eBay.ie, the localised eBay website, and An Post, the Universal Service Obligation provider in the Republic of Ireland have joined forces to introduce a new pilot scheme for eBay sellers resident in Ireland.
The “e-Parcel Card” was launched on 21 August 2007 and will be reviewed in April 2008, offers eligible eBay users favourable prices on national and international parcels weighing up to 5kg, sent using An Post. Users save up to 45% on national parcels and 75% on international postage. As most of my buyers are in “Great Britain” - to use An Posts language - this should save me a fair amount of money.
The new service is free to join and open to all eBay users who
- reside in the Republic Ireland
- have a minimum feedback score of 90
- with at least 98% positive
Eligible eBay users can effortlessly sign up for the scheme by visiting www.e-Parcel.ie Once registered, they will receive an e-Parcel Card, which they can produce at one of 1000 local “automated” post offices nationwide whenever they are sending an eBay parcel to allow them to benefit from the preferential pricing.
The An Post press release quotes random Irish eBayer, irgs025 as saying: “As a frequent seller on the eBay.ie website, I regularly post packages of all sizes nationally and internationally. The e-Parcel service takes the hassle out of posting packages, the site itself is easy to use and the cost of postage very favourable.” Not how he speaks in the present tense yet the card takes 28 days to arrive and was only launched this week, he must be a yes man.
I welcome the card but I expect when it is “reviewed in April 2008″ it will be cancelled. I’ve seen so many discount cards come and go over the years I have little faith in them, fortunately this is not a stored value card and it is free to apply so one cannot lose.
I received mine this morning. Until the beta period ends in April08 the card can only be used in my nominated post office.
The reductions do appear to be significant and it should be handy coming up to Christmas..
(dictated by Windowx XP speech software, because I’m lazy…) I got my card last week. I feared that nominating a post office would somehow tie me to that particular office, so I didn’t. I mean they only have two reasons for asking 1) to tie you there 2) market research. THe discounts are nice, I compared the price table that came eith the card to the standard price table on anpost.ie and it seems that you must reach 1.5kg? to start enjoying the discounts but once there they are amazing, you could save EURO 30 max I think. I haven’t done too much research because I know this scheme will quietly disappear, I mean whats the betting on the next anpost price increase they won’t publish a list of the new discounter thoughts.