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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devon@ebay wrote:

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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).

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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."

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Thanks for the update devon@ebay . I have to ask - why restrict this to combined orders? Why not eliminate buyer-facing cubic rates for every order?

A lot of casual sellers use estimated box dimensions and may end up shipping with a larger box in the end.

Experienced sellers may put in dims for Priority packaging when shipping domestically but bump up the package size to slightly larger plain brown boxes for eIS shipping. This provides more protection when shipping internationally because the package goes through much more handling. So those sellers now have to update all their listings for the largest package size they might use if they want to switch to discounted rates. More work. Then they have to manually change to the smaller Priority box size when buying their domestic labels. Again, more work.

As you can tell, I'm sour on this change when eBay isn't providing the tools we need to make it work efficiently.

Eliminating buyer-facing cubic rates on multiple items is better than nothing and I do acknowledge it as a positive change, but it's not good enough. They are attempting to eliminate one pain point, but only doing half the job.

[fern*wood]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

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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.

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I'm one that got a call last December about changing my shipping preference.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Ebay-called-me-yesterday/td-p/34192728

I guess the phone calls didn't work, so they've moved on to this attempt.  I wonder what will be next?  I'm hoping nothing worse than opting out.

Cubic pricing would mess me up on most of my listings, since when I made them I didn't enter any dimensions if the item was under a cubic foot.  So all the calculations would charge my buyer the lowest option based on 1x1x1.  I do not wish to update all of them and do not have business policies to help me do so.  (ducking from sight from wastingtime101).  I'm only safe if I get to charge retail.

[kinzotucson]

I think I will opt out.  The little extra I get on ebay discounted labels usually will cover my cost for purchased boxes, bubblewrap, and extra padding for the ceramics I offer.  If there a big discrepancy due to overestimating weight, I'll refund the buyer a portion.

[wastingtime101]

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@fern*wood wrote:

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I do not have business policies to help me do so.  (ducking from site from wastingtime101). 

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😂

One of these days you'll be bored enough to let me help you with that transition.

FYI - biz policies is separate from weight/dimensions so that's not even a factor here @fern*wood .

[buyselljack2016]

Just answering your question😁

Did not say I was in any way in agreement.

[cdelight132013]

It has always been very clear which sellers offered eBay's discounted rates to their buyers via the calculated shipping label.  In my opinion, this gave sellers an edge when marketing a product.

eBays message implies, "We’re making this change to help your listings attract more buyers by offering a lower shipping cost.". This update appears to be micromanaging. Which may produce results in the short term. 

Search algorithm would attract more buyers. eBay's search is something to be desired.

Fair competition for ecommerce business. The USPS must not subsidize transshipments through or from other nations.

[thndur1]

 this what I get when I try to opt out

[toujoursladybug]

It's always something that makes it harder for the sellers, the people that are responsible for selling platforms making their money. The whole cubic debacle caused me a lot of stress the past couple of months since I have a lot of older listings from years ago where you did not have to list dimensions, that now are forced to. I never received anything regarding the change. The amount of times I had to contact customer service about a sale that had a label come out with Cubic: 10 on it, and couldn't have it explained to me properly was pretty sad. I needed a solution and to figure out what the issue was to prevent it from happening in the future but took too long to get both, which cost me since I had to cancel an order. I've since had to and still have to go through my listings to update every listing I have that's a pound or heavier. No new benefits or help for me, but made things a lot more difficult and time consuming.

Now they want to give my discounts I earn on shipping to encourage more buyers to spend money here? I'm opting out as soon as it's working and will hope that it actually works and will stay that way, but it'll probably cause more problems later rather than being a solution. I don't believe it's going to make that much of a difference to buyers overall, but will make a world of difference to sellers. I list my items amongst the lowest prices that that exact item goes for and usually will take a few dollars off of that with best offers to get stuff moving. From my experience, you either have people who will just buy an item outright no issues or will want a small discount off, or you'll have people expecting you to practically give the item to them by wanting 50%-75% off the item or they aren't interested. You are not going to please the latter group of people unless you give your stuff away to them. Giving them a shipping discount on top of taking best offers too? Does ebay want people to keep selling here or no? And let's not even get into how willing ebay is to let buyer scammers run rampant here by pulling the old switch-a-roo claiming your new/good condition items you sent them was their broken down, same exact item they want to try to get for free. You can give ebay all the proof and they'll still give these people their money back and let them keep the item. Pretty sure ebay would keep a lot of money and things would be a lot better on here for everyone if they didn't let such blatant scammers scam them everyday....

