Simple delivery, or incredibly awkward and frustrating!!!!!

[jus468420]

Afternoon all, 

Appreciate some help with this if possible, don't fancy trying to deal with ebay by phone on the weekend. 

As some of you may know, I started a personal account  to sell a few non business items on ebay a couple of weeks ago. 

I had read quite a few of the threads about SD so wasn't looking forward to the postage side of the transactions at the end, and I can now well and truly see many of the problems that arise from this mad scheme. 

First few sales were either with Royal Mail, Evri and DHL. Royal Mail wasn't a problem as we have collections every day, but the Evri ones have to be taken 4 miles away to a drop off point. 

Yesterday, one of the larger items had to go with DHL who thankfully would collect. I was given a collection time that wasn't kept, and I'd finished work early to get back home to hand it over. (They eventually turned up two hours later than specified)

Today I have sold three items, all with Evri, but one buyer has purchased two of the items, so I would like to post together so he gets a refund on the postage for the other item. I have no idea how to do this easily though?

Next problem is when I went to print of the postage label I got this message from ebay.

If the address contains errors in the non editable fields, please cancel the order and ask the buyer to place it again, providing a correct address.

Your Post to address contains some errors that need to be fixed before purchasing the label. Please note that you may not be covered by the eBay Seller Protection Policy if the changes you make are substantially different from what the buyer intended. Learn More

It looks like he's filled in his address details on one line that exceeds 35 characters, and ebay have kicked it out. I think it is saying I need to cancel his orders and ask him to repurchase? both were auctions so how is he going to do this?

Thanks in advance for any guidance, I have two more live listings and when they have gone this will be the last time I ever sell anything on ebay via a personal account. 

I've been a business seller for a number of years, sold over 13k items with no postage problems before. This SD scheme is not fit for purpose and is obviously putting people off selling on ebay. 

[suelel1968]

@jus468420 Hi, I have changed labels for this reason, but not SD labels, although based on that note from Ebay i think I would because as you say you are only changing the lines the address appears on., not the address itself.

Who would have thought in the 21st century that it was impossible to make customers input the address on signup as required to form a correct label? 

About the two purchases, hopefully someone will confirm, but I think if you only use one of the labels, the other will be refunded to the buyer. But I haven't had to try it out yet.

I noticed that more options with Yodel etc are coming to SD but i don't know when or if that even helps you. There does seem to be a move to POs also doing Evri so that may change at your PO soon. 

[department28]

'It looks like he's filled in his address details on one line that exceeds 35 characters, and ebay have kicked it out. I think it is saying I need to cancel his orders and ask him to repurchase? both were auctions so how is he going to do this?'

As far as I know, there seems to be no easy way to fix any issues with Simple Delivery postage, apart from cancelling the order and asking the buyer to repurchase. Obviously, you will have to ask your buyer to make sure they have corrected the errors in their address.

I suppose the simplest thing would be to relist the auctioned items as Buy it now? Simple Delivery should automatically combine the postage if the buyer pays for both items at the same time - or maybe you could relist as a 'bundle'?

Good luck!

[xyz307xyz]

"the Evri ones have to be taken 4 miles away to a drop off point."

If that's a problem, you can turn Evri off* https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf/simpledelivery

It won't change the sold items though.

(*) "There may be exceptions..."

[xyz307xyz]

"If your buyer has purchased more than one item from you in a single transaction, you’ll receive one prepaid label for posting your items to them. You can only use the label provided once. 

If your buyer has purchased items from you in different transactions, you’ll receive separate postage labels to post each of the items. "

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/postage/simple-delivery

[jus468420]

Thank you for the helpful replies so far, much appreciated. 

"Simple" they say? hardly is it? 

What could be simpler than the seller organising delivery themselves? 

[style_wise]

If the address contains errors in the non editable fields, please cancel the order and ask the buyer to place it again...

The reality of this actually is simple! If the Town or Postcode are incorrect then cancel and ask Buyer to fix. Otherwise you can edit the SD label for all other errors.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

Before SD, when I was still selling, I sometimes used to get buyers' addresses that had the address lines in the wrong order, eg

1 Any Street

Any Town

Any Suburb

Because I was handwriting the address, I could change it to correctly show the town as the last line.  I wonder if I'd be able to do that on a printed SD label but I wouldn't be surprised if it wouldn't let me.

[the-nutwood-collection]

If the buyer agrees, you could send them a PayPal invoice for the postage cost and then purchase a standard RM label.  As the SD label hasn't been used, the buyer should get a refund.