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

[brewhardware]

Ricnok, "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."

What revenue are you talking about? We pay less for shipping than we would at the post office. What money do you think is going into eBay's pockets? It seems like you're just ranting withotu any real substance.

[Ricnok]

@ brewhardware... When I purchase a shipping label through PayPal, the payment shows as going to US Postal Service, however, when I was forced to use eBay's platform through PayPal, the payment went to eBay Shipping. Of course, eBay then pays USPS but only after passing the money through their accounts.

We are being naive if we believe that eBay and PayPal do not make a small profit for handling the transactions and for processing our shipping labels.

If you do not believe that eBay profits from handling the transactions for shipping labels, then how did they come up with the ability to discount Priority Mail Shipments for their Top Rated Sellers?

I certainly do not believe that USPS offers a special rate to eBay's Top Rated Sellers. That discount likely reflects the majority of the commission they earn being passed on to their best sellers, and not some benevolent gift bestowed upon Top Rated Sellers out of the goodness of their corporate hearts as a reward for exceeding eBay's performance standards.

When eBay Corp. makes their quarterly reports, they will report the total price of each label processed through eBay Shipping as income even though the money is passing through their hands minus their commission. The total amount they receive as payments to eBay shipping will be reported as income, and the actual cost of shipping they pay to USPS will be treated as an expense.

If shipping is done on PayPal this does not happen because the money is already on PayPal's books and the cost of the label is paid by PayPal to USPS.

 Of course, when making their quarterly report eBay Corp will not define their new source of income one way or another.

Think about how eBay has been pushing sellers to offer free shipping on their widgets which means nothing more than the seller is including shipping into the selling price of their item. The advantage to eBay is they can report higher GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) when sellers include shipping in the selling price of their item.

This is the same method they utilized with regard to the additional revenue they received after they started charging final value fees on shipping. They treat the new revenue as income but made no mention of the new fees charged as part of their quarterly report.

Unless Wall Street Analysts and investors dig very deeply into the details of the report, they will simply believe that the higher revenue figures represent higher sales, and eBay Corp is happy to have them believe that. If Wall Street Analysts were to determine that any increase in eBay profits were directly related to higher fees, they might not see that business model to be as favorable to investors as greater sales volume would be.

This methodology is employed by many huge corporations. The tactics are not exclusive to eBay, merely unique to eBay Corp based on their business model and the manner in which they are able shift revenue from one division to another division of their company.

[brewhardware]

Ricknok, while I appreciate the well thought out reply, I think the bottom line question is, why does it matter, in the grand scheme of processing transactions and creating labels? If I'm not incurring any additional costs as a merchant, I don't care whom or how many parties the money gets filed through or who's books the revenue shows up on.

What I want is seemless functionality. So far, I've identified several advantages of the single shipping platform and I'm not sure can relate to any of the negatives that anyone is purporting. Aside from your desire to keep money out of Ebay pockets (which dictates that you should not use Paypal either), what problems did you have with the new shipping platform exactly?

The one major gripe I had/have with the old platform is how the mutli-order shipping application is not integrated with the shopping cart side of paypal. It's so disjointed that nonEbay merchants should probably not even be shown the MOS link. Paypal CSR told me that the new platform fixes this and if it's true, I can't wait for it to be implimented.

[Ricnok]

Brew...

I sell on eBay and off eBay. I treat each platform as a separate business. Buyers pay me with PayPal, and as such from a business standpoint, I prefer to have shipping processed through PayPal. I do not want my non eBay customers to be exposed to ebay as many of them choose not to do business with eBay.

Can eBay access information from PayPal...probably. The difference is they have to go to PayPal to get that information as opposed to simply compiling it as it flows through eBay's shipping platform. I prefer the illusion that eBay has less access if everything stays in PayPal.

As an eBay seller I can attest to the frequent glitches buyers and sellers experience with eBay's buggy IT structure. From search to checkout, to messaging, eBay can and often does confound buyers and sellers in one way or another on an almost daily basis.

On the other hand, PayPal has had it's issues, but PayPal issues are no where near the frequent occurrences which eBay manages to generate. Of the two platforms, PayPal offers the most solid day in day out consistent and reliable platforms and that includes shipping.

The thought that eBay shipping would be the only shipping platform available given the frequency of eBay IT glitches is simply not an acceptable proposition to a seller who promises same day shipping.

As an eBay seller, buyers rate as part of eBay's DSR program. High scores enable sellers to qualify for higher search placement as well as 20% discounts on final value fees.

eBay's shipping platform has a 600 character limit on messages which can be sent as part of the automated shipping confirmation. PayPal shipping allowed for significantly more space for seller to buyer messaging.

eBay knowingly reduced the amount of customizable messaging space and then expects sellers to maintain satisfactory rating scores for communication.

eBay utilizes the excuse that they are conforming to industry best practices and standards when they propose changes which sellers find objectionable. At the same time, eBay set up the eBay shipping platform with a severe limit on customizable messaging which effectively disregards the industry standard which their own company previously established on the PayPal platform. Corporate consistency is missing with that part of the change.

As to the objection that shipping was not integrated to the PayPal shopping cart, it is not surprising that eBay is making that integration part of the shipping platform on their side while failing to offer it on the PayPal side. eBay Corp could make it work on both platforms, but thus far they chose not to. That decision enables them to manipulate sellers into accepting the eBay shipping platform more readily and achieve their accounting and bookkeeping goals at the same time.

