eBay Label Purchase & Listing Flows Updated To Support Irregular, Non-Standard Packages

eBay advised sellers earlier this month of USPS rate changes taking effect July 13th, including promising support in the listing and label purchase flows to designate items as Irregular or Non-Standard packaging to comply with surcharges and help avoid postage adjustments after shipping.

Now that the changes have gone into effect, here's what you need to know about items that require irregular packaging.

Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express and Ground Advantage will now assess a $4.00 fee for Nonstandard Characteristics. This fee will apply to packages with these criteria:

• Cylindrical tubes or rolls
• A can, or wooden or metal box
• A parcel containing more than 24 oz of liquid in glass containers, or 1 gallon or more of liquid in metal or plastic containers
• Other (e.g. parcels prepared under DMM sections 601.3.0 and DMM 601.4.0 with contents that may cause the parcel to roll or not maintain the integrity of the packaging during processing)...
  
  

...Also on July 13, you will be able to indicate if you are shipping an irregular package in both the listing and label purchase flows on eBay. If your package meets the criteria for USPS Nonstandard Characteristics, your displayed rate will include the appropriate fee.

Sellers can designate an item as shipping in an irregular package when creating the listing, but may need to select "see shipping options" in order to turn it on.

Once an item sells and it's time to purchase the label, the seller can designate the package as non-standard or irregular so the rate is calculated properly to avoid being charged for a postage adjustment after the item ships.

For sellers who use the Bulk label purchasing option, there is also the ability to edit and select non-standard packaging in that workflow as well.

In theory, these updates should help sellers to be able to display correct calculated shipping to buyers which accounts for the non-standard surcharges and to pay the correct amount when purchasing the label to avoid postage adjustment charges after the item has shipped.

Do you ship non-standard or irregular items through eBay? Let us know in the comments below if these new settings work as advertised and correctly calculate the additional surcharges for these shipments!