Community Chat, Nov 15th @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Hello Community, 

We invite you to join the Community team here at 1 pm PT on Nov 15th for the weekly chat.

This week we will discuss general topics, so please share your buying & selling questions. 

Thanks!

[tyler@ebay]

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dtexley3 wrote:

As seen in the forums, there are a lot of unhappy small sellers because eBay is now adding Best Offer to their listings.  Why does eBay feel it necessary to impose themselves at this level?  What a seller chooses to set as a price, and whether they want to deal with Best Offer should be up to the seller.

How many buyers are going to be unhappy when Best Offers are ignored or quickly declined with a message of "I don't take offers, and eBay won't allow me to turn off Best Offer."  

I think this causes a negative experience for both the buyer and the seller.

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Hi @dtexley3, we include Best Offer automatically when the listing price is above the trending price for that item. Any Best Offer under 30% of the asking price is automatically declined. Adding this feature in does not obligate a seller to accept the offer, and is intended to increase the chances of a successful sale. If a seller does not wish to review offers, they are welcome to switch over to the Advanced Listing Tool and create a new listing without Best Offer.

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Good day,

Out of curiousity, what sources are used for the trending prices?

Thank you.

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Hi @gracieallen01 - we use data from our marketplace to determine the trending selling price of items based upon similar items sold. Thanks!

[mongoose26]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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@threshold.sales.group wrote:

Greetings,

I just had a return that was caused by an error in the eBay catalog (wrong part fitment contained in the catalog).

If as announced, non-catalog listings will soon be matched and merged into the eBay catalog, will sellers be held harmless for returns and problems associated with bad catalog data that was added by eBay (not the seller) to the original listing?  I’m referring to item attributes and data that the seller had no control over or ability to review prior to it being included in the seller’s already active listing *if that is indeed the plan for the future*.

Thank you

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Somewhat related to this:
I posted a bunch of holiday-themed novels, using the catalog entries for almost all of them.
I noticed that all but two had visitors.
I checked those two, and found out that the catalog billed one of them as a cookbook, and one as a textbook. 
Since the catalog error had obviously reduced the effectiveness of my ads, I had no choice but to remove the catalog link. That's not good, because then they won't be seen by as many people as they would if they had a catalog link...but they weren't being seen by anyone as long as they had the erroneous link.

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I wanted to list some Harry Potter books, but because they are published by Scholastic in America, ebay classifies them as textbooks.  Really ebay, really?

[Anonymous]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

@Anonymous

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dtexley3 wrote:

As seen in the forums, there are a lot of unhappy small sellers because eBay is now adding Best Offer to their listings.  Why does eBay feel it necessary to impose themselves at this level?  What a seller chooses to set as a price, and whether they want to deal with Best Offer should be up to the seller.

How many buyers are going to be unhappy when Best Offers are ignored or quickly declined with a message of "I don't take offers, and eBay won't allow me to turn off Best Offer."  

I think this causes a negative experience for both the buyer and the seller.

---

Hi @dtexley3, we include Best Offer automatically when the listing price is above the trending price for that item. Any Best Offer under 30% of the asking price is automatically declined. Adding this feature in does not obligate a seller to accept the offer, and is intended to increase the chances of a successful sale. If a seller does not wish to review offers, they are welcome to switch over to the Advanced Listing Tool and create a new listing without Best Offer.

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My only concern with this approach is the interpretation of a "successful sale."  To me that would be the price I set and not one offered by a Buyer because BO was turned on by someone other than myself.   Now excuse me for being a little critical of eBay on this next point but the only price suggestion I have ever seen is to lower it.  Having BO come on automatically is basically the same thing whereby a Buyer is going to message the Seller wanting a lower price ... Buyers never offer a higher price ... if you know of any that do please send them my way.

Inexperienced Sellers will fall in to the trap of dropping their price or selling for less than they could have and that activity does nothing but drive prices down.  That sends pricing in the wrong direction ...

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Hi @mr_lincoln, while we empower our sellers to set their item price as they see fit, having Best Offer included increases chances of a sale. An item may be priced at only a few dollars over the competition and a newer seller may find they are happy to shave a little off the price to ensure the item sells. Happy to assure you that we carefully monitor the impact these kinds of changes have on our Community.

[dtexley3]

Oh and speaking of me using @mention in threads.  Can we PLEASE have old threads (ie > 90 days od) locked automatically?  I've accidentally paged staff in 2 outdated threads lately because I didn't notice it was a zombie thread.

