ebay email "Your listings with calculated shipping will default to eBay Labels discounted rates"

[iredder]

Got this notice from ebay today that buyers will be offered the discounted rates at the same (? assumed but not specified by ebay) that we usually buy labels at, unless you opt out by 5.15.

Question: A hypothetical case - at present, buyer pays $5 for postage but discounted postage is $3. Ebay takes their cut on the $5 and I pay $3 so I am still in the black. However, if the buyer is offered the $3 discounted rate AND ebay still takes their cut, I will be in the red if I purchase the label for $3.

Do I have this correct?

[wastingtime101]

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@ama357 wrote:

 Why can't Ebay do what Poshmark does? Have a flat rate of $7.75 for up to 5 pounds?

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Product is much more varied on this site.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Would you want to pay that for an under 8 oz parcel?

[katsutter-0]

Hopefully the opt out process will work.  If there is a glitch in the system this will be a mess.

[katsutter-0]

As long as the opt out process goes smoothly, there won't be a problem.  

[valueaddedresource]

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@monica-sells wrote:

@wastingtime101 

what am I missing here? This is a non-event the way I am reading it

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If you want to opt out of this change, just let us know here  by May 13 and we won’t make any changes to your current shipping rates. You can also switch back to showing standard rates at any time after May 15 through your shipping discount settings.

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Remember how sellers balked when automatically "opted in" to EIS without notice?

At least they are notifying us, and we can just change it back after implementation....

no?

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@monica-sells  I think the pushback will come mostly because eBay has been increasingly "pushy" about this issue, which understandably makes sellers nervous that at some point in the not too distant future this may no longer be optional.

We've seen reports here of eBay cold calling sellers with high pressure sales tactics trying to convince them to change to sharing the discounted shipping and eBay has been pushing the idea through their various social channels too....all at a time when many sellers are feeling less than warm and fuzzy about their current relationship with eBay for a variety of reasons.

Add on to that USPS just announced a price increase for Media Mail and a few other market dominant products for July (with adjustments likely to be announced soon for competitive products like Ground Advantage and Priority Mail as well), which gives eBay a defacto fee increase as well and well...I can definitely understand sellers being annoyed by this announcement even if there is still an option to opt out.

[monica-sells]

Thanks for an insightful response......

I understand the concern over shipping costs (in one niche of mine, some of the shipping costs I see are abominable and fall just short of gouging) and I was completely unaware of their "obsession" to promote cheaper rates.

I still, though, see it as a non-event, just a formality while the seller still has control over that cost/profit center

[wastingtime101]

Add on to that @valueaddedresource and @monica-sells , the number of sellers that won't read the email or won't understand the financial implications of the change, so they just go along with it. That will reduce sales for sellers that know the financials because their competition is charging less.

If sellers feel pressured to use carrier discounts, that means a significant increase to item prices for many.

It's a pressure-pot situation. eBay is not providing tools we need to handle it efficiently (specifically, being able to use calculated ship + carrier discount + charge a % above the carrier discount). All the ways of dealing with it are more work (multiple times per year with every price change), less accurate, and in the end the buyer is paying the same total sum when item prices go up.

One of the reasons I've been selling less on other venues is their inflexibility. eBay offers more flexibility in listing, shipping, and more. Guess what? I'm in the process of ramping my Amazon store back up to a high volume thanks to eBay. When eBay makes things harder I lose incentive to put more of my time in here and might as well spend just as much time on the inflexible sites like Amazon (where buyers are happy to pay $$ more than my eBay prices).

[billgeorgia60]

Seriously, can Ebay think of any more ways to screw their sellers ? They keep raising the fees and now want to remove the one buffer we have to keep some of our own money. It is getting ridiculous. No wonder sellers are flocking to other platforms.

[uncommonllc]

We ship a lot of heavy/large items or delicate items which require heavy duty boxes, time to pack and sometimes a lot of packing materials. We figure the difference between the calculated cost and the discounted label usually covers those extra costs -- usually, not always.  The idea we would have to spend the time costing out the packing and ship costs on every single item before listing to compensate for the additional 'loss' to pass along the 'discount' to the customer as well as eBay commission on shipping costs is for us a non-starter and so we opted out.

[valueaddedresource]

@wastingtime101 those are all great points too! Meanwhile, eBay continues to ignore the giant Promoted Listings sized elephant in the room because that would require them acknowledging maybe they have some part to play in prices on the site perhaps not being competitive against the broader ecommerce market and that might be a bigger factor than shipping costs.

