whilst all in favour of striving to provide best service to the buyer and value for money too, there are some aspects of the newly introduced system that are of concern.

for example;

buyers will be able to view supposed ”best price” first in search mode, with pnp included.

this will disadvantage sensible responsible sellers that only offer the more expensive recorded delivery/signed for mail option, with tracking number.

however, under paypal terms and conditions, the seller will not be covered for compensation and a refund to the buyer is automatic when items are claimed to have gone missing, without recorded delivery & tracking number employed/provided.

this in effect means the seller is disadvantaged in ebay search, if they do use best practice more expensive postage. But, disadvantaged by paypal if they don’t.

at the very least, ebay should make a real effort to inform buyers that cheap postage does not always mean the best deal and service.

I will be looking into this though

“I’d also like to know if it would be possible to game this new system by putting “free P&P if you collect” as the first option on all your listings.”

For many years we have offered our customers free shipping on additional posters. They pay a fair shipping price on the 1st item and then any amount of additional items ship free.

The new search does not take this into account.

I have tried it on a number of our listings and we feature lower than a competitor that offers no shipping discount for multiple items.

The upshot of this will mean that we will have to reduce our initial shipping charge but then charge a reduced amount for additional items.

This will make it more expensive for my customers and may ultimately effect my DSR rating in a negative way.

The customer will lose and so will we.

looks as I will now never leave feedback at all !never mind in return to feedback received

I’ll see if I can get hold of someone later in the week to clarify our questions, so if anyone has any more points they’d like more detail on, please leave them here.

My guess would be 2 but the announcement doesn’t confirm that

I think your advise is best, wait until later, it can only get better/worse?

Remember eBay are making a *lot* of changes to finding at the moment. There’s a long complicated patent application which shows some of the criteria they look at, and I will be trying to figure it all out in a later post – but there may be more news about finding this afternoon, so I’m going to wait until we have more information.

Nevertheless, I think it does highlight a wider issue, that for some sellers, including both Owen and Whirly, eBay P&P is not nearly flexible enough. There should be the facility to allow for couriers’ differing rates.

I’d also like to know if it would be possible to game this new system by putting “free P&P if you collect” as the first option on all your listings.

I don’t think many buyers even know how to change the search criteria.

Just did a search with the new tool using lowest Price & P&P but it gives new items at 0.99 and £75 postage(total combined price) but £75 is the highest price for shipping in my cat. Seems pretty useless, if it was BIN items fine I can see it working but these results are distorted and do nothing to improve buyer experience.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/%2Fwhirlpool-bath_W0QQ_trksidZm37QQfromZR40QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ34QQsbrsrtZd

if that is the case then I doubt it will be a big deal for a lot of sellers as most buyers won’t do this

Which price do I show? The highest one that will presumably disadvantage me in searches or the lowest which will cost me money.

I suppose if I have to do it I’ll have to go with the highest and give the buyer a surprise refund if they fall into a lower band.

I hate losing money.

My carriers have 7 bands based on postcode with £80 difference between the lowest & highest.

Which price do I put on? The highest and disadvantage myself, or the lowest and lose money hand ove fist.