[carlmarxx]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@dtexley3 wrote:

And in conclusion (maybe), my weekly whine:

There continue to be postings about the "request invoice" or "request total" button being disabled on the cart.  I understand that there are multiple reasons that cause this but the level of confusion and frustration continues.  Please consider just enabling the button.  

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Hi @dtexley3@, if you have some examples you can share with us then it would help us have a better idea of why this is occuring. You're welcome to @ mention one of us in a thread with more detailsabout transactions you feel warrant the request total button be activated. 

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@Thanks brian.  I think Trinton can more than fill you in on my thoughts in this area    I can continue to @mention staff in those threads, but am doing my best not to abuse the ability to do so.

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If seller does IPR  but does not offer combined shipping in their listing , that is why request for total is greyed out .  

[mam98031]

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

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@threshold.sales.group wrote:

Greetings,

I just had a return that was caused by an error in the eBay catalog (wrong part fitment contained in the catalog).

If as announced, non-catalog listings will soon be matched and merged into the eBay catalog, will sellers be held harmless for returns and problems associated with bad catalog data that was added by eBay (not the seller) to the original listing?  I’m referring to item attributes and data that the seller had no control over or ability to review prior to it being included in the seller’s already active listing *if that is indeed the plan for the future*.

Thank you

---

Somewhat related to this:
I posted a bunch of holiday-themed novels, using the catalog entries for almost all of them.
I noticed that all but two had visitors.
I checked those two, and found out that the catalog billed one of them as a cookbook, and one as a textbook. 
Since the catalog error had obviously reduced the effectiveness of my ads, I had no choice but to remove the catalog link. That's not good, because then they won't be seen by as many people as they would if they had a catalog link...but they weren't being seen by anyone as long as they had the erroneous link.

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Hi @vrykalak, 

Can you share the titles with me so I can pass the feedback to the catalog team? 

Also, Syed from the team does have a dedicated Community board, you can share any other issues you experience with him on the following board: https://community.ebay.com/t5/Product-Catalog/bd-p/ProductCatalog

Thanks. 

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Alan

The team should just look at the cookbook category as a whole.  There are 100's of books in that category that do not belong there.  I know many sellers have reported this over the years, me being one of them, but they remain.  At this time the cookbook category is just a junk category.

[sarahbru]

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@a_c_green wrote:

Greetings all, 

We're now into something like our third week of eBay offering New and Refurbished condoms (screenshot below), not to mention a lot of other... delicate... categories in which a "Refurbished" category makes no sense. 

Now, I don't really want to know what the "refurbishing" process involves for condoms, diapers and such, although I'm sure everything is rinsed thoroughly, only the finest duct tape is used for repairs, etc., but still... Is there no quick way for you to yank the "refurbished" reference from categories in which it makes absolutely no sense? It seems as if that enhancement was rolled out with no maintenance or category editing capabilities, and this first became known at least three weeks ago now.

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@a_c_green: Wow -thank you for pointing that out. We would agree and have passed along this suggestion to Syed on the Structured Data team. Thanks. Sarah

[vrykalak]

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@sarahbru wrote:

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@wendybac wrote:

The feedback form shows stars, however I don't see any explanation of what the 1st, 2nd, etc. stars stand for.  They are not labeled in any way that I can see, so how is a person to know if the 1st star is good or bad.  If the 4th star is good or bad?

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@wendybac:  I believe you're referring to the new Leave Feedback form.... I will share this feedback with the team that works on this form though I suspect that as Feedback stars have become so standard on websites perhaps they didn't feel the need to state the explanations?  I will confirm and come back to this thread. Thanks! Sarah

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This is a case where I wish we could label a response as "Not Helpful" (or have the Facebook options: Like, Love, Ha Ha, Wow, Tears, Anger).

Most places that have a 5-star option say: 1=very dissatisfied, 2=dissatisfied, 3-neutral, 4-somewhat satisfied, 5-very satisfied. 
Since eBay considers a rating of 4 to be unsatisfactory, in need of improvement, that fact should be disclosed to buyers leaving feedback.

[chrysylys]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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I misunderstood your concern, feel free to elaborate for me 

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My concern is that the site is loaded with cheap junk from overseas to the point people are having a hard time finding listings from US Based sellers.  You know, the people posting to these boards.

[carlmarxx]

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@mongoose26 wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

---

@threshold.sales.group wrote:

Greetings,

I just had a return that was caused by an error in the eBay catalog (wrong part fitment contained in the catalog).

If as announced, non-catalog listings will soon be matched and merged into the eBay catalog, will sellers be held harmless for returns and problems associated with bad catalog data that was added by eBay (not the seller) to the original listing?  I’m referring to item attributes and data that the seller had no control over or ability to review prior to it being included in the seller’s already active listing *if that is indeed the plan for the future*.

