seller. It just beggars belief that eBay has brought about a situation where we are now obliged to cancel, refund & relist items, in order to be able to offer combined postage.

Frustrating & awkward for sellers, confusing & irritating for buyers... 😬

[maggicassidy]

My seller tried and said EBay wouldn’t let him consolidate the two purchases under Simple Delivery as they were of different weights.  Now one has been returned to him the other in limbo because of a problem with the labels they generated.

[things4all.2008]

I totally agree,  it is madness but ebay seems to want to control everything that sellers do.  

[department28]

All these exasperating situations would not be happening if we had not been stiffed with Simple Delivery...!

Postage-combining can really only be satisfactorily achieved by those doing the selling. Having Simple Delivery 'decide' what can & can't be combined is such a backwards step.

[books1ecb]

It's probably AI so it must be great!

[baryon97]

Here's a fairly typical scenario: I've just sold something, weight approx 1700g, so I selected the postal service accordingly. With packaging, it's now around 2100g. In the past, being cautious, I would have chosen a more expensive service (Royal Mail medium parcel as opposed to small parcel) but now I can't do that, without cancelling the order and asking the buyer to re-purchase. This is crazy. If I were the buyer, I just wouldn't bother re-purchasing. On this occasion, I've chosen just to send the item and hope that it gets through. If it doesn't, the buyer will be met with punitive additional charges. What I will do then is refund the whole amount and tell them to keep the item. I realise some may think that's extreme, but I really don't want my buyers to be put to inconvenience: paying extra money and possibly  having to collect the item from a sorting office.

When you use Simple Delivery, there seems to be an option to give feedback, which I've done twice now. I've given one star on both occasions and left a comment outlining in detail my dissatisfaction with the process. I encourage other sellers to do the same.

[crafty_cat_lover]

For me the biggest advantage of Simple Delivery is that I no longer have to worry about whether the packaging will take an item over the parcel size/weight I have chosen. There have been several explanations on the various posts about how this works but my understanding is that Royal Mail will not check parcels that have Marketplace seller (or words to that effect) on them nor will they charge any additional charges to the recipient. I've sent loads of parcels with Simple Delivery both Royal Mail and Evri and, apart from Royal Mail managing to send a parcel from Derby to London vis Newcastle??, I've not had any problems.

[baryon97]

Thank you; that's interesting.

[crafty_cat_lover]

I should have mentioned that you do need to accept Ebay's AI recommendation on parcel size/weight. If you change it dyou are then responsible but I no longer bother worrying about it unless my parcel is over the max length (61cm I think).

It might be worth you reading through the Ebay help pages on Simple Delivery as there has been all sorts of rumours quoted as facts on these forums. Hopefully someone will add the link for you.

[books1ecb]

The T&Cs clearly state that you can still be surcharged by Royal Mail
for overweight SD parcels.

I had a listing with Seller Pays Tracked 48 , which does not require me
to pre-specify the weight. EBAY retrospectively changed it to SD up to
2kg without informing me. When sold and packed is was 2.2kg - so I
cancelled the SD label and bought the correct label via Royal Mail Click
& Drop. EBAY has after 2 weeks refunded the unused label costs to me.
Complex and stupid.