simple delivery

[forestfeline62]

I  have no problems really with simple delivery except I prefer Evri ,there is no weighing the item and when you have printed the label at the parcel shop ,you just take it to the counter to have it scanned ,no questions asked ,but with the post office and royal mail ,the staff in post office have you weigh the item and they still check that the item is the right dimensions for what is on the label i.e weight and size and if it is wrong they then have to fill in that it is a market place item and that it is wrong.I sold a camera strap not very heavy but more bulky and Ebay put it as large letter and I never thought anything of it ,where really i should have measured it myself as it was too thick when folded up to quite fit through the large letter slot when I took it to PO . So now i am waiting to see what happens the other end will it be delivered and will the buyer have to pay extra the other end . 

   You don't know who the courier is going to be until you down load the QR code ,but Evri parcels get accepted no questions asked where as royal mail still have to go through the same procedure as when we did custom delivery . Evri is a cheaper option for buyers and I know people don't like evri but all the things I have sent have got to their destination in the 48 hours ,and no bad handling etc . Yesterday I had 1 item for evri and one for PO the evri drop off shop the 2 bags behind the counter were full and there was a steady flow of parcels being presented there ,my other parcel was for Royal mail and again the PO was empty ,no queues but you need to have a visible QR code for the PO staff to scan if you don't have a printer or smart phone ,so I have to down load the QR code onto a chip at home and a friend then transfers the info onto their pixi tablet and I then have to take this with me to PO and show them the QR code for them to scan to print a label ,with Evri I just tap in the 6 digits that are under the QR code ,tap these into the label machine and a label is printed ,I asked in the PO that if I gave them the 6 digits could they just tap these into their system and get a label that way ,but they told me no they couldn't do it that they had to have the QR code to scan ,so I am finding Royal mail items a bit of a pain when buyers choose it ,custom delivery was easier .

[vinylscot]

You have been on these boards often and long enough to know that this (if it is happening) is a post office problem, and not an eBay problem.

If it is still happening, you should complain first to the manager of that particular post office, and if that has no effect, to the Post Office organisation itself. The terms of the contract are quite clear. The post office should accept the parcel without question, as long as it does not exceed the maximum dimensions or weight for their services.

Your procedure with Royal Mail parcels seems very long-winded and unnecessary. On my private account, I have always printed the label, so I haven't tried having the PO print my label, but many other posters on here are saying you can simply write a code number on to the parcel, or take a note of it with you. There is no faffing about with tablets, etc. Once again, if this is happening, it is clearly a problem with your post office. 

From the ever-decreasing volume of posts on here, problems such as yours appear to be pretty rare now (and many of the alleged incidents are clearly fabricated), and will become rarer over time. I still don't like SD, and the way eBay has introduced it is appalling, but it seems to be improving as sellers and couriers become more familiar with it.

[ruby*ryan]

I've said it before, many of the SD problems seem to be PO related.

IF you have a printer, print the label yourself and find your nearest Parcel Box, if not, can you go to another PO?

Don't worry about the buyer being overcharged.  Any overcharges would go to the account holder, which would be eBay. 

[gnosemalf]

I have no problem with Simple Delivery if it is optional but one (or more) person's positive experience should not be a reason for everybody to have it rammed down their throat.

And I'd advise caution before anybody bigs up one company over another. I know people have had very negative experiences with Evri but I had nothing but a five star experience and didn't mind telling everybody - then my local driver moved on and from then on it has been a nightmare treasure hunt almost every time an item has been tracked as delivered. One item from Evri that had been out for delivery three times before disappearing off the radar for ten days arrived yesterday by Royal Mail with a first class stamp on it (it's small enough to go through a letterbox). It's exactly the same package - the driver who didn't deliver it thoughtfully took a photo of him holding it in his van like that was going to help. How it ended up in the Royal Mail system is a mystery.

[forestfeline62]

I don't have a printer or smart phone so can't print labels myself ,and like I said Evri simple delivery is much better ,you print the label in store using the QR code or the 6 digit number ,it is so quick and easy . So when Ebay introduced simple delivery it doesn't help people who don't have printers or smart phones when the buyer chooses Royal Mail .I asked the post office and this is what they sent me ....No, post office staff cannot use the long number under the QR code to print an eBay Simple Delivery label. The QR code is designed to be scanned by the carrier's system, which then generates the appropriate label. According to Ebay uk  the long number is not a substitute for the QR code itself. And I am not going to purchase a printer or a smart phone .

[vinylscot]

I can only reiterate that other posters have reported quite differently to you. Many have written advising sellers to write the code on tha parcel, and the post office prints the label - genuinely simple.

If you post office says they can't do that, speak to the manager, or report it on their website. There is no excuse for post offices not to be getting these basics correct, at this late date.

[honeymonster007]

RM labels don't come with code number only a QR code

The number under the barcode is the tracking number

[wellingnorth]

On the weekly chat the other week Marco seemed to confirm that they are looking into possible issues with labels printed from QR codes at the Post Office

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

Whereas we know by now the labels downloaded from ebay show 'marketplace seller' and do not show a weight / format it sounds like the QR code labels do show a format at least, not sure about weight.

