Simply Useless Delivery

[bat369]

I am going to list all my items as " collection only " and explain in description that postage is included in the item price . If after sale you are unable to collect I can post if you forward address , if you are able to collect will refund the postage . It was okay to exchange address after payment was made for sale without breaching their rules , unless they have changed the rules so buyer can't send seller address after payment has been made ?

 .

[suema_62]

Buyer therefore pays BPF on postage element. Not sure about obtaining sellers address unless you can get a phone number for collection?

[dch2112011]

Seems a complicated way to deny a customer the right to choose and pay for the delivery service and to deny your rights as a seller to in transit protection and feedback removal relating to delivery.

Personally given the lack of customer reading of descriptions your sales are likely to be restricted to collection only customers which will narrow your sales to local only but hey everyone to their own ! 

[xyz307xyz]

If the buyer doesn't send you the collection code after receiving the post item - then they can get their money back (scamming) - I think.

[thepillenwerfer]

Well I certainly wouldn't buy from you on that basis as I would assume you were somehow up to no good.

Either use e-Bay (including Simple Delivery) correctly or don't at all.  Trying to bend it to your will, get 'round things &c is very unlikely to end well.

[edwardian-dreams]

That might be good advice if the system wasn’t dysfunctional 

[bat369]

Why ? What's wrong with RM Tracked 48 , everything's covered ? Guess you are just one of the sheeple who do as their told no matter how ridiculous it is . Evri , who in their right mind would want to use them , people who are forced to I guess and only have ebay as an outlet to sell items .After more than 20 years I wont be selling or buying anything on this site until things change again , although as a private seller I was restricted early on in the year with the governments " side hustle " policy anyway , I have no intention of giving ebay my N.I. number , next year they will probably want a verified digital image of you and a DNA sample and a set of fingerprints just to make sure you are for real ! Good luck ebay , it used to be fun ..........

[thepillenwerfer]

As a Buyer I wouldn't trust a Seller who was not doing things in the usual way and suspect that there was some sort of fiddle going on.  Besides that if I have "collected" an item I'm deemed to have inspected it which makes Not As Described cases tricky.  How would your system work anyway?  Do you expect a Buyer to give you the collection code before you send the item knowing you could then not send it and as far as e-Bay are concerned they've already got the item so can't claim non-delivery?  Are you going to trust them to give you the code on receipt?  What if they don't?

In fact I wouldn't even get to see your method as I wouldn't click on a "Collection Only" item.

As for being a sheep I'm not one that will slather itself in mint sauce and parade outside a butcher's.  Trying to bend the rules is only going to get you in bother with e-Bay; a lot of the problems reported on here, not just Simple Delivery ones, are down to people either not reading e-Bay's terms and policies, reading them but failing to comprehend them or somehow believing they are exempt and ignoring the ones they don't like. 

With any organisation I will follow its terms/rules or whatever if I find them acceptable.  If I don't I'll go elsewhere. 

I have also sold on Amazon.  I don't know what it's like now but at that time it's fees, arrangements around postage and settlement make e-Bay's fees (whoever pays them), Managed Payments,  and Simple Delivery positively generous.

Everybody is different and it's fine for me as recent changes have, if anything, made things better.  I agree there are problems for people selling very small cheap items, though why they bother at all is a mystery to me unless they are fraudulent dealers, and people selling something big or heavy.

[bat369]

Okay , My suggestion has flaws !  I only started selling items on ebay for a bit of fun as I am semi retired , would go to local auctions to find interesting / unusual items to list on their site , would usually buy items I liked myself so if they did not sell no problem . As I was doing it for a bit of fun was not to interested in making large profits as I was not doing it for a living . If I picked up 10 items at local auction and was in front after selling 4 the other 6 would be listed at ridiculous prices on ebay , a lot of people in the past have picked up genuine bargains from me on ebay !  Although having said that my best sale was a pith helmet which I paid £60 for , thought it might make £100 , sold on ebay for £2600   I live in the past , bit of a technology  luddite , never owned a mobile phone , although this had not been a problem in the past on ebay as I could do things fine on a laptop . Now with simple delivery I would need to get a mobile phone to scan QR codes a printer to print labels , ink and paper , what was wrong with addressing packages myself and posting RM Tracked 48 , seems to have worked fine in the past , as said everything was covered ? Now they are scamming people with their BPF , which is why they probably want people using Evri , how much have they lost to those clowns .Had an item stolen by Evri , one attempt at delivery then nothing ! Had to get a £120 refund from ebay , guy saw value on custom label and decided to have it , I could not contact Evri to complain about thieving employee and ebay were not to bothered , automated system wait 30 days for refund if not delivered  . Ebay must be losing thousands in refunds as I do not think I am the only person this has happened to . My day's on ebay are over , their loss as they have made a few quid out of me over the years but seem to want rid of private sellers who bring a bit of variety to the site  , I know their are some good business on ebay but a lot of it seems to becoming cheap junk from China , anyway , hope you have a successful time on ebay if you are sticking with them ......

