Shipping platform feedback

[PayPal_Olivia]

Hello everyone!

There has been a great deal of discussion about recent changes to the shipping platform. I want you to know that your feedback is very important to us! 

We'll be consolidating all of the feedback into this thread so it can be reviewed more easily. On-topic and productive feedback is always helpful, and I look forward to seeing further discussion in this thread.

Thank you for your participation!

Olivia

[Judy_S]

Most of my business is from my personal website sales.  I use paypal checkout for my shopping cart.  Over the last 5 years, I've had a wonderful relationship with paypal as a part of my business.  However, the other day I went to print my shipping labels and was horrified that the shipping had to go through eBay. 

I don't want eBay in any part of my personal business.  They have no right to any information regarding the number of items I ship.  By being the shipping provider, they can collect information on my sales.   This is not right and I would never knowingly allow eBay any information regarding my website sales/shipping. 

I realize that paypal was bought out by eBay several years ago, but the only redeeming value was paypal still remained a separate shopping cart provider and shipping option for those of us who do not approve of the eBay tactics and do not want to have eBay as a business partner. 

This new switch to eBay shipping has given me a new perspective on paypal as my website cart payment source.  As loyal as I am, I feel betrayed by paypal and at the mercy of eBay.   I've ended my eBay listings as this recent forced shipping experience has been the last straw.  eBay cares nothing for any of it's smaller, unique sellers.  I'm beginning to think Paypal may be feeling the same way.  You were once a fabulous source of payment for many small sellers such as myself.  You helped build my business.   Get eBay out of the paypal shipping, please.

[brewhardware]

Judy, I'm in a similar position as you are but I think your position is misguided. Whether the transaction says "eBay shipping" or not, the company structure mandates that you are already doing business with eBay by using Paypal at all. You can't rationalize this away just because the paypal logo is more prominent. Ebay already has access to your paypal account and all the information associated. This change in shipping platform has no impact on that fact.

Paypal and Ebay are the same company.

[Judy_S]

I do know that, but in the back of my head, I still felt as if I didn't have to deal with eBay directly.  I know that eBay dictates the policy to paypal, but up until know, I thought they could only do that for eBay sales.    Take the eBay/paypal hold on funds for all new sellers or established sellers who drop in standards based on DSR ratings.  This is an eBay policy backed up by paypal, but it has no bearing on my website sales.  If that happened to sales from my private website, I'd seek legal action in a heartbeat.

That's why I have felt that paypal operated differently for non ebay websites.

I need to start looking for a new, reasonable shopping cart and of course a new payment plan.  As long as eBay's reach gets into the shipping, I can't use the paypal site and still feel somewhat comfortable or dilusional.

[Ricnok]

One thing that never cesases to amaze me is the heavy handed tactics eBay Corp employs to impose their will. There motto seems to be never use a tack hammer when making a change, when a sledge hammer for a more dramatic effect.

Instead of simply applying common sense and polling users about their preferences before implementing this ill conceived change, eBay Corp. simply imposed their will and made the change without regard for how their users feel about it.

Apparently, improving eBay's weak balance sheet by transferring the revenue from shipping entirely into eBay was a higher priotity than customer satisfaction with the PayPal brand.

As a result of their heavy handed tactics and the cofusion generated by the unannounced move to eliminate PayPal shipping, eBay Corp. has managed to infect many users with the anti eBay, anti PayPal vaccine.

Because of eBay's ill conceived tactics, non eBay sellers that were once happy to accept PayPal for their non eBay transactions are now having second thoughts.

eBay sellers who do not like the unannounced change imposed without notice less than 6 full weeks before Christmas and now looking to take their shipping business to a third party processor to avoid future complications and confusion.

All this because eBay Corp arrogantly believes they know what people want and choose to impose their will at the drop of a hat. Will they ever wake up and face the fact that if they truly knew what people wanted, they would not be finding it so hard to to grow their marketplace business?

eBay Corp  needs to wake up and realize that heavy handed shock tatics such as these alienate and antagonize their customers, and drives more ill will than necessary.  The leadership at eBay Corp needs to go back to school and review People Skills 101.

