Why does Ebay want to change/decide everyone's calculated shipping settings?

[suzysemporium]

Just received an email from Ebay stating that on May 15 they are going to change shipping settings for everyone who uses calculated shipping. They have decided that it is our best interest to offer our shipping discounts to our buyers directly. This will attract more buyers to your listings. You have to use Ebay labels though.

That option has been there for a long time already. I thought about doing it previously, but decided against it.

Hold on dear overlords. Why couldn't you just treat all sellers as if they have some sense. Send an improve your listing message instead. I get those to become a top rated plus by having 1 day handling time. A message with a link to the setting would have been much nicer. Maybe not every one knows there is a setting or where to find that setting to make the change if we so desire. Instead our dear overlords decided to give an opt out option, or you could change the settings back later on.

I opted out. I figure there are sellers who already have that option turned on. Buyers can choose, and wonder why my shipping is higher. If they want what I have to sell, and the overall cost is reasonable they will buy from me. I guess I should be grateful that our dear overlords decided to include that option even though they seemed to want to hide the link. It is in the 3rd paragraph down within the first sentence click "let us know here".

I remember two of the reasons. 1) You use shipping to compensate for handling and shipping fees. 2) You do not always use ebay labels. 3) I forget the the third reason, and can not go back to see it 4) other

I'm sure they are collecting data on sellers shipping habits with this opt out form also.

[mike_jayroe]

I received the same e-mail.  I wonder how accurate it will be with me in Maryland and most of my buyers mostly along the west coast. If their prices are short how to I recover the shortage?

Maybe I will just change everything over to fixed price and offer refunds when needed.

[ajw2203]

 I always wondered why buyers pay so much more on Ground Advantage but on UPS on Fedex I like that I pay a different price because I use the difference to have FedEx wrap the item

[monica-sells]

There are a couple informative and vigorous threads regarding this with some fortuitous insight. I would recommend taking a quick look at them....

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping/ebay-email-quot-Your-listings-with-calculated-shipping-will/m...

IMHO, this is really a non-event, since you can 

A. Opt-Out

B. If you are already taking advantage of discounted shipping rates displayed to your buyer, you do nothing....

This action simply makes it the new default if you do nothing.....

[farmalljr]

What irks me about it is, if eBay is JUST a platform for buyers and sellers, WHY are they changing your seller settings at all? As the OP points out, they COULD just send a "improve your listings" email and point out the benefits and HOW to change the settings. 

Except anyone who has been here long enough selling realizes eBay is NOT just a platform for buyers and sellers to meet. eBay tells sellers how they are going to sell and makes changes to seller setting and listings WITHOUT sellers asking for it. eBay is constantly manipulating sales, terms, and all sorts of things their fingers have no business in. eBay is skirting lawsuits by playing the "we are only a platform" card. They are NOT just a meeting platform, they are controlling sellers and sales. At some point this will all come to a head, and eBay will no longer be able to hide behind their touted, old tired line. They will be like Amazon an be responsible for all the stuff they are doing. 

This whole thing just honks me off. They want sellers to give buyers the discount, but they are not dropping the FEES on the shipping now, are they? They expect sellers to take another loss for the sake of making more sales to boost their own numbers. I hope sellers in mass tell eBay where to pack it, and tell them WHY they are not going to participate in that bull puckey. 

I have ALWAYS charged buyers counter rates to pay the FEES and the packaging costs.  What would make eBay think I would be willing to sell for even less? Is eBay so dumb not to think if sellers lower the shipping, they aren't going to just tack that back onto the price?

I buy a lot of stuff and have it shipped in. No one else is lowering their high costs of shipping. Neither will I. Neither will most sellers. Anyone who does is just allowing eBay to cut the seller's profit margins. 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@farmalljr  I opted out when I received the message.

But that said, ebay has almost certainly done some math, and has presumably concluded (rightly or wrongly) that , while they will collect a smaller fee on the shipping due to the reduction in the shipping price, that reduction will be more than compensated for by increased sales velocity (more FVFs, and perhaps more PL fees as well).

For sellers, the questions become:

1. If I opt out, will I actually lose sales because too many of my competitors will be offering lower shipping rates? The answer will vary, because sellers are a varied lot.

2. If I allow myself to be opted in, will my sales increase at a rate that more than makes up for the revenue I will lose?  Again, the answers will vary.

As for me, with what I sell, I do not think I will lose by opting out, and I do not believe my sales would increase enough (if at all) if I opted in. 

Perhaps I'll change my mind after the change has gone into effect and I've had time to see the results. But for now, ebay hasn't convinced me that this will benefit me at all.

[chapeau-noir]

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@farmalljr wrote:

What irks me about it is, if eBay is JUST a platform for buyers and sellers, WHY are they changing your seller settings at all? As the OP points out, they COULD just send a "improve your listings" email and point out the benefits and HOW to change the settings. 