[thepillenwerfer]

Now some of that I agree with.  I don't use Evri if I can help it because, as you say, it's near impossible to get in touch with them WHEN something goes wrong — as it will because there's no such thing as perfection in the real world and Evri don't even try achieve it.  You are also correct that it must be costing e-Bay a fortune in compensation for the parcels they are loosing, damaging and having pinched.

I don't regard the BPF as any more of a "Scam" than seller fees or any fee charged by a commercial organisation.  If I don't believe it to be good value I go elsewhere.  As a Seller you can't get better value than free and as a buyer the BPF is trivial.  My most recent purchase had obviously been listed at 99p but £1.75 with the fee was still dirt cheap and neither the Seller nor e-Bay got as much as Evri did for delivering it, and, yes, it did actually arrive on time and in good order.

As for the BPF driving Buyers to use Evri I don't see a connection.  When Buying recently I've been given a choice of Standard or Express Delivery with no mention of who will me making it.

I do have a mobile 'phone but it's so old that it can't run the e-Bay app so I do everything on a computer, a computer from e-Bay indeed.  I also have a printer and have ever since I've had a computer as pre-internet and e-mail there wasn't much point having one without.  You don't need a mobile 'phone to scan QR codes and a printer to print labels yourself as it's one of the other.  As for the cost of printing I bought an old laser printer off e-Bay for twenty quid years ago.  It had some toner in which is yet to run out and I print labels on the back of junk mail &c.

Apparently if you book an RM collection through e-Bay they'll now bring the label with them.  I can't confirm that as Simple Delivery is still being corrected and it didn't seem to be the case last week, which was when I last sold something.

Strangely I'm finding less "Cheap junk from China" these days which is partly why I buy less on e-Bay than I used to as there are now cheaper sites for that; I'm not sufficiently wedded to e-Bay that I'll use it when there's a better alternative.

Good luck with your trading endeavours elsewhere.  Who knows, things may change and I'll join you.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"I agree there are problems for people selling very small cheap items, though why they bother at all is a mystery to me unless they are fraudulent dealers, and people selling something big or heavy."

Why should there be a mystery about people wanting to make some "pin money" from selling small, light or cheap items?   I don't see why it should make people appear fraudulent.  That "pin money" might make a big difference to some people.

And I know at least one person who sends all the money they make from selling off unwanted and inherited stuff, to a charity of their choice which does not have a shop network.  Some of those items might only be small and cheap, but very often it's stuff that charity shops don't have a ready customer base for, and at least those small, cheap items aren't going to landfill.

[thepillenwerfer]

What I mean are people who sell things for 99p or £3 with 'free' postage so they can't be getting more than a pound out of which they have to pay for packing materials — even if you re-use old jiffy bags and boxes adhesive tape isn't free.  If you print your own labels that's another cost.   Then there's the time taken to photograph something and do a listing — though how long that takes depends on the care taken over it — and, if it sells, pack it, label it maybe take it to a Post Office or parcel shop all for less than a pound.  Besides that there's the risk of a sale going wrong and having to issue a refund which would leave you out of pocket on the postage cost , though I'm not sure how that works with e-Bay's new systems.  If I was so hard-up that 80 or 90p would matter to me I wouldn't be taking that risk. 

Of course people are at liberty to do as they wish with their time and I dare say that doing it for a charity would make it more rewarding.

The fraudsters I meant are those we've all seen who have names like Fred'sPostcardStore and who have hundreds of listings purely for postcards, stamps, cigarette cards &c.  Yes, they could be liquidating a personal collection but they sometimes give themselves way by talking about their Stock, Margins, Profits &c — Private Sellers don't make profits, we cut our losses.

Before anybody accuses me of hypocrisy, yes I have got an item currently on at 99p but that's simply because I'm hoping somebody will take it away and save me taking it to the tip.  

[moonlight-rhapsody]

@ thepillenwerfer

Thanks for explaining, and I see where you're coming from re the 99p items.  I think a lot of people are like me - we don't like disposing of things that somebody else might really want, particularly if it's a "social history" item.  I once put a "Spam Family Recipe Book" on ebay for 99p + £1.50 postage.  It was published in 1969 and it was only a small booklet, hardly worth listing,  but somebody wanted it and bought it!  Call me sad, but I was inordinately pleased that it went to a good home 😁

[thepillenwerfer]

It's not at all sad as I feel the same.  Yes it's nice to get a few bob for things I no longer want but my main motivation for selling things is de-cluttering (though I've got old Bero recipe booklets from the 1950s as well) and I'd rather somebody get use or enjoyment out of whatever it is than 'bin it.  Charity shops wouldn't want a lot of things I sell.