[Judy_S]

Personally, I think this is a way of tracking shipping for the new final value fees which include the cost of shipping.  eBay might want to get a cut of all shipping to make up for the "free shipping".

I just signed up with stamps.com and will be using that as my shipping provider.  As soon as I find a good, easy to use, reliable shopping cart, I will stop using paypal for my cart.  If it ain't broke...don't fix it!  Paypal is broken!

eBay is compelled to have their hand directly in everyone's pants and not in a good way.

[brewhardware]

I fully agree with the criticisms of the sudden cutover without warning, but that's about it. I'd like to be able to preview and learn a new interface before it goes live in my revenue producing processes. That was total bull, no question about it.

However, I've read just about everyone's complaints about the eBay platform and I'm yet to understand what the problem is. Can you still click "ship" and have the label printed in a rather seemless fashion while using your paypal funds to cover the shipping cost? Of course you can.

I don't understand the complaints about eBay being greedy and pulling in shipping revenues. Everyone understands that the courier is getting the money you pay for shipping right? USPS, UPS, etc. Why do you care who the payee shows up as on your account? You're not paying more or less. Explain it to me so that I might be able to get behind the revolution.

Paypal shipping wasn't broke? I beg to differ.

One thing was for sure, it was awesome not having to enter package dimensions by default for USPS priority. The older interface SUCKED at that. Also, the new interface would quickly pull in the shipping cost once a weight was entered. On the old interface you'd have to click another button and wait for an entire SLOW page load.

For those folks who think that an alternative shopping cart suite, plus merchant account, plus label producing site (Stamps.com) could even possibly compete with the rather convenient paypal process, you must only ship 2 items a day. Describe your workflow with paypal now and describe the new one that you envision using alternative services. I'd love to jump ship too, but there is nothing that competes right now.

[Judy_S]

If you enjoy using eBay shipping and it sounds like you do, then you can do it directly from the eBay website.  For those of us who have personal websites, we should be able to print postage without using eBay.

First, in order to ship using the eBay shipping, one must agree to their terms.  This requires authorization to withdraw funds from your paypal account.  eBay already has authorization to withdraw from my eBay account. 

Second. The email notification you get no longer has the name and address or type of postage you purchased.  It only has the dollar amount and an eBay transaction number.  This is ok if you have one package and you who it goes to, but for many packages, it will be confusing. 

Third.   Who generates the notification which the customer receives?  eBay?  My sale didn't begin with eBay, it should not end up with it.

Another thing just popped in to my head.  I've experienced the eBay shipping to not be able to actually track the delivery and update the status.  I had a package delivered to a customer last week Friday and according to the information on the eBay tracking tab, it still shows as being accepted at my post office and nothing more. 

I just did my labels with stamps.com this morning and it was easy and did all the things you claim are what's great about eBay shipping...but the best part is, I know eBay had nothing to do with my off site transaction.

If you love eBay, you should use it.  If you are unaware of the treatment of the sellers by eBay, perhaps you should head over to eBay discussion boards (Seller's Central) and get familiar with the relationship between eBay and small sellers.

[brewhardware]

Judy, I want to be very clear that I'm exactly the same type of user you are. Go ahead and look at my website... brewhardware.com

I'm not an ebay seller.

I just don't understand how processing the label shipping transaction on eBay's platform is any differnet than before. They are the same company regardless of whether you think you're being sheltered by seeing the paypal logo. Totally illogical.

You actually use email notifications? For what. Don't you get all your packing info and tracking info directly off the paypal website? You know, when you create the shipping label? I process 15-20 orders a day and have never once used the email as my trigger. In fact, I turned off the email notification. I just go to paypal when I'm ready to work and see what orders are waiting for me. They're always there.

Your third point is a good question. I don't know what the customer's email notification looks like with the new platform. I only had access to it for a single day, printed 10 labels and now it's back. I didn't ask any of those customers to forward me the email they received. Do you know for sure what it looked like?