Except anyone who has been here long enough selling realizes eBay is NOT just a platform for buyers and sellers to meet. eBay tells sellers how they are going to sell and makes changes to seller setting and listings WITHOUT sellers asking for it. eBay is constantly manipulating sales, terms, and all sorts of things their fingers have no business in. eBay is skirting lawsuits by playing the "we are only a platform" card. They are NOT just a meeting platform, they are controlling sellers and sales. At some point this will all come to a head, and eBay will no longer be able to hide behind their touted, old tired line. They will be like Amazon an be responsible for all the stuff they are doing. 

This whole thing just honks me off. They want sellers to give buyers the discount, but they are not dropping the FEES on the shipping now, are they? They expect sellers to take another loss for the sake of making more sales to boost their own numbers. I hope sellers in mass tell eBay where to pack it, and tell them WHY they are not going to participate in that bull puckey. 

I have ALWAYS charged buyers counter rates to pay the FEES and the packaging costs.  What would make eBay think I would be willing to sell for even less? Is eBay so dumb not to think if sellers lower the shipping, they aren't going to just tack that back onto the price?

I buy a lot of stuff and have it shipped in. No one else is lowering their high costs of shipping. Neither will I. Neither will most sellers. Anyone who does is just allowing eBay to cut the seller's profit margins. 

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It has been stated (CEO Wenig) that we are vendors on a managed marketplace. Once people accept this, changes like this are easier to deal with, whether we like them or not. Fortunately, we can opt out.

[farmalljr]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

@farmalljr  I opted out when I received the message.

But that said, ebay has almost certainly done some math, and has presumably concluded (rightly or wrongly) that , while they will collect a smaller fee on the shipping due to the reduction in the shipping price, that reduction will be more than compensated for by increased sales velocity (more FVFs, and perhaps more PL fees as well).

For sellers, the questions become:

1. If I opt out, will I actually lose sales because too many of my competitors will be offering lower shipping rates? The answer will vary, because sellers are a varied lot.

2. If I allow myself to be opted in, will my sales increase at a rate that more than makes up for the revenue I will lose?  Again, the answers will vary.

As for me, with what I sell, I do not think I will lose by opting out, and I do not believe my sales would increase enough (if at all) if I opted in. 

Perhaps I'll change my mind after the change has gone into effect and I've had time to see the results. But for now, ebay hasn't convinced me that this will benefit me at all.

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Sellers who are serious about selling, have priced their items so they can make a profit. That means even calculating in the difference between counter rates and our discounted rate.  Cutting more off the profit end (when sellers already have to price low enough to compete) means cutting down margins further. No seller here can sell on the "Wal-mart"  model that assumes you will move a truck load of an item every week. Those sellers who are selling a large amount of the same item, usually have free shipping already. This "ploy" by eBay is aimed at small sellers, not big sellers. They are baiting people to make the items cheaper because people are shopping elsewhere. Too many years the same old sellers here have overpriced their items like it was the wild west days of eBay. This is just another misguided decision by the management to try to drive more sales to bulk up their numbers for wallstreet. It will not benefit the average seller, it will cut their profit margins. 

If the magic sauce was really just knocking a dollar or two off an items price, then BO option would drive the sales bigger than the shipping discount. 

Part of the root causes of stagnant sales are:

1 Sellers over pricing products

2 People don't trust/like eBay

3 poor economy

4 lack of targeted advertising to drive people here to buy things OTHER than verticals. 

A shipping discount will do nothing for sales. It is not really an attempt to get more sales for sellers. It's a weak attempt, throwing a dart at the board, in hopes of pumping the numbers for investors. I'm confident sellers would give buyers the discount IF they were not paying fees on shipping and sales taxes. As it stands if you did give the discount, a $10 label would cost YOU the seller $11.30 plus you still have to pay fees on taxes and pay for packaging. So you the seller would now lose 2-3 bucks on that sale that you would have otherwise had covered. Multiply that by 10 sales a month and it's 20-30 bucks a month, 240-360 a year lost. 

[farmalljr]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@farmalljr wrote:

What irks me about it is, if eBay is JUST a platform for buyers and sellers, WHY are they changing your seller settings at all? As the OP points out, they COULD just send a "improve your listings" email and point out the benefits and HOW to change the settings. 

Except anyone who has been here long enough selling realizes eBay is NOT just a platform for buyers and sellers to meet. eBay tells sellers how they are going to sell and makes changes to seller setting and listings WITHOUT sellers asking for it. eBay is constantly manipulating sales, terms, and all sorts of things their fingers have no business in. eBay is skirting lawsuits by playing the "we are only a platform" card. They are NOT just a meeting platform, they are controlling sellers and sales. At some point this will all come to a head, and eBay will no longer be able to hide behind their touted, old tired line. They will be like Amazon an be responsible for all the stuff they are doing. 

