Will 2pm Wednesday chat go ballistic over mandatory Simple Delivery?

[johnwash1]

There hasn't been a 2pm Wednesday chat session recently.  I guess that's because of Christmas / New Year?  So will they return this week?

And, if it does return, will it be going into meltdown over the proposal of mandatory Simple Delivery, much like this forum has been lately?

It would be so nice to get some authoritative answers to the problem of those sellers with disabilities requiring postal services with collection from their own address. 

[tressygirl]

Think there was a message @johnwash1  that chat is resuming after the long holiday breaks,  on the 8th?

If it does,  hope the guys and gals have their tin hats and Kevlar jackets on !

Gonna be a lively one me thinks !  🤔😊

[kath3735_wxmjn]

you are making an assumption though that the staff have been given any 'authorative' information yet, which i doubt if the past is anything to go by.  It always appears to me that the people on these boards know more about any new changes than the staff are prepared to admit to.

[4_bathrooms]

Where have eBay stated that "Simple Delivery" will become mandatory? Can you provide a link?

I've looked through the recent announcements but I can't find anywhere where it is stated that Simple Delivery will become mandatory for private sellers.

[kempseykate]

The ebay CEO said in October it will be mandatory for all UK private sellers in Q1.

No, despite being asked 2 weeks running on the weekly chat, there is still no announcement. I assume they are letting the dust settle on held payments and Buyer Protection Fee (AKA Shareholders' bonus), then will sneak in the mandatory SD.

[tressygirl]

I'm so sorry @4_bathrooms  I cannot find that link but as said by @kempseykate   there was an announcement that it will be mandatory for Private sellers before Q1 so anytime to end of March.

[thesmi42]

Well if it doesn't become mandatory it may leave the door open for a return to the days when sellers ramped up the postage price in order to avoid fees. I can't see eBay introducing a second tier of rules to cover the cost of postage if Simple Delivery remains optional.

I think It also means the end of the 'Free Postage' option as the 4% rule would make that choice a bit daft.

[johnwash1]

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

you are making an assumption though that the staff have been given any 'authorative' information yet, which i doubt if the past is anything to go by.  It always appears to me that the people on these boards know more about any new changes than the staff are prepared to admit to.

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Interesting.  I need to go get my eyesight tested or something.  I'll respect your opinion, but it always appeared to ME as if those staff know Sweet FA and have a script that runs "I'll take that to the team and let you know what they say..." followed by tumbleweed.  Much like calling CS. 

Seems like the Wednesday chat was an excellent idea dreamed up by a senior manager who envisaged actual people with clout to come and learn what's happening on the ground and give authoritative answers. But it quickly devolved into a bunch of people saying "Er, great idea, unfortunately I've got a meeting elsewhere on Wednesday", or even "I'd rather stab my hand with a sharp pencil than go there and face the music".

Edit to add: I see I misread your post.  I thought you were saying the staff in the Wednesday chat know more than they're letting on.  Sorry.

[fatbobfan]

Same sentiment, find it a very poor customer experience, gave up on it, occassionally use it to highlight continual failings. Ive been ignored, have an invisible email system that gets missed and promises not come to fruition.

Most recently the EDD and Private Seller reporting issues by numerous sellers, its disgraceful, months and months on threads and weekly chats, its truly shameful, 

Just because 'someone' says its not broken doesnt mean it isnt.

[valueaddedresource]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

Where have eBay stated that "Simple Delivery" will become mandatory? Can you provide a link?

I've looked through the recent announcements but I can't find anywhere where it is stated that Simple Delivery will become mandatory for private sellers.

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@4_bathrooms  eBay has not made any public announcements to sellers about it or updated their policy pages yet, but contrary to what eBay community staff have said in the weekly chat, statements made by the CEO of a publicly traded company during earnings calls are in fact "official comms" and should be taken as such by both investors and the company's customer-base unless/until additional "official comms" to the contrary are made publicly available.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

Here's what Iannone said on the Q3 2024 earnings call at the end of October, and for additional background this was part of his prepared remarks, not an off the cuff answer to analysts in the Q&A segment - which means this part of the presentation would have been scripted in advance and reviewed by legal, compliance, investor relations and other relevant internal stakeholders before the call.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4731184-ebay-inc-ebay-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript

With managed shipping, we are completely overhauling our shipping experience for C2C sellers in the UK in two phases. The first phase completed in early October, extended the simplified shipping experience we first rolled out in pre-owned apparel to all categories. Within the new native listing flow, UK C2C sellers now see a consolidated list of shipping options based on the estimated package size and weight. And since implementing this change, we have observed a significant reduction in time spent on shipping in a listing flow.

