eBay

cactus441 · ‎12-23-2019

eBay has changed the USPS screens and I no longer can change the Post Office zip I am shipping from. The mail delivery is from one post office, but I want to ship from the nearest post office, which has a different zip code.

The local Post Office gets credit for packages shipped but only from those where postage is purchased at the PO or the label indicates the PO's zip.

Why is this such a problem for eBay to continue the practice I have used for years and PayPal still uses.

Get those Algorithms fixed, back to what we used to have.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎12-26-2019

I would like to see a link to this new "mandate," which has yet to appear in the DMM. This street-address requirement has been around for a rather long time to be due to an as-yet-unimplemented mandate.

What a tremendous coincidence that it materialized at the same time that sellers were clamoring for a "ship from" ZIP Code capability in the newfangled postage setup form, which initially lacked it completely. And that begs the question about the utility of inputting a full alternate address when the PO itself can be used as the address.

earlyant-77 · ‎12-26-2019

What's even worse is that now the return address is where you were when you sent the package, and would be returned to there if undeliverable, instead of where you want it to be returned to.

So with this change, you could conceivably lose your item and your money.

a_c_green · ‎12-26-2019

@earlyant-77 wrote:
What's even worse is that now the return address is where you were when you sent the package, and would be returned to there if undeliverable, instead of where you want it to be returned to.

So with this change, you could conceivably lose your item and your money.

What? No, not at all. The Return address is still the Return address; i.e. wherever you want it sent if it's undeliverable. The Ship from ZIP designation is, again, simply indicating the ZIP code from where it originated. You are free to put any Return address on the package that you want.

Anonymous · ‎12-26-2019

@earlyant-77 wrote:
What's even worse is that now the return address is where you were when you sent the package, and would be returned to there if undeliverable, instead of where you want it to be returned to.

So with this change, you could conceivably lose your item and your money.

Hi @earlyant-77, I just want to clarify that the Ship from address is not the same as your Return address - if an item was unable to be delivered or was returned to you, it would return to the return address you have provided. When printing a label you can select Edit under the Ship from / Return address and from the following popup you can check the box to indicate that your ship from and return address are different. This allows you to select different a return addresses and ship from addresses if needed.

You can manage your addresses here, and once you have set up addresses in your account they will be available to pick from the drop downs for both Ship from and Return addresses when printing a label.

seely7 · ‎12-26-2019

So can you clarify this? What happens if I offer 1-day handling, sell an item on a Thursday night, and am leaving the area early Friday morning? In the past, I have just chosen a post office that I'll be going by during business hours the next morning (which may well be 100 miles from home, since we've left at 7 AM), and dropped it there on my way by, but I don't have an actual "Ship from" address there. I just want to make sure I'm paying the proper postage in case the number of zones is different from where I live.

Anonymous · ‎12-26-2019

@seely7 wrote:

So can you clarify this? What happens if I offer 1-day handling, sell an item on a Thursday night, and am leaving the area early Friday morning? In the past, I have just chosen a post office that I'll be going by during business hours the next morning (which may well be 100 miles from home, since we've left at 7 AM), and dropped it there on my way by, but I don't have an actual "Ship from" address there. I just want to make sure I'm paying the proper postage in case the number of zones is different from where I live.

Hi @seely7, you can update the ship from address to the location you are shipping from when printing the label. If you occasionally need to ship from a different location than the one from the listing, you won't run into any issues, particularly when the ship from location is very near to the location in your listing. There would only be a need to be concerned if you shipments are coming from a different location than where the item was said to be located consistently. If you have already printed the label and discover you need to ship from another location, you do have the option of voiding the label and printing another but this shouldn't be necessary in these one-off scenarios.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎12-26-2019

@seely7 wrote: ... In the past, I have just chosen a post office that I'll be going by ... and dropped it there on my way by, but I don't have an actual "Ship from" address there. I just want to make sure I'm paying the proper postage in case the number of zones is different from where I live.

If you've paid the wrong postage (either over or under), the APV system will take care of that for you.

https://link.usps.com/2017/10/05/what-is-apv/

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/ship-smart/ebay-shipping-partners/avoid-extra-postage-costs....

a_c_green · ‎12-26-2019

@seely7 wrote:
So can you clarify this? What happens if I offer 1-day handling, sell an item on a Thursday night, and am leaving the area early Friday morning? In the past, I have just chosen a post office that I'll be going by during business hours the next morning (which may well be 100 miles from home, since we've left at 7 AM), and dropped it there on my way by, but I don't have an actual "Ship from" address there. I just want to make sure I'm paying the proper postage in case the number of zones is different from where I live.

You just need to know the correct ZIP code for the post office or town that you've chosen to drop it from, which you can quickly Google. The usps.com site can help you pinpoint their post office in that area, and you can get their address that way. I assume you're not printing the label at home in advance, but are planning to wait until the payment arrives, despite not knowing exactly where you'll be at that time.

In the past, I've found that when something is requiring a full street address for a town that you're not really going to, or don't know any place there, then General Delivery is a valid street address for the post office in that town. (Technically, if I remember right, the post office will hold General Delivery mail for 30 days awaiting pickup, if you did mail something to that address.)