This whole thing just honks me off. They want sellers to give buyers the discount, but they are not dropping the FEES on the shipping now, are they? They expect sellers to take another loss for the sake of making more sales to boost their own numbers. I hope sellers in mass tell eBay where to pack it, and tell them WHY they are not going to participate in that bull puckey. 

I have ALWAYS charged buyers counter rates to pay the FEES and the packaging costs.  What would make eBay think I would be willing to sell for even less? Is eBay so dumb not to think if sellers lower the shipping, they aren't going to just tack that back onto the price?

I buy a lot of stuff and have it shipped in. No one else is lowering their high costs of shipping. Neither will I. Neither will most sellers. Anyone who does is just allowing eBay to cut the seller's profit margins. 

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It has been stated (CEO Wenig) that we are vendors on a managed marketplace. Once people accept this, changes like this are easier to deal with, whether we like them or not. Fortunately, we can opt out.

---

They state that, but we are not really vendors. Being a vendor would assume we pay for our "space" and follow general rules set forth by the platform. Not that the platform has any power over the actual policies we chose. We are not vendors here. Just like this example, eBay is changing your policies, when a landlord or a platform provider has no place running your business FOR you. An employer tells an employee what to do. eBay is telling sellers what to do. They are requiring YOU to take action to do something that you already had set a long time ago. I did not hire eBay to manage my business. I did not ask them to or give them express permission to manage my business. 

And yes, we can opt out. I did immediately. 

[dbfolks166mt]

     This may be one of those underhanded moves by eBay where they are unilaterally making a decision and change that is out of their purview in an attempt to increase sales. How I choose to handle my shipping is NONE of  eBay's business. I suspect a LOT of sellers will ignore or not read the notice and this board will be flooded with complaints starting 16 May after the change has been implemented. 

     It's just like any other change where sellers who choose to leave the discounts to the buyers in place will either add in handling charges or increase their prices to cover the difference. 

[chapeau-noir]

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@farmalljr wrote:

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@farmalljr wrote:

What irks me about it is, if eBay is JUST a platform for buyers and sellers, WHY are they changing your seller settings at all? As the OP points out, they COULD just send a "improve your listings" email and point out the benefits and HOW to change the settings. 

Except anyone who has been here long enough selling realizes eBay is NOT just a platform for buyers and sellers to meet. eBay tells sellers how they are going to sell and makes changes to seller setting and listings WITHOUT sellers asking for it. eBay is constantly manipulating sales, terms, and all sorts of things their fingers have no business in. eBay is skirting lawsuits by playing the "we are only a platform" card. They are NOT just a meeting platform, they are controlling sellers and sales. At some point this will all come to a head, and eBay will no longer be able to hide behind their touted, old tired line. They will be like Amazon an be responsible for all the stuff they are doing. 

This whole thing just honks me off. They want sellers to give buyers the discount, but they are not dropping the FEES on the shipping now, are they? They expect sellers to take another loss for the sake of making more sales to boost their own numbers. I hope sellers in mass tell eBay where to pack it, and tell them WHY they are not going to participate in that bull puckey. 

I have ALWAYS charged buyers counter rates to pay the FEES and the packaging costs.  What would make eBay think I would be willing to sell for even less? Is eBay so dumb not to think if sellers lower the shipping, they aren't going to just tack that back onto the price?

I buy a lot of stuff and have it shipped in. No one else is lowering their high costs of shipping. Neither will I. Neither will most sellers. Anyone who does is just allowing eBay to cut the seller's profit margins. 

---

It has been stated (CEO Wenig) that we are vendors on a managed marketplace. Once people accept this, changes like this are easier to deal with, whether we like them or not. Fortunately, we can opt out.

---

They state that, but we are not really vendors. Being a vendor would assume we pay for our "space" and follow general rules set forth by the platform. Not that the platform has any power over the actual policies we chose. We are not vendors here. Just like this example, eBay is changing your policies, when a landlord or a platform provider has no place running your business FOR you. An employer tells an employee what to do. eBay is telling sellers what to do. They are requiring YOU to take action to do something that you already had set a long time ago. I did not hire eBay to manage my business. I did not ask them to or give them express permission to manage my business. 

And yes, we can opt out. I did immediately. 

---

Our marketplace is managed - that was his point - and not by us. Wenig was basically putting us in our 'place' but at least he was being honest by refuting the myth that somehow eBay was 'only a venue' - it hasn't been 'only a venue' for years - eBay basically sets the rules for how a lot of us run these businesses. A lot of the angst about the existence of these changes (the changes themselves can have their own problems and frustrations - yes, this one was pretty stupid IMHO) can be eliminated by that realization because I think a lot of sellers somehow think that these issues should be in our own hands - they are not and haven't been for a long time. It's virtually impossible to have a multinational marketplace of many millions be 'only a venue', particularly when it's going in an asset-heavy direction. A 'vendor' can mean anything, not necessarily anyone self-employed.