The second phase of managed shipping; radically simplifies the experience and creates a new revenue stream for eBay. Similar to managed payments and eBay international shipping, Managed shipping leverages our scale and expertise to create a better experience for customers while generating incremental revenue and operating income dollars. When listing eligible products sellers simply confirm the pre-selected package size and eBay handles the rest.

Buyers received competitive shipping rates and sellers are fully protected against loss or damage. Managed shipping is currently live for C2C pre-owned apparel listing in the UK. In Q4, we plan to expand managed shipping horizontally on an opt-out basis, before mandating the program for eligible items listed by C2C sellers during Q1 of 2025.

[4_bathrooms]

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@thesmi42 wrote:

Well if it doesn't become mandatory it may leave the door open for a return to the days when sellers ramped up the postage price in order to avoid fees. I

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I posited exactly this in another thread. My belief was (and is) that "Simple Delivery" would be eBay's way of preventing such fee avoidance.

I wasn't doubting @johnwash1 - I just couldn't find where it had been stated. Armed with the information that it was an announcement by eBay CEO Jamie Iannone I found the statement on this website:

"Managed shipping is currently live for C2C pre-owned apparel listing in the UK. In Q4, we plan to expand managed shipping horizontally on an opt-out basis, before mandating the program for eligible items listed by C2C sellers during Q1 of 2025."

[valueaddedresource]

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@thesmi42 wrote:

I think It also means the end of the 'Free Postage' option as the 4% rule would make that choice a bit daft.

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@thesmi42 with Simple Delivery, eBay decides which shipping options are shown to the buyer and at what cost, including that they may choose to offer discounted or free shipping as a promotion.

So for shipments using Simple Delivery (whether voluntarily now or once the mandate goes into effect), "seller-provided free shipping" will no longer be an option - it will be 100% up to eBay to decide if it is offered and if so, the seller will not be covering the cost of it from their funds, eBay will provide a pre-paid label just like any other Simple Delivery shipment.

To get any idea of how it works on the seller side, here are some screenshots of the current Simple Delivery listing process for clothing items:

Note: this is on a newly created private account, the option was showing in both desktop web and app experiences, and they only saw the Simple Delivery option on drafts in clothing categories - it was not available in other categories for them at this time, which makes sense if the expansion is a phased rollout as the CEO has said.

For clothing items, it shows Simple Delivery as the first/default automatically selected method, with Custom postage as an alternative.

eBay also shows a default weight and size selection and an estimated "starting from" rate that will be shown to the buyer.

The only change the seller can make is to select a different size/weight range from pre-set options.

Other than that, the seller appears to have no input or control over what is shown to buyers - you cannot select which carriers you will or will not offer, what the rates will be, or choose free/seller paid shipping.

Contrast that to the Custom Postage option, which does allow the seller to change/control those aspects.

There is still some question about what this looks like for other categories besides clothing where additional shipping methods may be available, but I haven't been able to get screenshots or talked to anyone who has it in other categories yet, so that's still up in the air.

Allowing for the possibility that there might be some slight differences in different categories and/or changes before it becomes mandatory, I still believe it's reasonable to suggest it will likely be at least similar to this experience after the mandate and eBay will likely just remove the button for the Custom Postage on items they determine are eligible and must use Simple Delivery.

[4_bathrooms]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

Here's what Iannone said on the Q3 2024 earnings call at the end of October, and for additional background this was part of his prepared remarks, not an off the cuff answer to analysts in the Q&A segment - which means this part of the presentation would have been scripted in advance and reviewed by legal, compliance, investor relations and other relevant internal stakeholders before the call.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4731184-ebay-inc-ebay-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript

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Ah, even better. As it was part of an earnings call I tried finding the statement on eBay's corporate investor relations website but I couldn't find it there either! 

[valueaddedresource]

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@4_bathrooms wrote:

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

Here's what Iannone said on the Q3 2024 earnings call at the end of October, and for additional background this was part of his prepared remarks, not an off the cuff answer to analysts in the Q&A segment - which means this part of the presentation would have been scripted in advance and reviewed by legal, compliance, investor relations and other relevant internal stakeholders before the call.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4731184-ebay-inc-ebay-q3-2024-earnings-call-transcript

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Ah, even better. As it was part of an earnings call I tried finding the statement on eBay's corporate investor relations website but I couldn't find it there either! 

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@4_bathrooms yeah unfortunately eBay does not provide a transcript of earnings calls.