My new listings are being forced onto simple delivery now so I may try and do one as a QR code and see if I can get a photo of the label. If anyone else could do that as well it would be interesting to see what's on there. 

[vinylscot]

I think there is a lot of confusion over what all the various codes and numbers actually mean.

However,  many posters have reported going into the post office with a number or code written down, and having no problem at all with the post office printing their labels.

[honeymonster007]

Some PO take Evri parcels some don't

[thepillenwerfer]

If you prefer Evri switch RM off.

This business about getting labels printed from numbers in Post Offices will depend on the competence and helpfulness of individual Post Office staff, as your Evri parcel arriving in one piece, or at all, depends on which of their staff's path it crosses.

Yes, the number on RM labels is a tracking number but it's the same one you'd enter on Royal Mail's web-site to organise a collection or make any other enquiry pertaining to it.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

good job i have never bought from you then because the parcel would never arrive here via EVRI!

[kath3735_wxmjn]

or because a lot of us have or are actually departing to other sites.   I do not spend nearly anywhere near as much time on the forum as i have done in the past (even before the changes).  That is because i have nearly completed my listings with the new site and the last four items end soon.  Then i doubt if i will even bother with coming on here to see what is happening.  Not saying there has not been quiet a few contentious posts on here but lets be honest some of us have just helped them by responding instead of ignoring them.

[vinylscot]

I actually forced through a sale on SD on my private account to see what actually happened.

@forestfeline62  is correct, in that you don't get a code which enables the PO to print your label. I apologise for disagreeing with him; I had been taking what some other posters had said at face value.

The code is only provided for Evri parcels, although many post offices also accept Evri Parcels (which may be where some of the confusion has arisen.). Hopefully Royal Mail / Post Office can be brought into line. It's bad enough having to go to different drop off points, without also having to adopt different procedures at each one.

[wellingnorth]

---

@vinylscot wrote:

I actually forced through a sale on SD on my private account to see what actually happened.

---

Did you or are you planning to use the qr code to actually get a label? - I'm curious to see what these Post Office printed labels look like.

[vinylscot]

As I was looking for this elusive "code", I didn't think to test he PO's printing capabilities. If I have another SD sale, I'll try that. (My recent sale was originally on custom delivery, but the buyer asked a question before buying, so I changed that one to SD to try this out - only about 10% of listings on my private account are on SD, as I haven't posted any new listings recently.)

[wellingnorth]

No worries, I've got a simple delivery one now, I'll try the QR code out tomorrow and if I can I'll get a photo of the label or at least a good look at it

[wellingnorth]

Okay, I tried this this morning and here's the top of the label I got printed from the ebay provided QR code at the Post Office:

As you can see wheras the ebay label does not have a size or weight, this clearly says small parcel and the max weight 2kg. Whereas the ebay provided label has "Marketplace seller" and 'ebay simple delivery' this does not have either. The assistant did double check that it fitted in the small parcel box as well so I can definitely see how parcels are being rejected using this method!

[vinylscot]

Thanks for doing that, and posting your findings.

It certainly explains some of the claims which I and many others had simply dismissed.

Although there may be nothing on the label to indicate it's an eBay Marketplace seller item, that information must be embedded in the code, as there will be information in there pertaining to whoever paid for the label (eBay).

The problems do seem to be at the dispatch end, rather than the delivery end, as we're not seeing posts where buyers are being hit with extra fees, so there must be some problem with parcel recognition at the dispatch point.

It does still seem like a communication problem of some sort; if it was the norm that POs were refusing parcels, or threatening extra charges, these boards would be absolutely swamped, and they're not.

I would imagine that the parcels are being identified by the PO's systems as eBay parcels, but some staff don't know (or haven't been told) to check for this, and so they treat it as a normal underpaid item, at least initially.

If that is the case, surely some amendment could be made to include the "Marketplace Seller" text on the label somewhere, as we were led to believe would always be the case. Alternatively, there is obviously a training need for some PO employees.

eBay and the PO need to get together and sort this out.

[wellingnorth]

My guess is that this may just be a standard service offered by Royal Mail or the Post Office where companies can generate a QR code for a particular weight / format rather than something bespoke like the way the emailed labels are generated (if you point your phone camera at the QR code you can see a weight is included in the encoded information there).

So the counter staff are just treating it like any other label generated by this method and weighing the parcel / checking the size as usual before accepting it. On the chat the other week Marco confirmed they were looking into issues with the QR codes so hopefully this will be fixed but at least we can see definitely what's happening. 

If you are planning to use a QR code for your parcel, the confirmation email sent with it does display the package size that it's for (ie mine says 'Package size Up to 2 kg with maximum dimensions of 45 x 35 x 16 cm.') So I would suggest for now that if you know this is not adequate for your parcel then try and avoid using the QR code and print the label instead. 

Regarding potential surcharges I don't think I've seen any mention of that actually happening on the forums yet so I think this is really more about parcels being refused than any extra charges.