Amazon UK: spend a fiver, get free delivery

October 16, 2008

Amazon UKAmazon UK have cut their threshold for free delivery from £15 to £5. “Super saver delivery” allows UK-based customers buying eligible products to elect a free-but-slow delivery service: eligible items are those purchased directly from Amazon, or shipped by them through the Fulfilled by Amazon service. The Telegraph reports that 90% of Amazon UK’s sales will now be delivered free of charge.

The MD of Amazon UK, Brian McBride, said the change was “to get people lifted for Christmas. Times are tough out there and this will come as a welcome bonus for people.” It will certainly raise the stakes for Amazon’s competitors in the run up to the holidays, and could make FbA a much more attractive proposition for many merchants too.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Ecommerce | 5 Comments 

eBay UK sets maximum P&P for media, phone categories

October 13, 2008

As promised at Small Business 2.0 on Saturday, eBay UK has announced that from January, some selected categories will have a maximum set for what sellers can charge for postage.

As of 27th January, all sellers listing on eBay UK will have to specify at least one UK shipping rate (previously, only new sellers had been made to do this). In addition, sellers in some categories - in essence, media categories and telephones - will have to set a UK shipping rate at or below a given maximum for their category.

The affected categories are Books, Comics and Magazines, DVD, Film & TV, Music, Video Games and Mobile and Home Phones. The actual maximum fees set vary from £1 for a SIM card up to £14 for a video games console. Listings in the DVD category must offer free shipping.

The maximums set relate only to the first domestic shipping rate: sellers will still be able to charge more for expedited or overseas shipping. However, overseas sellers listing on eBay UK will be subject to the same rules, and will need to set at least one UK shipping rate at or below the stated maximum.

Exemptions for bulky items

There are some exemptions to the policy. For pretty obvious reasons, postage costs are not required for listings in the Cars, Parts and Vehicles, Businesses for Sale, Residential Property, Containers& Pre-Fab Buildings and Local Services categories.

In the categories with maximum rates set, sellers of specially large items will be able to select the delivery option “Courier : Heavy and bulky items”, and input their own price. eBay say that they will be monitoring the use of this option: sellers shouldn’t expect that they can use it on items which are not obviously abnormally large for the category in which they’re listed.

Of course, some items are going to fall between these two stools: TameBay commenters have already come up with a range of different items that might cost more to post than the allowed maximums, and some categories - textbooks @ £2.75 and film and TV memorabilia @ £4.00 for example - seem to have been set extremely low. eBay’s advice in these circumstances is to include the cost of the shipping in your item price. This suggestion might have been more palatable if eBay’s FVFs had been reduced in the affected categories, but for now, sellers will have to take comfort in the fact that their competitors are in the same boat as them, and there’s likely to be a change in pricing in all the affected categories.

What about my category?

Sellers in other categories should expect this policy to be extended across the whole site in the not so distant future. eBay’s FAQs page says that our goal over time is to bring reasonable P&P cost limits to more categories; though they go on to say we currently do not have other categories scheduled, it seems a pretty safe bet that we’ll see this in many more categories before the end of 2009.

What’s in it for the seller?

There is no doubt that eBay are working towards free postage across the site. Many eBay sites have seen promotions for sellers offering free shipping in recent months, and we can expect more of this in the run up to the holidays. Brian Burke said last week that beginning this week, “buyers will be reminded that the seller offered Free Shipping on the transaction as they are leaving Feedback for the seller.” As the DSR rating for P&P is here to stay, I hope that this will be worded in such a way that sellers who do offer free shipping will be marked 5/5 by their buyers. Though I know every seller’s unique, certainly when I began offering free postage on two of my IDs, my P&P DSRs increased from 4.8 to 4.9 and more importantly, my sell-through rate increased about 30%; my buyers definitely like it. And a 2006 survey from Yahoo! Small Business agrees with me: 90% of those surveyed said that free shipping would encourage them to purchase. It’s always worth looking again at your pricing strategy to see if free P&P could be an option for you.

The danger is that sellers will see the set maximums as “what they should be charging”: rather than everyone trying to keep costs down for their buyers, this could even push everyone up to the same fixed P&P price. Buying a Parcelforce courier delivery through PayPal, for example, costs £10.99, but it’d be a fairly safe bet that the £14 limit on video console shipping will become the norm in that category.

And in categories where the maximum is at or below actual cost, we’ll surely see the end of combined shipping deals. Many of the affected categories - DVDs, music, books - are those where buying more than one item “to get a good deal on postage” has become an ingrained habit with buyers; it would be a shame to discourage such spendy behaviour.

The canny seller will, I think, still ensure they’re undercutting the competition on postage, and that job will be made so much easier by knowing the target P&P price for your category. The policy rolls out at the end of January 2009, but now is the time to stay one pace ahead of your competition and ensure you have the most competitive shipping pricing possible.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 9 Comments 

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 

Postage, despatch and return option changes

August 14, 2008

eBay have today given advance notice of changes that sellers need to make to their listing templates by October. The intent of the changes is to give better visibility of important information to buyers and was first revealed on the Developers Blog last June.

From October eBay will highlight to buyers when they should expect to receive their item based on the sellers despatch time and the estimated delivery time of the chosen shipping option. From next year sellers will be required to enter a despatch time but I’d recommend sellers add it to their auctions by October if possible.

Hopefully this will improve the despatch time DSR if buyers have a cleared expectation of the time to receive their items but I can already see problems where the carrier takes longer than normal to deliver an item. If no transit time is specified (e.g. for “Seller’s Standard Rate”), then eBay will indicate the despatch time only.

