eBay UK Introduces Seller Protections For Upcoming Royal Mail Strikes

eBay UK has today announced that they will be putting seller protections in place for the newly announced Royal Mail strikes that are taking part throughout October. The strike action is now creeping closer and closer to peak holiday shopping times which could cause huge disruption for eCommerce businesses.

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eBay has clearly taken note of that and as such put into place its well-established seller protections. You can see the full announcement from eBay below.

eBay UK Seller Protections Announcement RE Royal Mail Strike in October

“Dear Sellers, 

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) at Royal Mail and Parcelforce has called on its members who collect, sort, and deliver parcels and mail to take strike action again throughout October on Thursday 13th, Thursday 20th, and Tuesday 25th October 2022.

Please also be aware that there is further industrial action planned throughout November. We are currently working on our plan to support sellers during this period, which we will communicate to you at the earliest available opportunity.

eBay will continue to automatically protect your performance until Monday 31st October, for:

• Your late delivery rate, which will be removed for transactions with estimated delivery dates until 31st October.
• Your “item not received” count in the Service Metrics dashboard, which will be automatically removed for transactions with estimated delivery dates until 31st October.
• We will also remove any negative and neutral feedback relating to or arising from late or non-delivery during this period.

Please note: You may see late deliveries due to this on your seller dashboard, but they will be automatically removed within approximately 7 days. The same will apply to negative/neutral feedback. You do not need to contact Customer Support. 

There will be no expectation of deliveries on the days of strike action and the days will be excluded from the calculation of estimated delivery dates. 

To try and minimize disruptions for you and your buyers:

• If you already use other carriers, it is advisable to use them to send your items during this time & contact them in advance to update your forecast volumes. Please also ensure you use the carrier you specified on the listing.
  
• If you currently only use Royal Mail to send your items, then you may want to consider switching to an alternative courier during the strike period – you can access services from Evri, UPS, DPD, DHL & InPost through the eBay platform via our partner Packlink.
  
• If you buy and print your Royal Mail labels on eBay, you can easily switch to send with Evri, UPS, DPD and DHL on eBay delivery powered by Packlink.
  
• If you buy your delivery labels elsewhere, remember to upload tracking numbers to your transactions to allow your buyers to see where their items are. By doing this you’ll also be better protected in the event of delays.

Read more information for buyers and sellers here.

Find out more about the industrial action here.

As always, thank you for selling on eBay.

Your eBay Team”

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