When leaving feedback the Buyer is asked, “How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?” If FREE SHIPPING was offered in the trade, the DSR stars are greyed out – locked – with a blue link next to the line, saying, “Why can’t I enter this rating?” It looks like this capture I made below.

Click to see larger graphic

Because this has not been formally announced, it may only be a test of this set-up. It would certainly be a welcome change with many Sellers who have complained bitterly that any rating lower than a “5″ for S&H was unfair when FREE SHIPPING had been offered.

Today’s “PowerUp” newsletter said, “Starting in October, when you offer free shipping you could automatically get 5-star DSRs for shipping costs when your buyer chooses free shipping.” This would seem to foreshadow this as a permanent change before the holidays. The eBay newsletter added, “Listing with free shipping can also get a boost in Best Match for Fixed Price (where applicable), and visibility in Free Shipping search filters.” An official announcement about all this could come at any time, though eBay may wait until next week’s “eBay On Location” event in San Jose, CA to discuss any change.

As expected, eBay has the resources (or partnership power) to make most efforts like this pretty good out of the gate.  The announcement describes the function of the on-site label printing suite to include the sort of features I’d expect: automatic pre-fill of Buyer info and appropriate Customs forms; automatic capture of Delivery Confimation/Tracking numbers into the online transaction records; management of labels like reprints or voids; and the consolidation of work into a predictable user interface.

On the other hand, questions looming for me are -

• Is the “auto-pay for shipping labels” going to be driven by the “convenient pay-as-you-print option [that] charges the cost to your PayPal account,” or can I send the charge to a specified credit/debit card independent of PayPal?
• PayPal requires the shipping address used to be the one provided in their transaction record – the “confirmed address” – for certain protections.  PayPal’s reported Buyer address should br more likely correct because eBay doesn’t confirm Buyer identity and location with the same rigor.  How will this line up going forward?
• Is there still a conspicuous absence of the economical (but not tracked) First Class International rate in eBay’s offering (it isn’t available on PayPal)?
• A print one-at-a-time system is inefficient if several labels are needed.  Will this be tempered by accumulating the day’s production and creating a SCAN form for postal acceptance and/or a request for free next-day USPS pick-up?

As the answers to those questions develop, I’ll get back with you.  In the meantime, PayPal’s batch-processing “Multi-Order Shipping” system continues to be the best “free” label printing offering from eBay, complete with adherance to PayPal’s address rules, postage deduction from PayPal account, ease of dealing with partial postage refunds, SCAN form and pick-up scheduling.

[Disclosure: we often use or support PayPal's "Multi-Order Shipping" system for some accounts.  For our own use, we prefer Endicia.]

The move to an “in house” label printing suite continues the split of eBay-related, non-payment operations away from PayPal.  Moves of this type are likely to increase the independent value of the eBay website while making PayPal more independent of eBay.  Both companies are expected to be moving toward a time when the two could be split up as free-standing companies.