I have no objection to eBay Corp being the beneficiary of my business dealings with their PayPal division. What I do object to is their attempt to eliminate PayPal shipping as an option without any notice and with previously mentioned message restrictions.

This company earns plenty from sellers on and off of eBay's marketplace. They can well afford to have a shipping platform on eBay as well as on PayPal. They could easily make both platforms offer the same consistent experience, features and functionality. They simply chose not to do this in order to make the eBay balance sheet appear healthier than what it really is.

As an eBay seller, I would rather see eBay Corp make genuine improvements which attract more business to the eBay marketplace rather than have them shift revenue around and simply claim those improvements are taking place when in fact they are not. 

[Judy_S]

In addition to the new postage money passing through, eBay also started charging sellers a final value fee of not only the price of the item but now included the cost of shipping in that FVF.  So eBay pays USPS and then ends up with an increased charge to the seller at the end of the sale.   We don't know how quickly eBay sends funds to USPS, but chances are good that they acquire interest on that money before the USPS gets it.

[brewhardware]

Judy, if you're not an eBay seller, why do you care if ebay applies FVF to total cost? It doesn't apply to either of us. I also don't care if ebay benefits from having shipping money funneled through their accounts. Again, doesn't touch our bottom line at all.

One of the biggest advantages to the eBay shipping platform is the real time shipping cost calculation that the customer can be charged based on their address. This is by far one of the biggest deficiencies of the paypal platform (worse than the MOS catastrophy). If I can get those functions, as well as MOS and International first class, I don't care if they label it Ebay, Paypal, or whatever they want to call it. I just want the functionality without having to jump through hoops.

Isn't that all of our primary goal?

I don't know about Ebay's glitchy anything. All of my transactions (just a couple hundred) have never encountered problems but again, I am a paypal cart user 99.9% of the time and the paypal shipping platform is by far way more buggy than eBay. At least one in ten "print label" functions give me the "shipping not available" message. It's corrected by going back to the trans. list and reentering all the shipping data but I'd call that a huge time consuming bug in addition to the multiple page loads required.

[Judy_S]

As I said, the majority of my sales are from my website, but I am also an eBay member with a store there (not for long).  What they charge overall is a concern to me because if an item does sell on that venue, I do have to pay more fees for the value of the item and now that included the cost of shipping in addition to the paypal fees.

My cart is also the paypal shopping cart and I use paypal buttons.  The shipping calculations have always been acceptable as most of my sales are large/heavy bars of clay and flat rate is my usual shipping method.  However, I get an occasional international sale from eBay and now I can use stamps.com to purchase my international first class postage as well as domestic first class parcel.  So that will work out well. 

I can continue to use the paypal checkout/shopping cart and still use stamps.com for my shipping and not sell on eBay any longer.  It's nice to have a choice.  I don't mind paying my paypal transaction fees, but I'm not nuts about having eBay as a business partner in any capacity.

Once I find a new shopping cart program, I can be totally independant from eBay.  It's about having a choice. 

[sharpiemarker]

I use PayPal to buy postage/ship for non-Ebay shipments and was caught off guard by the new shipping system the other day.  I was slightly annoyed that there was no warning of this beta test and have to quickly learn it last minute and integrate it to my current workflow as I was in a hurry.  That said, I was pleasantly pleased with the ability to pre-pay and print labels for First Class Intl pkgs.  However the new system has since disappeared or turned off. 😞

I used it both on my PC laptop and my iMac.  I was able to pay with my AMEX (coz of no PayPal balance and, I unticked the sign in and agree box to override repeat log in so I can select which form of payment I want to use with each postage transaction) at PayPal for my domestic and intl shipments.  I was also at first put off with how the printable mailing label was displayed in the pop-up window after paying but the label printed out like it did before so I really don't have any big complaints as everything seemed to work great for me after all. I do recommend however, a link to track the shipment I just paid for be added to the receipt of the postage.   Other than that, I hope the system will be turned on for eBay AND non-eBay shipments again.

[Ricnok]

Hi Olivia,

I just encountered another problem.

In my PayPal accounts, labels processed through PayPal have payments directed to US Postal Service, and labels processed through eBay have payments directed to eBay Shipping.....

The problem is that when I want to run a report to see how much I have spent on shipping, I click on the More Filters Link, I select Shipping, and guess what???

Payments that were directed to eBay shipping are not recorded on the summary for Shipping Payments!!!

It is obvious that there was no plan whatsoever established before this change was simply forced on sellers, and that those responsible did not think the whole thing out.

eBay Corp. has made the shipping process such a mess on so many levels as they sprung this change with no notice, and apparently with no thought given to the impact this would have.

eBay needs to stop micromanaging everyones business as it is obvious they can not manage their own affairs effectively.

[Judy_S]

You know, the more I think about the new shipping, the more I think it has everything to do with the new eBay shopping cart.

Buyers pay one shipping fee for all items and the sellers all pay eBay back individually.  What I'm wondering is if a buyer pays a total of 15.00 for shipping and has purchased from 5 sellers who all have shipping charges, eBay would be making a profit from the excess shipping collected from the sellers...did that make sense?

eBay sellers become dropshippers for eBay.