Post by somany on Jan 26, 2017 17:29:25 GMT
I just changed to using business policies on both my id's and thought I'd write about my experience for future reference for anyone who is going to begin using them. I want my shipping charge to be a "round number" and have found the use of business policies will make it a lot easier to adjust for changes to USPS shipping costs.
First, on one of my id's, I received a notice or something from ebay about business policies. For the second id, I opted in without receiving any notice. That's important because the first implementation went easier than the second.
Business policies are located under My ebay/Account/Business Policies. Not sure if the link will work, but here it is in case it does. www.bizpolicy.ebay.com/businesspolicy/manage?pageNumber=1&totalPages=1&context=%7B%22status%22%3A%22success_edit_shipping%22%7D#topOfMain
There are 3 types of business policies--payment policy, return policy, and shipping policy. Once you elect to use business policies, ebay begins the process of creating policies based on your current listings. In other words, if you allow returns, ebay will create a policy allowing returns. If you don't allow returns, they will create a policy not allowing returns. If you allow on some but not on others, they will create two policies. If you allow returns with a restocking fee, you will get a policy for that. If you use different restocking fee percentages, you would get a separate policy for each one.
The process of ebay creating the business policies takes awhile, especially depending on how many listings you have. I don't remember for my first id, but for my second id, I opted in 12 hours ago, and the policies were created when I logged in this morning (but listings were not assigned to them, which is where my second implementation did not go as easy--more later).
Once all the policies are created, ebay assigns your listings to the policies and you can see which listings are assigned to which policy. It shows the number of listings assigned to the policy, and you can click on the down arrow next to the number to see the listings. This is one of the benefits of using business policies in my opinion. I began adding a handling fee to my listings a while back but never went back to add it to the listings I already had. By looking at the listings that showed no handling fee, I could edit them to use the business policy that included a handling fee. I had numerous policies that were only slightly different--one policy with a handling fee of $.64, one with $.65, one with $.50, etc. The 64 cents brought shipping to $4.99 for first class, which I used for a while but then changed to $5.00 so the handling fee became $.65. You can see how it happens that you end up with so many different ones, but by cleaning up the business policies, you clean up your shipping costs very easily. You just first have to move all the listings from $.64 to $.65 (or whatever) and then you delete the $.64 policy once it has no more listings assigned to it. With the new USPS pricing structure, I can change all my listings by changing my business policy from $.65 to $.71 (price to buyer for USPS first class 13 oz changed from $4.35 to $4.29, a reduction of 6 cents so my handling fee went up 6 cents to keep my shipping at $5.00 for first class).
A screen shot of part of mine follows. I changed the names on mine from what ebay labelled them with (i.e, from "Calculated:USPS Priority, 2 business days #1" to USPS PFRE, $.30 handling fee, 2 day handling"). Now I can see what handling fee I am using, and this is where the second benefit to using business policies comes in for me. Since I want my shipping to be "round numbers" when the USPS prices change, I need to change the handling fee. By editing the business policy, I catch all the listings at one time--I don't have to bulk edit to do it.
Now for the difficulty I had on my second id. I don't know if I had waited longer if it would have fixed itself, but ebay did not assign my listings to the business policies. I got nervous because when I went in to a listing, it didn't show the business policies. When I looked at the listing, the shipping amount was showing but when I went in to edit the listing, the business policy was blank, and the what I'm showing on my screen shot showed zero's for the number of listings. I began bulk editing my listings so they would show up on the report above. It was simple for payment and return policy since all my listings are the same for both of those policies (unless I do an auction), but a bit more complicated for shipping. I ended up using manage active listings and filtered on certain words that I could use to determine what the shipping method should be--i.e., jeans would be PFRE. Once I did that several times using different words, I then just selected 50 listings at a time to edit and edited them individually for the shipping policy (bulk edit indicated which ones the policy was missing from). Took a couple of hours but I probably would have spent half that time to move listings from one policy to another so not bad.
First, on one of my id's, I received a notice or something from ebay about business policies. For the second id, I opted in without receiving any notice. That's important because the first implementation went easier than the second.
Business policies are located under My ebay/Account/Business Policies. Not sure if the link will work, but here it is in case it does. www.bizpolicy.ebay.com/businesspolicy/manage?pageNumber=1&totalPages=1&context=%7B%22status%22%3A%22success_edit_shipping%22%7D#topOfMain
There are 3 types of business policies--payment policy, return policy, and shipping policy. Once you elect to use business policies, ebay begins the process of creating policies based on your current listings. In other words, if you allow returns, ebay will create a policy allowing returns. If you don't allow returns, they will create a policy not allowing returns. If you allow on some but not on others, they will create two policies. If you allow returns with a restocking fee, you will get a policy for that. If you use different restocking fee percentages, you would get a separate policy for each one.
The process of ebay creating the business policies takes awhile, especially depending on how many listings you have. I don't remember for my first id, but for my second id, I opted in 12 hours ago, and the policies were created when I logged in this morning (but listings were not assigned to them, which is where my second implementation did not go as easy--more later).
Once all the policies are created, ebay assigns your listings to the policies and you can see which listings are assigned to which policy. It shows the number of listings assigned to the policy, and you can click on the down arrow next to the number to see the listings. This is one of the benefits of using business policies in my opinion. I began adding a handling fee to my listings a while back but never went back to add it to the listings I already had. By looking at the listings that showed no handling fee, I could edit them to use the business policy that included a handling fee. I had numerous policies that were only slightly different--one policy with a handling fee of $.64, one with $.65, one with $.50, etc. The 64 cents brought shipping to $4.99 for first class, which I used for a while but then changed to $5.00 so the handling fee became $.65. You can see how it happens that you end up with so many different ones, but by cleaning up the business policies, you clean up your shipping costs very easily. You just first have to move all the listings from $.64 to $.65 (or whatever) and then you delete the $.64 policy once it has no more listings assigned to it. With the new USPS pricing structure, I can change all my listings by changing my business policy from $.65 to $.71 (price to buyer for USPS first class 13 oz changed from $4.35 to $4.29, a reduction of 6 cents so my handling fee went up 6 cents to keep my shipping at $5.00 for first class).
A screen shot of part of mine follows. I changed the names on mine from what ebay labelled them with (i.e, from "Calculated:USPS Priority, 2 business days #1" to USPS PFRE, $.30 handling fee, 2 day handling"). Now I can see what handling fee I am using, and this is where the second benefit to using business policies comes in for me. Since I want my shipping to be "round numbers" when the USPS prices change, I need to change the handling fee. By editing the business policy, I catch all the listings at one time--I don't have to bulk edit to do it.
Now for the difficulty I had on my second id. I don't know if I had waited longer if it would have fixed itself, but ebay did not assign my listings to the business policies. I got nervous because when I went in to a listing, it didn't show the business policies. When I looked at the listing, the shipping amount was showing but when I went in to edit the listing, the business policy was blank, and the what I'm showing on my screen shot showed zero's for the number of listings. I began bulk editing my listings so they would show up on the report above. It was simple for payment and return policy since all my listings are the same for both of those policies (unless I do an auction), but a bit more complicated for shipping. I ended up using manage active listings and filtered on certain words that I could use to determine what the shipping method should be--i.e., jeans would be PFRE. Once I did that several times using different words, I then just selected 50 listings at a time to edit and edited them individually for the shipping policy (bulk edit indicated which ones the policy was missing from). Took a couple of hours but I probably would have spent half that time to move listings from one policy to another so not bad.
