New P&P requirements in place from 30th Oct. 2008

September 27, 2008

The latest update email from eBay UK includes a message at the bottom regarding postage charges.

Changes to our Excessive Postage & Packaging Charges Policy will come into effect on 30th October 2008. Excessive shipping costs are cited as a major reason for buyers spending less online. These changes will enable us to continue serving sellers with the largest volume of buyers on the web.

If you sell on eBay, read more here

The link is to the eBay.com announcement board - information there doesn’t always apply to sellers on eBay UK.

eBay have introduced maximum postage and packing charges for books, DVDs, music and video games on eBay.com. Also sellers are required to specify the shipping costs up front on all listings.

The only recent UK announcements regarding shipping are the display changes.

It’s unclear if there’s a UK announcement to come, or if the emails have had US information appended in error. Either way eBay are keen to see competitive shipping costs so it would be no surprise to see maximum charges for the UK in the near future.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 16 Comments 

eBay UK set to limit postage charges?

August 1, 2008

In June, eBay Germany introduced maximum shipping prices in the 34 categories where they believed buyers were most likely to be overcharged on shipping. Now it seems that eBay UK may be considering similar steps. A post from Richard Ambrose on the PowerSeller Forum (PS sign-in needed) asks:

P&P has always been a hot topic on eBay, and an issue for eBay buyers. Over the course of this year, excessive P&P has become the single biggest reason why buyers leave eBay or reduce their spending here - obviously neither you nor we want to see this continue.

In response, we’re considering a range of possible actions to eradicate excessive P&P on eBay, including imposing maximum or fixed P&P prices by category.

Over the course of the last few years, it’s also become more and more the norm in e-commerce for P&P to be free. We’re also considering how best to increase the availability of free P&P on eBay, including mandating it in some categories and rewarding sellers who offer it with better visibility and/ or lower fees.

Our main goal, as always, is to make eBay as attractive as possible to buyers for your and our benefit. However, obviously the type of changes we’re considering would have a very big impact on sellers in the short-term, so we wanted to hear your views on three questions:

- How would you like to see eBay combat excessive P&P?
- Would you like to see eBay encouraging free P&P? If so, how?
- What would you prefer us NOT to do in either of these two areas?

(I’ve copied the whole post in case of later disappearences.) Richard then goes on to clarify that this will apply to the basic domestic shipping options only.

eBay don’t know what they don’t know

The most common complaint against the policy, and it’s an entirely reasonable one, is how can eBay possibly know what shipping will cost for any particular item? I remember a listing of Chris’s, for five car hands-free kits; he was charging exact-cost £12 to deliver the 3kg parcel, but eBay pulled the listing twice for excessive P&P charges, because it was so far above the average for the category. Category averages are not always a relevent measure of reasonableness, and eBay have neither the staff nor the expertise to judge in this area. eBay Germany’s compulsory pricing will often not cover insured shipping, yet the policy affects jewellery sellers. This will be another quagmire of pulled listings, restricted accounts, and annoyed sellers with their livelihoods damaged. Dolphin salad, anyone?

Like several posters on the PS thread, I thought that detailed seller ratings were intended to combat excessive shipping. Sellers who overcharge will be marked down by their bidders, they’ll be disadvantaged in the search results, and therefore will be unlikely to sell much any more. They’ll either mend their scamming ways, or leave the site. So goes the logic.

Do buyers actually care?

If the DSRs haven’t achieved this, I can only come to one conclusion: that the DSRs in this area are not working as eBay think they should. Even sellers who offer free P&P frequently do not have 5 stars: I’ve done some experimenting recently with free P&P on some of my listings, but my P&P DSR for that account sits unmoving at 4.8.

There has been ample evidence that the postage DSR behaves differently to the other three scores: it is routinely lower for almost all sellers. Top sellers on eBay.com have scores for P&P on average around 0.15 lower than for item as described.

I’ve speculated before about why this is. I still think it’s because P&P fees are stated right there in the listing. They’re never a “nice surprise” for buyers, and therefore they’re more likely to be marked with a “good” 4 than an “outstanding” 5. My belief is that buyers are not as stupid as eBay think they are: they know that “free P&P” means it’s been paid for somewhere.

What buyers really want is not free, but fair P&P. I’d like, for example, to see the end of “standard shipping”, and for it to be compulsory for sellers to state what service will be used. Being charged £5 to post a t-shirt is excessive for second class, but quite reasonable for Special Delivery. Shouldn’t I get to know what my £5 will buy before I spend it?

And perhaps more than anything, buyers want combined shipping if they buy more than one item. If every item has P&P included in its listing price, then where’s the discount for multiple purchases? You alienate as many buyers as you please with free P&P.

Is free P&P normal?

There are arguments to be made for free P&P, and arguments to be made against it. The variables are many: not just what you sell, but how you sell it, where you sell it from, your routines, your buyers’ especial foibles all play a part. To charge or not to charge should be a decision sellers make for themselves.

But Richard says in his post - and he’s said it on several occasions before - that free postage is “becoming the norm” for ecommerce. Looking at things I’ve bought from the internet recently, I would say free P&P is most definitely not the norm.

Does your website offer free postage?

  • No, never. (64%, 93 Votes)
  • Yes, on orders above a certain value/volume. (19%, 28 Votes)
  • Yes, on all orders. (17%, 24 Votes)

Total Voters: 145

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I’m prepared to be proved wrong on this point though, so I’d like to conduct a little poll. Amongst sellers who have websites (and therefore don’t have to consider eBay fees on those sales), do you charge for P&P, and under what circumstances?

And in the meantime, what do you think of Richard’s proposals? A great way to keep happy buyers coming back for more, or a step too far for eBay? Leave us a comment.

Thanks to Steve from Kingsbridge Karaoke for the heads-up.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Featured, News | 107 Comments 

More eBay listings lose their postage costs

July 12, 2008

An old eBay glitch has raised it’s ugly head again this weekend. I’ve just spent the last hour editing listings which have mysteriously lost their postage information.

I know that the postage was included in the listings, it’s still there in my saved TurboLister templates. Also similar listings for the same items have the postage information intact.

Lost postage information is something that has happened on more than one occasion in the past however now it’s more important than ever that listings have the cost and postage service entered in the eBay specified section. Listings without postage information will disadvantaged in search appearing on the last page of results and buyers will never get to see them.


The message displayed in the image above is doubly annoying because I’m all ready well aware of the importance of postage details. What adds insult to injury is I now have to cancel SIF items that have had sales and lose the fees that I’d paid for 90 day listings. Even worse I’ll now have to wait another 28 days before I can include the offending items in Markdown Manager sales.
 
Just how am I meant to run a business when the site loses half the information? I’m unlikely to score highly on the “Item as described” DSR for the buyer who’s just emailed me requesting a postage cost on the item he’s purchased with no postage specified.
 
On a final note in the time it’s taken me to write this article another half dozen listings have lost their postage details. I’d already edited all listings with missing postage before I started writing - this is more than frustrating, it’s plain ridiculous!

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Glitches | 5 Comments 

German sellers must specify postage

June 17, 2008

Another one to file under “expect this to roll globally any time now”: from 1st July, German eBay sellers must specify postage in the postage field of their listings, and will not be able to simply list postage costs within the item description.

This is a sensible move and frankly should have been made across all eBay sites years ago. There’s no excuse for sellers not to be upfront about their postage costs, and this makes it much easier for buyers to find them, as well, of course, as feeding into a seller’s Best Match rating. What isn’t specified is whether this applies to just domestic postage, or to international costs too.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.de | 5 Comments