eBay Standard Envelope Price Increase Taking Effect Early?

[valueaddedresource]

eBay announced on 8/26 they would be raising prices for Standard Envelope by $0.02.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/eBay-standard-envelope-price-update/ba-p/32215678

According to the announcement, it's supposed to be effective 8/29 but I'm seeing reports on social media that some sellers are already being charged the higher rates.

Anyone else experiencing this?

[beautifulbeauty2012]

What? USPS is raising prices again?? The more they charge, the worse job they do!

P.S. Just had another USPS issue - perfectly correct address was identified by USPS as insufficient.

[valueaddedresource]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I've been thinking about this for a little while and these are my issues with it:

I understand that ESD a different process than a typical package which, if shipped Monday when postage is paid at the Saturday rate, can be caught by the USPS APV system. I understand that because there's no method to charge sellers the difference for ESD envelopes like they can with packages that eBay may want to implement the increase a day early to avoid issues with envelopes shipped Monday. BUT ...

If eBay wants to do that then they need to announce that they're making the change starting Saturday. That should have been done from the get-go. They need to make sure the labels reflect the cost paid, not the old cost. The way this was handled is so sloppy and it erodes buyer trust in the marketplace. Big fail on eBay's part in multiple ways.

That doesn't even factor in the lack of trust and respect that sellers will know that when there's a price change they need to reflect an accurate ship date on the label. If that's the big concern, why not add a temporary pop-up on Friday and Saturday saying that the price change is happening so an accurate ship date is essential? If the bigger concern is that sellers know what they're doing and too many would have abused the system, then my above paragraph states my opinions on what eBay should have done.

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@wastingtime101  - I couldn't have said it any better. 👍

[valueaddedresource]

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@beautifulbeauty2012 wrote:

What? USPS is raising prices again?? The more they charge, the worse job they do!

P.S. Just had another USPS issue - perfectly correct address was identified by USPS as insufficient.

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@beautifulbeauty2012  there are many issues with USPS for sure but my issue with this situation in particular is with how eBay is handling the price increase, not the fact that there is an increase.

I get that eBay is reacting to postal rate increases with this change, which is certainly understandable.  But @wastingtime101 hit the nail on the head as far as eBay's handling of this change.

[wastingtime101]

It's not just the standard envelopes that are changing. Media Mail increases are also going into effect tomorrow. I wonder if the MM change is being handled as usual because those are packages so the APV system is supposed to catch and charge the difference on underpaid shipments. Is this blunder exclusive to standard envelopes because there's no APV process?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I've been thinking about this for a little while and these are my issues with it:

I understand that ESD a different process than a typical package which, if shipped Monday when postage is paid at the Saturday rate, can be caught by the USPS APV system. I understand that because there's no method to charge sellers the difference for ESD envelopes like they can with packages that eBay may want to implement the increase a day early to avoid issues with envelopes shipped Monday. BUT ...

If eBay wants to do that then they need to announce that they're making the change starting Saturday. That should have been done from the get-go. They need to make sure the labels reflect the cost paid, not the old cost. The way this was handled is so sloppy and it erodes buyer trust in the marketplace. Big fail on eBay's part in multiple ways.

That doesn't even factor in the lack of trust and respect that sellers will know that when there's a price change they need to reflect an accurate ship date on the label. If that's the big concern, why not add a temporary pop-up on Friday and Saturday saying that the price change is happening so an accurate ship date is essential? If the bigger concern is that sellers know what they're doing and too many would have abused the system, then my above paragraph states my opinions on what eBay should have done.

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@wastingtime101  - I couldn't have said it any better. 👍

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As a Canadian seller I would be thrilled to have access to 53 cent mail for a tracked letter service. Is there tax on that??

-Lotz

[valueaddedresource]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

It's not just the standard envelopes that are changing. Media Mail increases are also going into effect tomorrow. I wonder if the MM change is being handled as usual because those are packages so the APV system is supposed to catch and charge the difference on underpaid shipments. Is this blunder exclusive to standard envelopes because there's no APV process?

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@wastingtime101  that's a great question! Hopefully sellers who use MM will chime in here too.

[wastingtime101]

US postage isn't taxed @lotzofuniquegoodies. That 53 cent service has a lot of restrictions and it's currently only available to certain categories: sports trading cards, stamps, and post cards. Maybe one other I'm forgetting.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

US postage isn't taxed @lotzofuniquegoodies. That 53 cent service has a lot of restrictions and it's currently only available to certain categories: sports trading cards, stamps, and post cards. Maybe one other I'm forgetting.

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As Canadian sellers we were never offered a similar service for those certain categories. Not likely we ever will be. Can you say "Between a rock and a hard place?"

In Canada we pay tax on most postage products. (Stamps at the counter, Domestic Shipments, Flat Rate Shipping Boxes, supplies). Then as a Canadian seller we get those same joys again when eBay applies tax on a sellers sales. Sale + Shipping + US State Tax/VAT tax, store fees, promoted fees, listing upgrades. The fun never ends. Our lowest priced tracked envelop is approx 9.00 CAD for something regional. Registered letter is 10 plus applicable letter rates which are much more than yours.

Find out the price of stamps | Personal | Canada Post (canadapost-postescanada.ca)

-Lotz

[jayjaspersgarage]

Let me throw my 2¢ in on this one.  It's only TWO CENTS!  

