On August 6th, eBay UK will make Simple Delivery the mandatory shipping option for private sellers. This means that if you are a private seller on eBay UK, you will no longer be able to choose your own delivery options, and will need to use Simple Delivery. Existing listings will be converted to Simple Delivery.
Although it was supposed to be mandatory from April 15th, what actually transpired was a form of soft roll out, whereby some sellers were moved over to Simple Delivery, and some listings were converted, whilst others have been able to list without invoking Simple Delivery. The usual chaos from eBay. Iāve been lucky enough to be in the latter camp, and I wonder if that has been due to my listing with GS.
There are still outstanding issues - such as parcels over 20Kg, and / or over 61cm x 46cm x 46cm not being able to be listed without a messy workaround, with no resolution in sight. Just one amongst a plethora of ongoing issues.
So I wonder how GS listings will be greeted by eBay UK on August 6th? I will attempt a listing and report back.
Another spectacular mess by eBay UK. Whilst many sellers have had their existing listings moved over to Simple Delivery - mine have been spared thus far. I suspect it may be due to them having been listed with GS? I tried a test listing a couple of days ago, and again itās been spared. Yet many sellers are reporting all new listings are now SD with no opt out, and all existing listings being moved over to SD. A taste of the chaos - like car bonnets being listed as collect only being moved over to SD with a postage charge of Ā£4.90 (?!?!), can be found on the āmega threadā here: NO-LONGER-SELLING-DUE-TO-SIMPLE-DELIVERY
If you canāt bear to read some 8,400 messages - navigate to the last 50 or so pages to get a flavour of the idiocy of Simple Delivery.
Someone here didnāt mention a LITTLE particular of simple delivery which I just discovered by chance from a UK customer. Selling on ebay.uk seems to be FREE OF CHARGES for private sellers while it seems they introduced a "buyer protection fee " for buyers
@fedege96 eBay UKs ābuyer protection feeā for private sellers was introduced separately to SD. It is not a āparticularā of SD. BPF was phased in, and again its implementation was an absolute farce, with changes along the way. It has been fully implemented across private seller listings now. Itās effectively a sellerās fee in all but name, with many sellers adjusting their asking price to compensate. Buyers already had (still have) comprehensive protection in place.
Another change introduced has affected payment. Private sellers couldnāt access their funds from sales until two days after an item was tracked as being delivered. Thatās extended to 14 days after shipping if an item was sent with no tracking. Again they tweaked this due to significant pushback (and sellers deserting the platform). Check here for the latest on payments - which will likely change again in time: Getting paid for items youāve sold
It appears eBay UK customers are being used as guinea pigs.
I had a UK customer make an offer. I set the price to $30 and in the UK it showed that it was $36. They thought it was me so I sent a screen shot. Ebay is adding costs of a ābuyer protection feeā to our US listings and showing UK customer inflated posting prices and making it look like the seller in the US is doing it. UK money is higher than US dollar so that wouldnāt account for the discrepancy. We figured out that it likely is the ābuyer protection feeā being charged to every sale.
This simple delivery seems to be a total disaster, especially for the way they managed it, no doubt about it. I only donāt understand this point. Why is it a sellerās fee? The pre-paid shipping is not enough and the seller has to compensate a difference from what ebay paid and the real cost of the shipping? But if ebay provides a shipping label, how could you pay something more? I thought it was something similar to vinted where sellers receive a shipping label paid by the customer (here by ebay which uses fees from buyers).
My customer told me that in England since around November 2024 it has been free to sell on ebay but ebay charges the buyer what they call a " buyer protection fee " which is quite high, but he also said that it appears to not be added on purchases from the EU and USAā¦
Canāt you use a third party shipper, away from eBay? I use Endicia (endicia.com) for about 15 years or so and there is no forcing of a particular shipping method. eBay can force you but third parties cannot.
Yes, but ebay is not an auction house (and it will never even remotely be able to be, as for example Catawiki is. which is not even an auction house, but aim for)
Nice to āmeetā another Endicia Mac user! Iāve been using it since 2008 and hope to continue to do so as the discounts and feature sets are better than what eBay offers.
No - eBayās AI guesses the size / weight of the parcel and issues the label direct. There are some niche opt-outs, but the majority of items now fall under Simple Delivery. The only choice you have being choosing between the carriers from the ones eBay have struck a (money making) deal with, and whether the buyer or seller pays for delivery. Presently the choice is between either Royal Mail or EVRi. You can imagine the chaos all of this has caused, and this isnāt the half of it. If ever there was a misnomer for a service - āSimple Deliveryā takes top spot.
This sounds like a complete disaster on so many levels. Ugh. I am so sorry yāall are having to through this! Does GS play nicely with the āsimpleā delivery setup eBay now has for you?