Thank you

---

Somewhat related to this:
I posted a bunch of holiday-themed novels, using the catalog entries for almost all of them.
I noticed that all but two had visitors.
I checked those two, and found out that the catalog billed one of them as a cookbook, and one as a textbook. 
Since the catalog error had obviously reduced the effectiveness of my ads, I had no choice but to remove the catalog link. That's not good, because then they won't be seen by as many people as they would if they had a catalog link...but they weren't being seen by anyone as long as they had the erroneous link.

---

I wanted to list some Harry Potter books, but because they are published by Scholastic in America, ebay classifies them as textbooks.  Really ebay, really?

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I have listed those books  and never had ebay classifie them as text books  . Sounds like another glich in the system. 

[texanna1]

Hi Trinton,

I assume you got my email about having to probably leave EBay after the first of the year since the views had virtually stopped and I was not selling. I have an update and I hope it continues. I think they shook things up. This past week I sold more (all individual orders) than I have in the past 2 months combined.

Woo Hoo, I don't want to quit but thought I could not afford to pay for my EBay fees on what I was selling.

I do thank you for all you do.

Texy : )

[papermoneyforme]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dtexley3 wrote:

As seen in the forums, there are a lot of unhappy small sellers because eBay is now adding Best Offer to their listings.  Why does eBay feel it necessary to impose themselves at this level?  What a seller chooses to set as a price, and whether they want to deal with Best Offer should be up to the seller.

How many buyers are going to be unhappy when Best Offers are ignored or quickly declined with a message of "I don't take offers, and eBay won't allow me to turn off Best Offer."  

I think this causes a negative experience for both the buyer and the seller.

---

Hi @dtexley3, we include Best Offer automatically when the listing price is above the trending price for that item. Any Best Offer under 30% of the asking price is automatically declined. Adding this feature in does not obligate a seller to accept the offer, and is intended to increase the chances of a successful sale. If a seller does not wish to review offers, they are welcome to switch over to the Advanced Listing Tool and create a new listing without Best Offer.

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Why should sellers have to do a lot of work because Ebay, who is not the seller and does not own anything, decide to micromanage listings that are not theirs. 

Leave seller's listings alone unless they violate policy?

Why not spend your time cleaning up all the frauds and duplicate listings you allow to boost your numbers. Small sellers get pounded but the Chinese and mega sellers can get away with anything.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

trinton, I don't think this is about the listing form. I think it's tied to this announcement from October:

"Starting this week, eBay will begin testing a feature that will add Best Offer to auction-style listings. Only a select group of consumer sellers, those who are new to eBay or sell only occasionally, will be included in the test. Based on previous tests, we found this feature drives higher sales conversion, especially in cases when the starting bid is set higher than the recommended Buy it Now price. The option for a Best Offer disappears after the auction receives its first bid.

Sellers can auto-decline Best Offer requests through the Manage Offers feature. On 

Desktop, go to the item page (view item) > Manage Offers > Change offer settings"

What is the status of this test?

[gracieallen01]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@gracieallen01 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dtexley3 wrote:

As seen in the forums, there are a lot of unhappy small sellers because eBay is now adding Best Offer to their listings.  Why does eBay feel it necessary to impose themselves at this level?  What a seller chooses to set as a price, and whether they want to deal with Best Offer should be up to the seller.

How many buyers are going to be unhappy when Best Offers are ignored or quickly declined with a message of "I don't take offers, and eBay won't allow me to turn off Best Offer."  

I think this causes a negative experience for both the buyer and the seller.

---

Hi @dtexley3, we include Best Offer automatically when the listing price is above the trending price for that item. Any Best Offer under 30% of the asking price is automatically declined. Adding this feature in does not obligate a seller to accept the offer, and is intended to increase the chances of a successful sale. If a seller does not wish to review offers, they are welcome to switch over to the Advanced Listing Tool and create a new listing without Best Offer.

---

Good day,

Out of curiousity, what sources are used for the trending prices?

Thank you.

---

Hi @gracieallen01 - we use data from our marketplace to determine the trending selling price of items based upon similar items sold. Thanks!

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Is that data on ended listings, sold listings, sold at original listing price, sold at best offer or all of them together?

[Anonymous]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

@Staff has already been @mentioned in more than one of these threads.  The response always goes back to the quick listing tool and ignores the statement that the listing was changed after the fact.  The seller is receiving an eBay message stating that the listing has been changed for them.

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@dtexley3 I would love to see these examples so we can look into it further. Can you share the links to examples here? If we missed something, we can dig a bit deeper, no problem!