I've encountered some on-line forms that reject "General Delivery" as a street address (such as when you need to construct a throwaway address for a needlessly nosy signup form), and in those cases I'll just use 101 Main Street instead. You'd be surprised how often that works.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎12-26-2019

@a_c_green wrote:
@seely7 wrote: ... What happens if I offer 1-day handling, sell an item on a Thursday night, and am leaving the area early Friday morning? In the past, I have just chosen a post office that I'll be going by during business hours the next morning ...
You just need to know the correct ZIP code for the post office or town that you've chosen to drop it from, ... . I assume you're not printing the label at home in advance, but are planning to wait until the payment arrives, despite not knowing exactly where you'll be at that time....

That secenario sounds to me like they ARE getting paid (perhaps IPR) and then printing the label at home early on Friday morning before they leave .

buyselljack2016 · ‎12-26-2019

@earlyant-77 wrote:
What's even worse is that now the return address is where you were when you sent the package, and would be returned to there if undeliverable, instead of where you want it to be returned to.

So with this change, you could conceivably lose your item and your money.

I have added 4-5 "ship from" Zip codes. That does not change my "return to" address.

Well, it did once, but that was my error for not putting a check mark in the box that says my "ship from" and "return to" are different. I corrected that info before paying for a shipping label.

Once loaded in I can select them before paying for the label based upon my direction of travel if not putting out for my carrier.

Same as it was in the "classic" label flow, just a bit harder to do.

walwalwill · ‎12-27-2019

@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
Thanks. Quite apart from the inconsistencies with official policy and with other sites, it just seems nonsensical to require that the sender must enter an address, but then they can provide literally any address in that ZIP Code, including the sending PO's street address.

Not to mention the cases where the sender doesn't have an address in that ZIP.

If I'm going to the city for the day (~45 min to an hour, depending on traffic) & opt to bring outgoing Priority to drop in the blue bin, rather than leave it on my porch for 6 hours with weather & everything else, I can look up the ZIP that the blue bin is in.

But there is no address in that ZIP whatsoever involved in my mailing those packages. There is no address in that ZIP whatsoever involved with me.

The only reason for an address requirement that I can even fathom making sense is that people have been fudging ZIPs, so they want to make it sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly harder (like those alcohol websites that make you select a birthday that was at least 21 years ago).

But even that doesn't make sense, because (like those alcohol websites) it's still easily fudged with about 15 seconds of effort (even less if there's address verification system), and, as pointed out, those people still get charged for the actual costs anyway.

USPS might be a bureaucracy, but it always struck me as a bureaucracy that understood the real-world implications of its policies (regardless of how one feels about said policies).

If this is actually coming from them, it's out-of-character, as it makes no sense. Those who are purposely short-changing it will get around it almost as easily as they got around it with just the ZIP, while those who try to provide accurate information for the blue bin they're using might just be more tempted to give up and use their inaccurate return address/ZIP for both fields.

--

This is my posting ID.

seely7 · ‎12-27-2019

"That secenario sounds to me like they ARE getting paid (perhaps IPR) and then printing the label at home early on Friday morning before they leave . "

Yes, exactly. I typically find a post office right on our route, preferably in a small town (never any lines -- I live in the sticks and am used to no PO lines), look up the zip code, and use it for the "Ship from" to make sure that the postage (most of my items are free shipping so it only affects me and not the buyer) is calculated correctly and there aren't any negative surprises when the buyer receives it. In the past, where "Ship from" required only a zip code, it was easy. If it requires a full address, I'd have to fudge something, I suppose?

nobody*s_perfect · ‎12-27-2019

@seely7 wrote: ... I typically find a post office right on our route, preferably in a small town (never any lines -- I live in the sticks and am used to no PO lines), look up the zip code, and use it for the "Ship from" .... If it requires a full address, I'd have to fudge something, I suppose?

You can enter ANY address in that ZIP Code. As noted above, you can apparently just enter "General Delivery" and a random number on "Main St" often works. Or while you're looking up the ZIP Code, look up the address of the PO itself; you might need that in order to find it and use it anyway.

Another option would be to print your postage through a provider who doesn't require a street address, such as PayPal:

www.PayPal.com/shipnow

labs118 · ‎12-27-2019

@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
@seely7 wrote: ... I typically find a post office right on our route, preferably in a small town (never any lines -- I live in the sticks and am used to no PO lines), look up the zip code, and use it for the "Ship from" .... If it requires a full address, I'd have to fudge something, I suppose?
You can enter ANY address in that ZIP Code. As noted above, you can apparently just enter "General Delivery" and a random number on "Main St" often works. Or while you're looking up the ZIP Code, look up the address of the PO itself; you might need that in order to find it and use it anyway.

Another option would be to print your postage through a provider who doesn't require a street address, such as PayPal:

www.PayPal.com/shipnow

@nobody*s_perfect

Can you tell me does shipnow still work for you?
I had to change to the below link to get it to work for me
https://www.paypal.com/shiplabel/create/