Simple Delivery option appearing in the listing builder

[cottagewoman]

Reported from a Canadian Reseller FB group. It flashed in a listing I was editing, but then disappeared. Weird there has been no announcement of this??

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BSvvT74j3/

[dkbooksandtreasures]

This exact thing happened to me too.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

If you google it, it seems to be something that is already in place in the UK. 

The UK eBay site seems to have a distinction between business sellers and "private" sellers. From what I read, it seems like "Simple Delivery" is a streamlined shipping option that standardizes shipping between all the "private" sellers. 

It seems like the purpose is to make it to where a casual seller doesn't have to investigate shipping options or designate shipping rates. The only variable they have control over is putting in the dimensions and weights. eBay chooses what to charge the buyer based on that, and chooses what carrier to use and the label is populated. 

Business sellers are apparently exempt. 

This is from 5 minutes if Googling, so you should take the above with a grain of salt. I'm not sure that something like that would work well for the Canadian market, because control over shipping rates is very important since most services that aren't lettermail (usually with discount postage) make items less competitive price wise. 

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

The impression that I get reading about it is that it is meant to make eBay appealing to people who are very casual sellers. As in, Jim from Calgary wants to sell a pair of pants. He doesn't have to have any background in ecommerce. He can photograph the pants, click simple shipping, and the rates displayed to customers, services, and label will be handled by eBay. 

If that is correct, I don't think it's a bad idea so long as sellers have some reasonable way to opt-out while still receiving access to discounted eBay labels. 

[cottagewoman]

Some interruptions in shipping options were reported by US sellers as well when building listings - no reports of the Simple Delivery panel flash (or the persistent appearance as reported from the FB group).  I have a feeling eBay is going to be dropping this unannounced update soon on many different localizations.  Yikes, that's going to go smooth!

[cottagewoman]

Since the group isn't public, here is a photo of the post: