No more Classic Shipping Label Printing

[jmacds]

...so they finally turned off our ability to print shipping labels by selecting the Classic option.  I'm so irritated I could scream.  Wait...I must have screamed, my wife just asked me what happened....

I don't think the Everything-Is-Better-If-It's-New folks understand how sellers try to squeeze every penny of profit they can from the system while maintaining our service standards.  In my case, I live in Florida and shipping to the West Coast, Alaska, and Hawaii can get quite pricey with calculated Priority Mail.  Whenever possible I quote Priority Mail shipping and a shipping charge based on Flat Rate Box charges (or Parcel Select when appropriate).   If a buyer lives in my corner of the country and the item is small and/or light, say a couple of pounds, it's frequently less expensive to ship with Calculated Priority Mail than a Flat Rate Box.  The buyer still gets Priority Mail service either way, but I might be able to save a bit in my shipping cost by using Calculated.

The Classic Label Printing option had a crystal-clear drop-down box showing all shipping options based upon the size and weight I had entered.  In 90+% of my Priority Mail and all Parcel Select sales I'd check the box to see my shipping options.  I would frequently be able to upgrade to Priority from Parcel Select in many cases.  I'd also be able to easily see how Calculated Priority compared against the Flat Rate costs, in particular the Regional A and Regional B boxes.

Can I eventually get all this done with the Improved Shipping Labels screen? Absolutely.
With these new abilities provided by Ebay I can even keep a piece of paper and a pen on my desk to write down and compare my shipping options with each label.  On the days I'm lucky enough to wake up to 5-10 sales I can now decide if I want to process shipping quickly or spend a chunk of my morning trying to make a few extra bucks with shipping.

I/We really need all shipping options and costs in a single place, like the old screen.  I frequently change or upgrade shipping that was quoted in my Ebay listing due to costs, insurance, delivery speed.  The item I'm trying to mail USPS Priority right this moment is a perfect example. It's fairly light, but depending on how far away the buyer is, I have to decide which is cheapest: A)calculated B)Flat Rate Medium C)Flat Rate Regional A (if it'll fit) or D)Flate Rate Regional B.

[jmacds]

Oh yeah....I forgot to include that the Classic shows the standard USPS price in addition to our actual discounted price.  Sometimes there's a huge difference here in Calculated Priority and I've increased a box size to provide additional packing protection and still be under what the buyer paid for shipping.

[kathy507]

I prefer the classic label site too and do not understand why eBay thinks the new way is better.

But you can still see the same features as on the ebay classic label site if you calculate shipping and print labels directly through PayPal.   I don't know if this will work if the buyer pays through managed payments other than through PayPal. 

Does anyone know how this might work with managed payments?  Are you stuck with the new eBay label page?

[clearsphere]

I always clicked back to classic so haven't used new one yet. I don't remember if Paypal shipping offered Regional rate.

[labs118]

Managed payment will have no effect on label printing via Paypal
With Managed payment you  still need to fund Paypal to pay for labels via the ebay site or on the Paypal site. 

[warmerwagen]

It irks me how ebay comes up with their own trendy phrases like " functionality" or "new flow". I also can't go back to the classic as of today. The classic shipping was compact and quick . It took me five minutes longer to ship my first item with the "new flow". I call it a new clog and dysfunctionality experience.

[sharp_edgeknives]

I did not know of the change,classic was so easy well another reason to get out of e bay. The label system was not broken. E bay loves to fix things that are not BROKEN,I would love to meet some of the morons in e bays headquarters. Some of those folks MUST be making all of these changes to justify their jobs.

Say NO to GTC and this New label printing process.

[tsarllc]

I've worked so hard to be a good business partner with Ebay and they keep kicking me in the teeth.

GTC profoundly affected my business model and the mandatory new shipping page is yet another stumbling block to me having the most productive day I can. I just don't understand why having to click between different drop down boxes is an improvement when comparing rates. 

Why don't you fix the glitches on the platform that have NEVER worked correctly, e.g. Vacation Settings!!!!!   

QUIT FIXING the things that have actually worked and that people like!!!!

I feel so much worse now that I've taken the time to write, realizing no one at Ebay cares and they are going to do whatever they want anyways. It makes me flipping ILL .......... 

I'm so looking forward to using this enhanced shipping experience. It feels so good to waste time and take longer to do the same task. it makes me all tingly inside with joyous rapture that someone could come up with such a profoundly remarkable new screen that is so pleasing to the eye albeit the scroll down bar and different buttons. 

