eBay now requires sellers to specify a primary shipping method and cost in their listing descriptions. AuctionBytes interviewed Rafael Zimberoff, ShipRush product manager, about the ShipRush service for eBay sellers to learn more about the service and to explore strategies sellers might employ to cope with eBay's new policies.
Zimberoff said the easiest way to think of ShipRush is as the TurboLister of the post-sale. There's a lot of work to get inventory listed on the eBay marketplace, he said; ShipRush is about automating the processes that happen after the sale has been made, checkout is complete, and payment has been made. "Because there's a whole bunch of work that kicks in at that point."
"Strictly speaking, ShipRush is about printing shipping labels from eBay sales. But it's really much more than that, because every time ShipRush prints a label, it emails the buyer with the tracking number and the shipment date and the shipment service; it puts the tracking number in the buyer's My eBay and the seller's My eBay so they can see it; it sets the "shipped" flag in the seller's My eBay and Selling Manager Pro (or other service); it gives the buyer feedback; and prints a packing list and the carrier shipping label. And it does all of that for every label, whether you're doing one label at a time, one shipment at a time, or whether you're doing labels in bulk."
eBay's Shipping Calculator
Since shoppers may be located very near or very far away from a particular seller, eBay developed a shipping calculator based on zip codes and package weight to give shoppers an accurate shipping cost. However, the calculator only works with USPS and UPS rates.
According to Zimberoff, the eBay Shipping Calculator does what it says it's going to do, but it has some limitations. It doesn't have very sophisticated Business Rules yet, especially around multi-item purchases.
When asked why he thought eBay's shipping calculator did not include FedEx (an omission many sellers have complained about), Zimberoff said, eBay doesn't have a strategic alliance with FedEx. "It seems they are only putting carriers in the calculator that they have relationships with."
So what can eBay sellers do who choose to use FedEx? "Flat rate is one way," said Zimberoff, "and a healthy percentage of eBay sales are flat-rate shipping, or the current synonym of flat-rate shipping, free shipping, where the cost is built into the item price."
"The next bucket is where you're going to calculate shipping, and what many sellers do is to use the UPS calculator, but they're actually going to ship it FedEx.
"Using the UPS shipping calculator gives them - especially for heavier or bulkier items where there's going to be more of a cost spread for an instate shipment versus an across the country shipment - it gives them the ability to charge a variable, buyer-specific rate for the shipping charge. By doing that, they can still ship it by any mechanism they choose to." They usually disclose in the listing how they will ship the item, he said.
Rates for the UPS calculator are generally higher, according to Zimberoff. He said for sellers who have a good discount with FedEx and want to pass it along to customers to make their offering more competitive - they can't do that. But, he pointed out, you can't do that with the eBay Shipping Calculator for UPS discounted rates either.
FedEx has a discount for eBay sellers that's not tied to volume at all, Zimberoff pointed out, explaining that the heavier the package, the steeper the discount. The UPS initiative announced at eBay Live is tied to weekly shipping volume, he said.
ShipRush is free for users, including support, and is subsidized by the carriers. In addition to being available for eBay and PayPal, "ShipRush for FedEx" is also available for the Amazon and Yahoo platforms. ShipRush for DHL and USPS are only available for the eBay and PayPal platform. And UPS has not yet decided to bring ShipRush to market for ecommerce - "it's in their hands," Zimberoff said.
"Our job is to make a success for the e-merchant community and the shipping carrier. ShipRush has the largest installed base of any independent shipping software in the country." Zimberoff said several thousand eBay sellers currently use ShipRush.