On the tracking issue, it's completely unrelated. You know what affects it? Whether the USPS office does an acceptance scan or not. I've been able to reproduce this 100% of the time becuase USPS customer service had no idea what I was talking about. If you bring a prepaid box to the desk and hand it to them, they scan it and every hop from then on was noted on the track and confirm website. If you just drop it off or have them pick up, they never do an acceptance scan (or it varies by staff) and it goes from "electronic info received" to "delivered" with no updates in between. Why would you think this is related to paypal or Ebay? The tracking number is produced by the USPS system and simply forwarded to whomever you processed it through. I HATE this anomoly and causes so many customer emails, but again, not paypal's problem.

How did you get the customer's info into stamps.com? Copy paste everything? How did you get the tracking numbers into the paypal transaction record? Copy paste? Help me understand why it's easy and I'll join you.

If eBay is evil, no doubt give up paypal too.

[Judy_S]

I admit I've been living in a cave regarding eBay/paypal and my business.  Until now, eBay didn't impact my business.  I know I need to find another alternative to paypal as my shopping cart provider.  I always thought that even though they were owned by eBay, they were still operating as relatively independant company where non eBay transactions were concerned. 

The shipping just brought it to the surface.

As for the shipping notifications, I always printed my shipping directly from the paypal site.  They (paypal) generated a shipping notification to the buyer and I also got a copy, so I do know what they look like.  Also being a buyer, I've received shipping notices from paypal, so I know what they look like from both ends.  The new eBay shipping notice to the seller (that would be me) is nothing more than a receipt for the money charged.  No more addressee information and delivery confirmation number.  I really don't know what the buyer gets, but a few months ago several packages went missing and I was able to use those shipping notifications to start claims with the USPS.  Can't easily do that with the new notifications.

The tracking information on my packages are scanned at the post office every day  My post office is really good about doing that for me.  I can look up a DC number and follow it to delivery.  I just checked several packages shipped last week and they were all delivered in 2-3 days, however, today when I check the same DC numbers on eBay they only show the initial scan from my post office.  It is not the P.O. problem or paypal's issue, it's the eBay software issue. 

Most of my sales come from my website.  I do have an eBay store, but have let my listings dwindle and yesterday, I ended all the remaining listings I had on there.

Stamps.com can import all the paypal transactions and it wasn't that difficult to set that up.  It also has the ability to print the label and a packing slip in one action or the label and a receipt like the regular click and ship labels. When you print your label the delivery confirmation is automatically put to that transaction.  Same thing with the old paypal shipping.  As soon as I pay the postage, that delivery confirmation is attached to the transaction details and in the event is was an eBay sale, eBay would receive the DC number and update that transaction.  I didn't have to copy and paste anything.

Below is what I can see when I click on the DC number in my shipping history on stamps.com.  I can email this or print it.

Below that is the notice I receive from paypal.  My customers would get a similar one without the shipping prices showing.

I blocked out names and addresses for obvious reasons.

[Judy_S]

I found the two eBay shipping receipts and have them below.  I printed the first day of the change.  As you can see, both are first class.  One is for an eBay purchase, the other is from my website.  Had I decided to continue with the new shipping, I would have a hard time figuring out who got what.  When I print labels on the old shipping, I get a receipt with the addressee as well.  The buyer also gets the paypal notification from paypal showing their delivery confirmation number and a link to track their package if they wish.   For a seller, the eBay shipping notification is a nightmare. 

I realize that many businesses could care less about how they communicate the shipping to their buyers, but I really do take a personal hand in letting them know when their package goes out.  Sometimes paypal has glitches and the notices are delayed or don't go out at all.  That happened a few months ago.

As soon as I saw the two receipts below, I quickly signed up with stamps.com.  I can print my international first class and the new Regional rate boxes which wasn't available on paypal either.  The shipping notification has all the addressee information.

I'd rather not rationalize why eBay shipping is ok.  It's not ok for my business. 

I see the old paypal shipping has been restored.  This is no doubt a temporary measure and as soon as the horrible eBay programming gets fixed, it will be back.  eBay shipping is a way to show they are increasing their bottom line profits.  This might look good to stockholders, but I could care less about those folks.   I'd rather pay the USPS directly or stamps.com for my postage needs.