Update: You now cannot change the pricing or other info on your listings without dimensions being put down, even for the smallest and lightest of weight items. Considering sometimes I'm not sure if I'm going to use a polymailer/padded envelope or box for an item as it depends on what I have on hand at the time its purchased, this is becoming a pretty big issue. I'll now be spending my next day or two updating every single listing rather than putting up anything new.

[richard1rst]

@wastingtime101 

All of my domestic shipping is Free Shipping so I did not get the email as it obviously does not apply to me.

BUT I ship internationally using USPS calculated shipping (I don't use eBay's international service).  In all of the comments so far I have not seen any reference to that. Will that also be defaulted to the discounted rate?

[ltldpr]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

---

devon@ebay wrote:

---

@wastingtime101 wrote:

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).

---

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."

---

Thanks for the update devon@ebay . I have to ask - why restrict this to combined orders? Why not eliminate buyer-facing cubic rates for every order?

A lot of casual sellers use estimated box dimensions and may end up shipping with a larger box in the end.

Experienced sellers may put in dims for Priority packaging when shipping domestically but bump up the package size to slightly larger plain brown boxes for eIS shipping. This provides more protection when shipping internationally because the package goes through much more handling. So those sellers now have to update all their listings for the largest package size they might use if they want to switch to discounted rates. More work. Then they have to manually change to the smaller Priority box size when buying their domestic labels. Again, more work.

As you can tell, I'm sour on this change when eBay isn't providing the tools we need to make it work efficiently.

Eliminating buyer-facing cubic rates on multiple items is better than nothing and I do acknowledge it as a positive change, but it's not good enough. They are attempting to eliminate one pain point, but only doing half the job.

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It reinforces what I've thought for a very long time - the ones at the top, making the decisions & changes, have likely never sold a single item on the platform. Probably never shipped a package either. 

[kalyoth]

ebay stopping their corporate greed & not taxing sellers on shipping with their %'s would have been the easier solution... Most will try to opt out - no guarantee its an opt out as it was more like a survey & noting official has been received confirming the opt out. Other sellers will just add fees to puff it back up again, still leaving ebay with the same issue they tried to be creative in selling. The rest will stop selling cause no business will absorb or write off the shipping once it hits a certain point. ebay is just in a race to the lowest pricing.

[floyd13s0s6m]

I opted to show the non-discounted rate as many of the stuff I’m selling are statues and does cost a pretty penny to ship nowadays. Just sold one where the buyer paid $145 for shipping and it cost me $125 to ship. eBay’s 11% cut on that $145 is close to $16. After their cut, it would have been $129. Had they shown with the discount, I’ll be on the red by $14 on the shipping. The reason we get the “discount” is due to the fees they charge, though you pay the same amount with other shipping companies. So it’s not really a discount. 

[antflan77]

  I didn't see it mentioned, but already it was an occasional issue before. I never saw a discount on USPS Media Mail. The buyer was always charged the same amount I paid, so when that option was chosen at checkout, I always seemed to give up fifty cents or so each time. I already opted out and chose "Other" as the reason. So what's next, they start telling us what to charge for our stuff? 

    That cushion was always needed since many times I did not have a box to ship yet at the time of listing, but by the time my item sold, I would have found one. However when listing, I would have to guess at the size of the box, so I would just add maybe 2" to each dimension. Sometimes I had to use a box that exceeded those dimensions, but I would still be covered. I would love to see the "brainstorming" meetings that this crap comes out of, with nothing other than "How can we manufacture more money while making us look good at the same time?" Hysterical...sort of.

[mybigsale]

@iredder 

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?

I am sure with all the thought eBay put into this decision; eBay would never think of placing all the burden on sellers. eBay is most likely getting ready to announce dropping the fees on shipping, so they don't force sellers to ship everything at a loss. 🙄 Am I right? 😥

[hats913]

My question now is what company are they going to use for the ebay labels? If they use the same as they do for their ebay shipping out of the US it will be DHL, one of the worst shipping company's. In case you didnt know DHL is owned by the German Government. I already lost $550 on a package to Germany because they wouldnt let me file a claim till a scan showed it had arrived in country. By the time there was a scan 2  months later it was past the liability period DHL and Ebay gives you of  just 45 days. UPS gives you 9 months to file a claim. So what company is going to show on the label? I will opt out. They always seem to leave these little details out and then not have enough people on staff to answer questions. Makes sense how they work, after all they are based in California where people and company's are leaving.