We need to get away from the very old concept that we each have our own little independent booth in some gigantic flea - we don't.

I'm just trying to save people some stomach lining here.

[ittybitnot]

As the OP points out, they COULD just send a "improve your listings" email and point out the benefits and HOW to change the settings. 

@farmalljr 

They did that.  They posted banners, sent emails, posted on social media, their podcasts etc. to pitch the virtues and benefits of offering your buyers your discounted shipping rates.   They had a "call the seller on the phone" campaign as well extolling the presumed benefits of making less money to entice buyers.  

Obviously, there was an expected lack of seller volunteers for this.  I am sure there were "some" that go along with anything eBay tells them is "good for you", but eBay would be hard pressed to show any stats that boasted an increase in sales.  

So...

Due to the lack of volunteers, eBay is going to sign up everyone.  That has been their protocol for years, and is still a way to get more people through the gates of a program that has no proven advantage for the seller. 

They did it with the GSP, turning it on (after you opted out)  at random to "help you sell".  Sign the user agreement (shoved in your face when you were trying to list and could not proceed unless you agreed......wow..you are back in the GSP program (claiming you agreed to this where it was on line 234, on page 634 of the UA.) . 

Another that was extremely unpopular was their Webinterpret  push, and eventually they started auto enrolling sellers while they were asleep...lol...to help them sell, asking what is your problem...it is free??!!

I would venture to surmise, even if every seller on eBay opted out of this, they will come up with something else that is more predatory.  

Users on the other thread have been met with "error messages" and "redirects" when trying to opt out of this now through the provided links.  

There is a preference where one could check to "pass along your discounted savings to the buyer" .  I would keep an eye on that, and make sure it is not auto selected  to YES for you as it rolls out.  

[dhbookds]

My prediction........should they ever decide to make this required........is that sellers will immediately increase the shipping weight on the listings and then lower it when they go to print the label........if ebay locks the listing weight in on the shipping page, sellers will find another place to purchase labels with a discount. 
Ebay will then lose whatever they make on those labels. 

Making the opt in the default is more or less a company standard on stuff......long ago, companies found that offering beneficial programs, such as IRA's, with an opt in, failed because people didn't want to take the time to figure it out.   Programs worked much better when people were given the choice to opt out.......most didn't.  And likewise, New sellers will have no idea of any of it and probably stay opted in.  How much that will hurt opted out sellers with higher shipping costs remains to be seen....  And how much buyers will realize the benefits and therefore buy more is also a big question.  Ebay will take a revenue cut, just because $ amounts of shipping would be less (which is probably the reason the 10c increase was put in), but of course, they can also slightly lower the discount and recoup the money.....

It's not a win for sellers.........but if it really makes any difference to buyers......it could possibly increase sales, on an overall basis.  Some of the discounts I see are pretty nice chunks of change.  Except of course, if sellers raise item prices/handling to recoup what they are losing on the change. 

[dbfolks166mt]

Our marketplace is managed - that was his point - and not by us. Wenig was basically putting us in our 'place' but at least he was being honest by refuting the myth that somehow eBay was 'only a venue' - it hasn't been 'only a venue' for years - eBay basically sets the rules for how a lot of us run these businesses. A lot of the angst about the existence of these changes (the changes themselves can have their own problems and frustrations - yes, this one was pretty stupid IMHO) can be eliminated by that realization because I think a lot of sellers somehow think that these issues should be in our own hands - they are not and haven't been for a long time. It's virtually impossible to have a multinational marketplace of many millions be 'only a venue', particularly when it's going in an asset-heavy direction. A 'vendor' can mean anything, not necessarily anyone self-employed.

We need to get away from the very old concept that we each have our own little independent booth in some gigantic flea - we don't.

     Wenig can state what he wants but eBay has always been a venue and always will be a venue unless a serious change is made and eBay crosses the line line into an employer/employee relationship which would have MAJOR implications for eBay as well as the sellers. The site may be "managed" but it is managed by the policies eBay is NOT managing the sellers. 

     EBay provides a link between sellers and buyers nothing more. EBay sells NOTHING directly they simply manage the venue/platform. 

[chapeau-noir]

@ittybitnot  Due to the lack of volunteers, eBay is going to sign up everyone.  That has been their protocol for years, and is still a way to get more people through the gates of a program that has no proven advantage for the seller. 

They tend to operate under the principle that it's easier to ask forgiveness than ask permission. 😁