Ebay stated Simple Delivery would be rolled out to all private sellers on 6th August. Currently, when I list using GS, Simple Delivery isnāt evoked. However if I try to list directly via eBayās site, thereās no escaping it. So for whatever reason, listing with GS is a way around, but for how longā¦
It seems that the term is probably just one of those ālineā vs. āqueueā things - regional differences. But when you say āprivate sellerā - do you mean an eBay personal account vs. an eBay business account? Here in the US, we have personal and business accounts. I have a biz [business] account, so maybe that is the way to go for you, if/when GS stops working with the normal shipping methods. For me, in the US, a business account is less expensive, but that is due to the amount of listings I have [the fees for selling them are less I believe - Iāve had a biz account for so long that I had to check this website to learn what the differences are! eBay Business Account vs Personal: Things Can't Miss in 2025
The issue of business vs. private accounts is not straightforward, and one must start from the assumption that eBay is not a single site, but rather many sites, each operating in its own way. Proof of this is the fact that this āsimple deliveryā option exists only on eBay UK. So it is not necessarily true that a business account is more advantageous. On eBay Italy, for instance, a business account pays full fees (starting at 11%), whereas a private account pays about half. I also remain convinced that a business account should be reserved for activities with a VAT number, which therefore pay taxes and contributions (whereas, in reality, private sellers who donāt pay a cent in taxes end up engaging in unfair competition against those who actually work). But thatās another matter.
The only certainty here is that if, in the UK, private individuals can no longer handle their own shipping, they will be almost forced to switch account type. Consequently, sooner or later, even business accounts will likely be included in this reckless shipping policy of simple delivery. The more time goes by, the more I wonder why I keep insisting on using eBayā¦
Youāre conflating Simple Delivery with the Buyer Protection Fee. They are two separate things. The Buyer protection Fee was introduced separately from Simple Delivery, and it is a sellerās fee in all but name. Oh, and donāt even get me started on when sending / receiving offers - one way includes the BPF - the other doesnāt. Again, confusing, messy, and has made for a bitter experience for sellers & buyers alike.
Update: presently - I can still upload listings using GS without invoking Simple Delivery. I just tried to edit a couple of live listings directly via eBayās site, and a banner immediately appears at the top of the page stating the listing has now been converted to Simple Delivery. I ended both listings. So for whatever reason, listing via GS is currently a viable workaround / loophole. But for how long?
There is currently no solution for postage when listing an item, where the parcel dimension in one plane is over 61cm. This has been highlighted innumerous times to eBay, but there is still no official option as of today. Absolutely crazy that eBay UK has no option to list an item for posting which is over 61cm!
However, another workaround / loophole has been discovered: Parcels Over 61cm Workaround. Some have had success using this workaround, others have not. There is also talk if this workaround is used, it may well void compensation from eBay should the parcel go missing, or the item is damaged in transit etc.
I raised this topic a few months ago but it was like shouting into a duffle bag - I thought I must be the only GarageSale private seller on eBay UK and it just seems to have been launched as I was about to start a periodic clear out. I have a load of stuff that I want to sell but I find Simple Delivery so confusing that my brain rejects it.
Apart from occasional auctions, I always list items as Buy it Now and offer free shipping and in doing so, take full responsibility for delivering the item at my expense within 48 hours. According to what I have found amongst the chaotic information provided by eBay UK, if one offers free shipping, one must specify whether free shipping is paid for by the buyer or the seller - what does that even mean?
I did post a test listing to see what happened and the GarageSale process involved my defined shipping policies and the listing included them - I never encountered any mention of Simple Delivery. However, I read somewhere that non-Simple Delivery listings will have Simple Delivery implemented at checkout and my abject phobia of having to confront the Simple Delivery monster caused me to pull the listing and has averted any idea of listing any other items.
I might be persuaded to resume selling either if using GarageSale definitively circumvented Simple Delivery or free shipping was comprehensively implemented but that would essentially mean that free shipping was outside of Simple Delivery, so Iām guessing that it will never happen.
I check the eBay Sellers Community a couple of times every day hoping for some good news but almost without fail, at least half of the topics on the first page are complaints about one aspect of Simple Delivery or another - once it was every topic. I think that the biggest frustration is how eBay does not listen.
Personally, I wouldnāt mind if Simple Delivery was an option for people who couldnāt be bothered to deal with handling postage themselves but allowed people to opt out if they are happy with the way things were.
@okulo itās quite frankly appalling, and incompetence of the highest order that a company the size of eBay UK has got this so wrong in so many ways. There are still multiple unresolved issues with Simple Delivery, and it seems every time they try to tweak or change something to alleviate one problem, it only serves to raise another issue which in turn goes unanswered / unresolved. No wonder sellers are leaving the platform. Itās gotten too complicated, too authoritarian, and eBay seemingly care little about the absolute mess they have created.
In answer to your question regards listing with free shipping, but then who pays for it with SD - I have no answer.
Regards listings being converted to SD when an item sells, even though it was showing with pre-SD postage, there has been a plethora of evidence that this does indeed happen. This has led to sales being cancelled.
What I can confirm - of all my recently sold items listed with GS with my postage choices, none have been converted to SD at the time of sale or through checkout. So for now at least, listing with GS is one way to evade SD.
I mentioned GarageSale on the eBay Community but it seemed like I was the only one using it as it was assumed that it was an app only for business sellers. One person did show interest in it when I mentioned that it might be a Simple Delivery workaround, albeit maybe temporary and even suggested that they might buy a Mac just for the purpose.
I might try listing a couple of quick sale items just to see what happens but with the anticipation of a possible catastrophe and grovelling messages to buyers.
Iāve been on eBay since 2001 and though there have been annoying changes, there has been nothing on this scale and I have never reached the point of total exasperation to the point of effectively boycotting eBay.
while it seems they introduced a "buyer protection fee " for buyers 