There will also be a change to the returns section of listings. From October every seller will have to indicate if they accept returns, but the option to specify within 7, 14 or 30 days of receipt will be removed. Sellers will have to edit their returns policy on every listing to indicate how long buyers have to return an item.

Business sellers already have to offer returns for at least 14 days from the buyer receiving the item even though the law specifies 7 working days as the minimum.

It seems a backwards step that a clearly defined returns time will not be presented to buyers - they’ll now have to read through sellers returns policies to find this information.

If you want an easy method to edit your listings I highly recommend Bulk Reviser from Comsulting which enables you to edit returns and shipping information.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.co.uk | 11 Comments 

eBay Germany require specified shipping

July 3, 2008

From this week, sellers on eBay Germany are required to specify at least one domestic shipping service. eBay say that 95% of sellers already do so, but that the remaining 5% will no longer be able to list without specifying at least one shipping method and its cost. ‘Collection only’ is a permitted delivery method.

According to the eBay Developer blog, the policy is also being enforced in Spain now too: I think we can expect this to become a universally-enforced policy on all eBay sites reasonably soon, so if you’re not already specifying postage in the postage field in your listings, now will be the time to reconsider that.

The problem for UK sellers is likely to be that those who use courier services cannot offer one single flat rate to the whole country, as the Highlands, islands and Northern Ireland are all surcharged by carriers. If eBay are going to require sellers to use the little postage box to specify rates, rather than just putting them within the body of the listing, they really need to allow for the reality of shipping too.

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

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 

eBay Germany introduce maximum shipping prices

May 29, 2008

eBay Germany are introducing maximum shipping prices allowed to be charged in 34 categories. Ranging between €5,00 and €8,00, a range of items are included in the new policy, from computer accessories, memory sticks and MP3 players, to silver-plated jewellery, some watches, and pearls. The categories have apparently been chosen because they have generally low DSRs for shipping prices, and the set prices are based on the average within the categories. The new rules come into effect from 15th June.

Many sellers are going to see this as a step too far by eBay. If buyers choose to purchase from a seller with a high shipping price listed, that is their choice; shipping prices are the one area where there shouldn’t be any surprises for buyers post-sale, so why would eBay interfere? In any case now, buyers who didn’t read the listing have the opportunity to mark the seller down on the DSRs anyway. The prices quoted will not cover insured shipping in many cases, nor will they take account that some items are heavier to ship than others: categories like Lamps & Lighting or Wholesale & Metalworking are likely to have a massive range of wildly differing items within them, and trying to standardise a shipping cost is a step too far into the Amazon.

Moreover, sellers who want to avoid the restrictions are likely just to list in a different category, so the whole thing seems rather pointless. Nevertheless, what’s done on one eBay is likely to spread, so expect to see this coming to other sites in the near future.

Vielen Dank to Horst from Shadesavers for the link.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.de | 21 Comments 

eBay Canada 5c CLD if you specify shipping

May 20, 2008

eBay Canada are holding a cheap listing day today, 20th May. All insertion fees for BIN and auction have been reduced to 5c, so long as listings specify a shipping price. All other fees including listing upgrades and FVFs apply as normal.

Sadly the CLD is just for Canadian residents. Canada Post recently introduced a flat rate shipping box for eBay sellers, where items weighing up to 5kg can be shipped regionally for CA$9.99, nationally for CA$12.99 or to the US for CA$17.99.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under CLD | Comments Off 

eBay Germany highlights free shipping

May 14, 2008

kostenloser VersandeBay Germany have just announced the launch of a new icon to highlight items offering free shipping. Germany’s Markdown Manager is also now offering the possibility to lauch “free shipping sales” in Shops.

The same changes were made on .com last month, so sellers on other countries’ sites might expect a wider launch in the near future. As eBay will undoubtedly publicise this very well to buyers, it’s worth considering if it’s something you could take advantage of, even if free shipping isn’t normally your style.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Site Changes, eBay.de | 2 Comments 

Postage cost to be required on .com

March 24, 2008

This post was written in March 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Creative Commons License photo credit: didbygraham

eBay has announced that for eBay.com listings it will become a requirement for postage costs to be specified in all listings. For new sellers this will be an immediate requirement and roll out to all sellers in the near future.

Shipping costs will become part of the Best Match requirements, if a shipping cost is significantly higher than for other products in a particular sub-category the listing is could be disadvantaged in search.

This will have implications for how sellers list product, for instance if you’re offering a product which is heavier than competitors products you could be disadvantaged in search. Sellers offering products from abroad could also find their listings appearing lower down in search results due to international shipping costs.

One area this will impact is sellers offering multiple items - it’s not clear if Lots will be taken out of the average price shipping calculation, although arguably these products should be in the wholesale categories although many sellers will list in a second category for maximum exposure.

Sellers need to be aware that offering the cheapest shipping option may not be the best tactic to adopt. Whilst buyers may often select the default cheapest option they’re not likely to remember this when ranking sellers with Detailed Seller Ratings.

Offering fair postage options at realistic prices and most importantly communicating exactly how long transit times are will become more important than ever. If you do offer several different postage services ensure you set out clearly in your listing what they are along with the associated costs.

Gaming best match is going to be an interesting experiment and one that sellers are bound to attempt cracking. The chances are high however that the best sellers need to do little other than carry on giving great service, if you’re not gouging on shipping costs you’re unlikely to be disadvantaged in search based on postage costs.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured | 7 Comments