To set shipping on a listing, a postage policy needs to be assigned. Within a postage policy there are two ways to specific shipping
- By zone.
- Postage rate table.
Postage by zone
The seller can set 4 international and 4 domestic shipping zones. For each zone, the following is set
- Location (e.g. EU)
- Shipping service (e.g. Royal Mail Airmail)
- Cost (e.g. 3.99 + 1 per additional item)
These zones are quick to set, but with only 4 zones allowed, large areas of the world are combined together. This frequently combines areas that are cheap to ship to (e.g. France) with more expensive areas, e.g. Cyprus.
Postage rates tables
Sellers can set domestic and international postage tables to define shipping at a more granular level. The table allows sellers to offer rates for Express, standard and economy shipping services. Within these services, destinations and price are specified. Rates tables override any shipping set at the zone level.
The postage per items is then calculated using the weight set at the item level. The benefits of working with shipping tables is that the shipping can be charged at the country and not the zone level. They are however, a bit fiddly to set up.
Other shipping settings
- Despatch time. Select the number of takes taken to dispatch an order
- Excluded postage locations. You can specify the destinations you do not wish to ship to at the postage policy level. This can also be set at the account level.
- Combined postage discounts. This set the rule for how postage for multiple items is calculated (see account setting lecture)
Note: to qualify to be a premium eBay listing, postage options must include:
- Offer a free domestic delivery option within three working days.
- Offer an express delivery option within two working days for no more than £10.
- For items over £20, all of the delivery services must be designated tracked services and valid tracking must be uploaded within the dispatch time (this includes auction-style listings and Best Offers where the final price is over £20).
Shipping rules
There are two types of shipping rules
- Flat rate postage rule. This is applied to domestic or international shipping to define how shipping is calculated for multi-item order where the item are different. This is either an additional amount or a subtraction of shipping per item ordered. Multiple rules can be created and assigned to different shipping profiles
- Promotional postage rules. These rules can be used to define the shipping cost for multi-item orders. For example, free shipping over a specific order value or a maximum shipping per order. Only one rule can be set per account.
