Is Ebay trying to get Rid of items under $20

[Anonymous]

With the newly implemented rules in regards to tracking on all items or EBAY will after 3 days of an item not supposedly being received  case opened by a buyer they will automatically refund the buyer. Curious to know what other sellers think of this policy. To me it seems Ebay is trying to get rid of sellers selling lower value items and they have opened up the door for buyers to claim free items. I believe until Ebay makes it compulsory for all sellers to have tracking on their items it is not going to be a level playing field. If we do as they wish we will be $4 to $7 dollars dearer than any of our competition on every item. I have no problem sending everything with tracking but until Ebay wakes up and realises this is not going to happen unless they force it on everyone to make it equal. I know a lot of buyers are looking for cheap items so this could back fire on Ebay in a huge way and with only accepting pay straight away option so your not chasing buyers to pay all week they should be looking at a new and much easier way to combine postage charges when the item is paid before asking for an invoice because lets be honest most buyers won't read anything you put down about combining postage.

[twyngwyn]

The story of my life......

also the site is full of glitches atm.....and on top of that 1) postage hike from today 2) Managed Payments rolling out 3) Autumn Seller Update due any day

We're all going to be pulling our hair out

[south.coffee]

From eBay's perspective which is about making money for shareholders, the cost of bothering with small value items is simply not worth it, so I tend to agree with that decision.

Rather than stuff around with human intervention with INR cases, eBay is simply applying automation to solve the time consuming problem.

With a tracked item the number of INR cases diminish and that keeps buyers honest and less wasted time for CS staff and less cost.

[gumleaf_goodies]

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@south.coffee wrote:
From eBay's perspective which is about making money for shareholders, the cost of bothering with small value items is simply not worth it, so I tend to agree with that decision.

Rather than stuff around with human intervention with INR cases, eBay is simply applying automation to solve the time consuming problem.

With a tracked item the number of INR cases diminish and that keeps buyers honest and less wasted time for CS staff and less cost.

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Easy for you to say when the majority of your items are well over the $20 mark. Those of us who sell lower priced items e.g. small books, costume jewellery, are not going to be adding tracking to the cost of the item as we wouldn't sell anything if that were the case. 

I guess I have been luckuy in that I can't even recall the last INR case I've had.

[gec2002]

I put this reply on another topic "What am I missing" just a short while ago.  Same subject so will repeat here, and hope no one objects too much!!

"The saga continues with added new twists.

My "eBay for Business - A Change to your listings" email I received today 1/3 states

"Our objective is to ensure that buyer expectations are met about the type of postage service that is being provided. For any items that are priced below $20 and have had less than 20% tracking applied between July and December of 2020, we will assume these items are being sent by an untracked letter service. On the week commencing 29th March, these items will be automatically moved to the Australia Post Domestic Regular Letter Untracked in the item’s listing. "

So does that mean even if its listed as a "Tracked Letter" eBay will assume its untracked and not accept that it was tracked in a INR case? Surely not.

It also states "Your listings may show longer Estimated Delivery Dates" How much longer a day, a week, a month or a year.

Also "Your listings may be placed lower in search results" What if they are promoted listings, will being untracked override this (which you pay extra for) and put them lower than Tracked and unpromoted??

What is the most annoying is that there is no possible way to get an accurate answer to these types of questions, which are critical to how you run your business. Even if we could I guess it would be the usual "We can't provide that type of information as it would allow sellers to game the system" because only eBay is allowed to game the system."

[gec2002]

I don't completely agree with the idea they want to get rid of under $20 items.  When you look at the numbers of DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Books and cheap Chinese junk.  Movies alone in Australia is approx 850,000 items.

I think its more being a mini me Amazon.  They have Prime, so eBay tries (and is failing) Plus, they have Tracking we must have the same.

[digital*ghost]

It's not all that new, it's been in place for several months now, they just decided to extend it past it's original slated end time (January). It may well become permanent, though.

I sell items predominantly in the $4-$6 range, usually sending at letter rate - I've had no noticeable increase in the rate of INRs (in fact my problems are more with tracked parcels, the rate of misdelivery on those at the moment is too darn high). eBay forcing a refund after 3 days is stupid - not least of all because when a buyer sends an inquiry about non-delivery (thus automatically opening a case) they have to choose whether they want to receive the item or get a refund as their ideal resolution. Why bother setting the buyer up for disappointment when they make that option impossible to provide? But I digress, it's just a bug-bear. 

Packages having tracking is ideal, so they will always incentivise it, but it's not always practical so I would be a little surprised if they made it mandatory. 

I do think eBay are trying to shift sellers away from the "buy > request / provide invoice > pay" routine and instead have as many sellers as possible with postage options set up to calculate rates in the cart. 

[zanadoo_56]

I have bought items under $20 from Oz sellers and because they are only small and sometimes flat they have been sent untracked as ordinary mail.  In my experience these items often arrive faster than tracked mail. 

I'm OK with paying for tracked mail for items under $20 if eBay insists but I'm not convinced it is necessary for inexpensive flat packets.  Frankly some of my purchases look like they might be bills.....so not something that attracts the attention of letterbox thieves. LOL

Though it hasn't happened to me (touch wood!) AP's tracked deliveries in my suburb in the last 6 months has been a litany of 'delivered to the wrong address' incidents to judge by urgent posts on social media about missing parcels and 'photographic evidence of delivery' that aren't the correct houses.

Scammers will always find new ways to try and get something for nothing, drat it, and AP will still employ some drivers that it's a wonder they can find their own homes.  Tracking and Registered Mail etc aren't foolproof when combating scammers - or AP's or couriers' (don't get me started on them!) inefficiencies.   Bad stuff can happen no matter what procedure eBay implements.  Frankly keeping under $20 or other small items looking like unobtrusive ordinary mail probably doesn't attract unwanted attention.  They also get delivered by the regular postie and as less likely to go missing ie put in the wrong letterbox.

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

The odd part is that on one hand eBay try to encourage sellers to offer prompt processing, such and 1 or 2 day processing, yet on the other hand they impose heavy-handed penaltieson sellers  if buyers do not receive their goods within the delivery dates calucated in such processing times.

Given eBay's current buyer refund policy it is far safer (financially) for sellers to place (say) 7 day processing time for the sales?

[everard6920]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

I do think eBay are trying to shift sellers away from the "buy > request / provide invoice > pay" routine and instead have as many sellers as possible with postage options set up to calculate rates in the cart. 

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IMO if they're going to do this, then they need to make shipping options more flexible.

I sell some low value items also and as far as I can tell (please, someone correct me if I'm wrong) there's no way to specify that 4 of one type of item costs $X to post, 5 - 10 costs $Y to post - you can only set up a postage rule and say that each additional will cost $Z or 0. Volume pricing doesn't work because I need to apply it to a number of listings (for example, 4 of the same type of product, but they're 4 different listings because there is no multi option in my category).

Setting a minimum order rate would also be helpful, imo, but I'm absolutely sure they will never go down that path, despite the fact that "store" functionality on almost every other site has this.