[palominoproductions]

The link EBay provided in their April 17, 2024 email does not allow you to opt out and only records your effort to opt out by thanking you for taking the survey.  This behavior just reinforces everyone's opinion of Ebay as an untrustworthy platform with predatory practices.  Why should I have to come back in May and opt out again when the 4/17/2024 Ebay email provided a link to opt out that I used and ended  up taking a survey rather than opting out?  Ebay does not respect their sellers time and costs and harms sellers with their redundant and/or contradictory requirements and "updates". I have been a seller on Ebay since 2009 and have reduced the value of the items I sell because Ebay will not protect me as a seller and reduced the number of listings to limit the time wasted chasing Ebay's glitches and exposure to FBI investigations because Ebay is selling to buyers being investigated for money laundering.  Ebay collects fees for their participation with these money launderers.  Does that make Ebay a money laundering organization????Hmmmmmmmmm. Is there no attorney general willing to take on Ebay? Especially after raising their fee from 30cents to 40 cents!  That is one heck of an increase over the entire platform~~~must be millions of dollars.  Is that increase price gouging??

[lthrchp]

It is just a matter of crunching the numbers to see where you need to be on your pricing.  Offering a discounted flat rate helps me sell, and there isn't any haggling about shipping charges being inflated.  For me, it all averages out, and if I can reuse a clean carton, I've saved $2 on my overhead.  Just add $1 or so as a handling charge if you need a buffer. 

[wastingtime101]

The survey is the opt out @palominoproductions . It specifically says:

Starting May 15, 2024, your listings with calculated shipping will default to show eBay discounted shipping rates. By filling out this form by May 13, 2024, you are confirming that you would like to be excluded from this change.

I'll post a screenshot later if I have time, unless someone else beats me to it. I'm doing 7 things at once right now and still haven't had breakfast.

[devon@ebay]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@iredder wrote:

Question: A hypothetical case - at present, buyer pays $5 for postage but discounted postage is $3. Ebay takes their cut on the $5 and I pay $3 so I am still in the black. However, if the buyer is offered the $3 discounted rate AND ebay still takes their cut, I will be in the red if I purchase the label for $3. Do I have this correct?

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Yes, you have that correct @iredder .

When a seller passes on the carrier discount and charges eBay rates, they will always be in the red unless they either add a handling fee or increase their item costs.

When you sell items that are all under a pound that might be manageable, but once you start selling heavier items it's near impossible to manage due to the cost difference between zones. Just like offering flat costs or free shipping, you will always be overcharging or undercharging some buyers if you offer carrier discounts plus a handling fee.

It also means every time there are rate changes you will have to figure out all of the unpublished eBay rates using their calculator after changes go into effect, then manually calculate the eBay fees on various rates/weights, then make manual adjustments to your handling fee. Unlike charging retail rates where the cushion is already built in.

A big pitfall is cubic rates and multi-item purchases. If your listing is set up with a 7x7x7 box, 2 lb and the buyer purchases 2 items, the system may charge them the cubic rate for a 7x7x7 box even though you've had to increase box size to 12x7x7. In that case the buyer isn't paying enough to cover the shipping label, let alone fees on ship cost. Since there are no cubic retail rates, you will avoid that pitfall by charging retail rates.

I've been saying for a while now with the gap between eBay rates and retail rates constantly getting bigger, eBay should:

1. Not pass on cubic rates to buyers since their system has no way to account for box size changes on multi-item purchases. Also because many of the lower volume sellers I expect eBay is targeting use estimated box sizes, and the actual boxes they use to ship may be a bit larger.

2. Allow sellers to pass on carrier discounts at a seller-chosen percent above eBay rates so we can cover fees. Easy enough to build in a cap to cover the different category fees (20% should do it).

eBay wants us to pass on this discount to increase sales, yet they still charge fees on ship cost. They need to meet us halfway by implementing both points 1 and 2 above. eBay has, unfortunately, demonstrated time and again they want sellers to lower shipping, lower prices, and absorb all those losses. Forced Best Offer, encouraging sellers to use "recommended" ad rates, "easy pricing" that automatically lowers your pricing, sneaking in automatic offers to buyers being a default setting when you send that first seller initiated offer, and so much more. Now it's a huge push to get sellers to offer carrier discounts where every seller that complies will be in the red unless they're smart enough to either opt out or manage their prices differently.

Sellers that go along with the discounted rates and decide to increase their item costs to cover eBay fees: please do not forget you have that expense baked in when you deal with buyer offers!

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Hey @wastingtime101! The Shipping team wanted to reach out and share the following: 

"Thank you for your response. We are aware of the limitation of cubic rates being applied for combined shipments - we  will implement a solution that will prevent cubic rates from being applied at checkout for combined orders with calculated shipping before May 15."

[list-and-sell]

This is ridiculous. The difference between the "retail rate" and the "discount rate" is what covers eBay's percentage and usually covers my shipping supplies and label stock.  Sometimes I make a little, sometimes I lose a little on shipping. THIS MOVE BY EBAY ENSURES THAT I WILL LOSE MONEY ON EVERY ITEM I SHIP. Who is in charge over there? eBay is losing sellers already. This will just increase the exit rate!