I am pleased to infer that EBAY has accepted that there are faults with
SD - but the problem is that its fundamental underlying principle is
flawed. It is not possible to know the customer's shipping requirements
until they have completed all their purchases and expressed their wishes
to the vendor. It is the idea that EBAY can predict this in advance that
is wrong.

I do wonder if a  new management team who have no previous experience of
running an Online Market Place (OMP) thought up SD?

SD can possibly work with the following changes

1) Allow multiple lots to be combined. Many users do not use the basket,
which is the existing and very complex mechanism that is provided. They
buy things as they go along. Vendors need to be able to then combine
their purchases into a single parcel and offer them a postal discount.
That cannot be predicted.

2) Allow users to request expedited shipping - Tracked 24 is not
expedited and to claim that it is is fraudulent. Tracked 24 does not
offer a delivery guarantee, Royal Mail Special Delivery needs to be
added as a buyer option.

3) Allow users to reject couriers. In my case EVRI deliver to this area
only once a week, and that is to a sub-contractor who then deliver the
items the following week. i.e. EVRI delivery times are between 8 to 10
days. I never buy from anyone who uses EVRI.

4) Allow users to opt to COLLECT after purchase. They only find out
where the vendor is after purchase as EBAY do not trust buyers with that
information, which is frankly insulting.

5) Allow buyers to delay shipment because they are away - SD labels expire

All the above and more have been cited by users of this forum.

I also have a business account and get none of these issues as I am
allowed, by grace of EBAY, to use Packlink which offers all the
flexibility required to offer a good customer experience.

Incidentally Buyers Protection Fees are another crackpot idea. If I want
to sell something for £10 I expect it to be listed at £10, not what EBAY
think it should sell for. That at least has been fixed and it is now
possible to reduce the selling price so that we revert to a Sellers Fee
basis - but not for Offers - we also need to be able to set an Accept
Offer inclusive of BPF. No doubt the same EBAY 'experts' who dreamed up
SD also created BPF to make it harder to use the site.

Both SD and BPF need to be scrapped, and Sellers Fees reinstated. The
dream of attracting sellers from Vinted has clearly failed, instead
based on this thread EBAY is driving sellers to Vinted because of SD and
BPF. It is time for EBAY to ask why that is, as EBAY is a better OMP
than Vinted, yet EBAY is losing customers to it because of SD.