May great blessings come to  the developers that slaved over this wonderful design for the last five years. It's perfect. it's brought me to a higher plane. I don't know how I've survived this long without it. Barf.

[pink.fish.rule]

From what one of the blues slip one time, it's not so much about how "enhanced" the new page is, it's that they have to make some new additions to shipping options and it seems their current coders have no idea how to work with the code of the old classic page (or it may be PB coders).

[wyldflower002]

I'm at screaming point too...I counted, 5 extra clicks to get my label through this new page and two extra to get out. How is something improved if it takes more time, more effort? Flow? WHAT FLOW? THIS NEW "IMPROVED" METHOD HAS NO FLOW, it merely meanders causing my shipping to take extra time it doesn't need to. I have wrote to ebay, I have complained to ebay about this since they rolled it out, never ever do they listen to the actual sellers, never ever do they consider our time or functionality of this new nonsense. I swear it's just a bunch of rich idiotic people who have never sold a **bleep** thing on ebay sitting around a board room table with nothing to do except improve things that never need improving and ignore the actual things that have always needed fixing. Shame on you ebay.

[mongoose26]

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@clearsphere wrote:

I always clicked back to classic so haven't used new one yet. I don't remember if Paypal shipping offered Regional rate.

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Paypal does not offer regional boxes, but both Stamps.com and Pirate Ship do. While neither take Paypal (for now, Pirate Ship is looking into it) you can get a free account for each and they both communicate with ebay and populate the tracking back to ebay.

The other great thing is ebay will not make a profit off of your shipping label, nor will they know how much you paid for that label, which will come in handy in the future when they charge you when they refund shipping charges for late arriving packages.

[kathieskorner]

I'm an old lady with failing eyesight, and the new shipping page with all the white space is so much harder to read.  I expressed this to eBay to no avail.   They don't seem to get it that it's easier to read smaller print in paragraphs than bigger print with lots of white space between every line.  

[ekmadonna]

Well it was finally my turn tonight, NO MORE CLASSIC Label page. I did not have any issues and I printed 4 labels, my question is is there a BOX for REGIONAL A's? I will not be happy if this is gone!

[lalena52]

I really don't understand why they changed this. It has been the same for years and it's worked fine. The new label printing format is not only less intuitive but also gives me enough incorrect postal errors that I felt using the classic label printing was necessary. If you're not going to improve on something that already worked fine, why spend the time and money to change it? It absolutely boggles my mind.

[twnpopcards]

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@warmerwagen wrote:
It irks me how ebay comes up with their own trendy phrases like " functionality" or "new flow". I also can't go back to the classic as of today. The classic shipping was compact and quick . It took me five minutes longer to ship my first item with the "new flow". I call it a new clog and dysfunctionality experience.

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Which is exactly why Ebay changed it.  Unless something takes more time or costs the Seller more money Ebay never changes things.  The cart has not functioned as it should ever but Ebay will not change that because they make more money from it by overcharging Buyers on their shipping in many cases.  Then when the Seller issues the refund Ebay keeps the extra 10% FVF that was charged.  They nickel and dime Sellers to death because their site is doing just the opposite of what other sites are showing as far as growth, so they have to reach deeper and deeper into the Sellers pockets every chance they can.

Ebay just recently disclosed the 1st quarter earnings and GMV was down 4% but the CEO was bragging about how Ebay had increased their bottom line by increasing revenues from Promoted Listings, Managed Payments and other cost added gimmicks they have.  Instead of showing all Sellers items evenly, even though we paid for that listing, Ebay now wants sellers to pay more for Promoted Listings so that hopefully your item will be seen.  Based on what you were saying it sounds like Ebay has found a way to skim a little more off of the Sellers profits by not making it as easy as it should be to see the cheapest way to ship the item. 

Its bad enough that we have to deal with all this Disruptive Technology that the CEO keeps touting, but now you also have to look at every aspect of what you are doing or Ebay will have another "GOTCHA" sitting there waiting for your wallet to come by.  All these constant changes and issues that seem to happen with Ebays shipping is why I changed to the Free Stamps.com account.  I pay with my Paypal Debit Card and get the 1% for using it and since all Stamps.com focuses on is Postage they know what they are doing and seem to make everything flow through effortlessly.  I have been using them for over 3 years now and wish i had changed ages before.