But just in case that other link is paywalled for some or if you prefer an audio version - you can listen to the recording of the actual call by clicking on the webcast button here:

https://investors.ebayinc.com/events/default.aspx

Or here: 

https://investors.ebayinc.com/overview/default.aspx

You don't have to be an investor to access it - just choose the option to register as a guest and then tick the box that says "I am an individual attendee"

https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/986327826/guest

The quote above about Simple Delivery starts at about the 9 min 30 second mark if you want to skip to it.

Honestly though, I highly recommend sellers of all sizes and types should tune in and listen to the full earnings calls every quarter including the Q&As - it's a lot of corporate speak that can be difficult to parse at times but it's often where we first hear about upcoming plans and changes, not to mention that comparing how eBay speaks to their investors to how they speak to their seller customers can reveal a lot about corporate priorities. 😉

[johnwash1]

@valueaddedresource 

"Honestly though, I highly recommend sellers of all sizes and types should tune in and listen to the full earnings calls every quarter including the Q&As - it's a lot of corporate speak that can be difficult to parse at times but it's often where we first hear about upcoming plans and changes, not to mention that comparing how eBay speaks to their investors to how they speak to their seller customers can reveal a lot about corporate priorities. 😉"

I was about to say that idea sounds really good.  Then I thought of an even better one: I can wait for you to summarise it for us!  And you're doing a brilliant job of it, many thanks.  Long may you continue!

And I'm amazed at your persistence and patience.  You've been replying on loads of threads correcting the conjecture and Chicken Little sky watchers, it's got to the point where you're having to copy/paste the info because people are landing in the forums without even sparing a few minutes to read.

I'm going to wait and see.  I find it hard to believe that ebay won't eventually figure out that many of their private sellers are elderly, with mobility issues, or in isolated ill-served communities, so Managed Postage will need to be tweaked.  Especially if lots of such sellers call CS.  But perhaps such sellers are part of the 80/20 decision, and ebay makes most of its money off the regular business sellers and the Chinese junk, so those sellers are expendable.  We'll see.  Meanwhile I won't end all my listings and set up elsewhere, it would mean a ton of work re-photo'ing everything.  I may have to bulk edit, changing everything to local collection (which clearly will tank my sales even further), and then gradually migrate.

I even looked at whether becoming a business seller would get me out of this problem, even though I'm very much not buying/making to sell.  But it looks as though I'd have to pay to list, which for my kind of stuff is a disaster, it often takes years to sell an item.

Interesting times.

[vjbuystuff]

im new to this community, so, have never attended a wednesday chat... but, will definitely drop in.. (where do i find it?)

what puzzles me is that ebay are blatantly responding to threats from vinted, Facebook marketplace etc etc, which means they are fearful of losing business (I've met many people buying at auction houses who left ebay to avoid sellers fees).

but, these upcoming 'forced upon people' changes will alienate the sellers who are still here... thereby creating an ever increasing decline... less stuff of interest listed on ebay will mean less sales and less pull to buyers to visit \ search... 

i really struggle to understand what the objectives really are, unless ebay management are truly so disconnected from reality of actually being a ebayer.

in my letter to Eve Williams about these changes, i made the point that ebay sellers are the real customers of ebay, we earn the fees for ebay... the buyers dont, and, with less valuable stuff to buy in the platform even the buyers tax wont help them 

[bojangled]

@johnwash1 

Indeed! I appreciate the posts by @valueaddedresource, as sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees.

@vjbuystuff here you go

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/bd-p/WeeklyChatwiththeCommunityteam

Jo

[valueaddedresource]

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@johnwash1 wrote:

@valueaddedresource 

"Honestly though, I highly recommend sellers of all sizes and types should tune in and listen to the full earnings calls every quarter including the Q&As - it's a lot of corporate speak that can be difficult to parse at times but it's often where we first hear about upcoming plans and changes, not to mention that comparing how eBay speaks to their investors to how they speak to their seller customers can reveal a lot about corporate priorities. 😉"

I was about to say that idea sounds really good.  Then I thought of an even better one: I can wait for you to summarise it for us!  And you're doing a brilliant job of it, many thanks.  Long may you continue!

And I'm amazed at your persistence and patience.  You've been replying on loads of threads correcting the conjecture and Chicken Little sky watchers, it's got to the point where you're having to copy/paste the info because people are landing in the forums without even sparing a few minutes to read.

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@johnwash1 thanks for the kind words! I do usually do a full breakdown of earnings calls 😉 so stay tuned - they haven't announced the exact date yet, but if history holds we'll probably get Q4 results in mid-late February.

[fatbobfan]

Being cheeky

Can I ask those that have paid attention/listen to the information released on the above 

Whats happening next, for Business and Private sellers

Thanks in advance

[johnwash1]

So, anyone thought the Wednesday chat went better than usual?

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...