[lja440]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

Forever stamps are going up from 55 to 58 I think. I ordered a bunch online and paid the $1.85 shipping. Seven fam members and the GF all had me tack on to my order, so split we paid 23 cents each shipping. Well worth it. Plus, online you get more design choices than in the post office. I have 3 cousins getting married this Fall and they all had me order stamps for their thank yous. Some other fam had me order stamps for their Christmas cards. It was a hefty order. Nice cash back on my CC. 😁

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Yup, I'm a mail carrier and I bought 15 books yesterday with 2% cashback on my card. This morning I paid my card as I do every other week to keep the interest off the card. Cashback is worthless if you don't keep the card paid off. I alternate paying my cards off each payday and unless it is a big purchase like a major appliance I keep zero balancing within 30 days  if at all possible.

[valueaddedresource]

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@jayjaspersgarage wrote:

Let me throw my 2¢ in on this one.  It's only TWO CENTS!  

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@jayjaspersgarage  I know we're not talking about a huge amount of money here.  It's probably a drop in the bucket to most sellers and certainly an even smaller (relatively speaking) drop in the bucket to eBay.

Personally, I think there are things in play here that are more important than the money. eBay has been making a lot of overtures about gaining seller trust - in fact most of Jordan Sweetnam's 20 minute closing speech for eBay Open Online was devoted to that topic.

A huge part of trust in any relationship, business or personal, is whether or not you can take someone at their word.  Communication is another big part of building trust, which eBay failed to do here.

If eBay says "such and such update or price increase is going to be effective on x date" and then just arbitrarily decides to "push it forward" without the courtesy of a notice or announcement, that shows a lack of respect for their "partners" and damages trust.

Trust is also a two way street - as @wastingtime101 pointed out, either eBay should have trusted sellers to know how important it is to use accurate ship dates and trusted them to do so, or if they were concerned that some sellers would either be unaware or would knowingly abuse the system, they should have simply stated the higher rates would be effective for anything shipped Saturday from the get go and stuck with that.

As it is now - sellers who did do things right by choosing an accurate ship date and actually shipping yesterday ended up penalized and paying the price.  It may only be a very small price and a small amount of sellers potentially affected, but it's still not right.

[wastingtime101]

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@jayjaspersgarage wrote:

Let me throw my 2¢ in on this one.  It's only TWO CENTS!  

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It's not about the 2 cents. I think everybody here knows that 53 cents to ship one of these envelopes even with its seriously spotty tracking is a screaming deal. Even a postage stamp costs 58 cents.

This is about eBay and their poor execution, lack of communication, and always giving sellers the short end of the stick.

Why is it that eBay's shipping calculator can handle USPS dimensional weight, but totally disregards FedEx and UPS dimensional weight, so sellers new to those services are caught completely off guard with hefty charges on their monthly bills?

I have a message in my box right now where someone is telling me how eBay neglected to factor in a Canada Post shipping increase (fuel surcharge) earlier this year, so unless those .ca sellers tacked on a handling fee, they were shorted on postage costs for 2 full months before eBay fixed it.

These issues are constant. It's not about 2 pennies.

[carolinabluelady]

I, too shipped out a trading card on Friday, Aug 27th.  (My envelopes weighs 2 oz), so instead of being charged the $0.71, I was charged by eBay for $0.73.   However the shipping label shows $0.71 with the Aug 27th date.  I did mail it out on the 27th and my mail carrier did pick it up on the 27th.

If eBay does the change because they are worried about the USPS charging the $.073 instead of the $0.71, how would the USPS know that $0.73 was paid?     

[valueaddedresource]

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@carolinabluelady wrote:

I, too shipped out a trading card on Friday, Aug 27th.  (My envelopes weighs 2 oz), so instead of being charged the $0.71, I was charged by eBay for $0.73.   However the shipping label shows $0.71 with the Aug 27th date.  I did mail it out on the 27th and my mail carrier did pick it up on the 27th.

If eBay does the change because they are worried about the USPS charging the $.073 instead of the $0.71, how would the USPS know that $0.73 was paid?     

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@carolinabluelady  thanks for confirming this was happening for items shipped on Friday as well.  That's disappointing, but not surprising. ☹️

tyler@ebay  velvet@ebay  jasmen@ebay  - anything to add here?

[velvet@ebay]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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@carolinabluelady wrote:

I, too shipped out a trading card on Friday, Aug 27th.  (My envelopes weighs 2 oz), so instead of being charged the $0.71, I was charged by eBay for $0.73.   However the shipping label shows $0.71 with the Aug 27th date.  I did mail it out on the 27th and my mail carrier did pick it up on the 27th.

If eBay does the change because they are worried about the USPS charging the $.073 instead of the $0.71, how would the USPS know that $0.73 was paid?     

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@carolinabluelady  thanks for confirming this was happening for items shipped on Friday as well.  That's disappointing, but not surprising. ☹️

tyler@ebay  velvet@ebay  jasmen@ebay  - anything to add here?

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Hey @valueaddedresource! We got some clarification on this and it sounds like the display updated early which is why you saw $0.73 but the label still printed at $0.71. You were charged the old amount ($0.71) until 00:01 Eastern Standard time on August 29th at which point the increased price went into effect. Apologies for any confusion that caused!