Weekly Community Chat, May 10th @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Hi Community, 

Join us today at 1pm Pacific for a Community chat. There isn't a set topic so feel free to ask us your buying and selling questions. 

If you are a small business, don't forget to submit your entry for our SHINE awards, the closing date for entries is fast approaching and we've got some fantastic prizes!!

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

I am going to ask you to make sure what you are saying is correct.  I talked to CS early this morning and both the rep and the supervisor said that ebay will not under any circumstances issue a defect for out of stock when a full refund is issued through paypal.  The only way a out of stock defect can happen is when a seller cancels a sale on ebay. 

I feel certain they were both incorrect.  I also wondered why the rep said to me " what are you worried about anyways you do not have defect to your account right now"  Why that mattered I do not know and why the rep was not listening to me and my concerns instead of fishing around my account during the call, seems a bit out of line.

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I have also had "defects" because I refunded a buyer--at the buyer's request--through PayPal.
I have also experienced--over and over and over--a "customer service" tech who simply does not understand my question, and keeps suggesting "fixes" that have nothing to do with the problem.
...and who tells me not to worry because I don't have enough defects yet to be booted out of TRS status. 
I'm really sick of this cavalier treatment of dedicated sellers! </rant>

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Hi @vrykalak - I'm sad to hear you've had negative experiences when reaching out to customer service. I'll go through your recent phone calls with us and make sure any appropriate coaching/feedback is sent to those you spoke with. Thanks for letting us know!

[Anonymous]

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@ted_200 wrote:

Side note: next update the Community Team should be given at least a week to view the updates before they are released, that way you can find out all the policy specifics ahead of the flood of questions and perhaps eliminate some of the confusion and speculation from the get-go. Make it easier on you and on us.

It might also be helpful to give eBay users a week to digest the updates once they are released prior to holding a Q & A / Special Discussion Board about them... by the time most users see, and read, and figure out they have questions, the Discussions are all locked and no one from eBay wants to talk about it anymore.

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This is great feedback! We will share this with the Seller Update team for review, for sure!

[Anonymous]

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@golfingaddict wrote:

My question pertains to vacation settings or changing handling times.

The spring and summer means that many sellers will be taking long or short vacations.  With this selling account, it is easy to put my listings on vacation.  No sales, but no upset customers either.

On my other non-store selling accounts, the only choice I have is to end all the listings, raise the prices to crazy high prices, or change my handling time.  I use fixed priced listings for the most part.  And no, I do not want them automatically relisted, by the way.

1.  Why are vacation  settings not available to non store subscribers?   (it's ok to say because they want us to sign up for $20 a month store fee)    It seems like this is an issue that is more buyer friendly than seller friendly because the buyer is not confused when their items are not shipped right away.

2.  When I do change handling times on my listings, I would like an easy way to see this in the seller hub on my active listings.  Currently, you cannot customize active listings to show handling time. 

There are many things that you can add but handling time is not one of them.  Would this be an unrealistic request that they add handling time on seller hub active listings?  (optional of course)

thank you

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Hi @golfingaddict!

1 - This has been brought up in the past and essentially, Vacation Settings are primarily needed for higher volume sellers. With that said, I can see your point on this and I'll raise the suggestion to introduce a feature for all sellers to use. 

2 - Definitely not an unrealistic request because, again, I can see the benefit in the suggestion. I'll send this one on as well and let's keep an eye out for updates. 

[alan@ebay]

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@sharonlpk wrote:

It sure would be nice to be able to selectively put items on sale through the Active List rather than having to go through Markdown Manager and select items that way.  Some of the criteria I use to choose items to put on sale doesn't show up as a sorting feature when selecting items using the Markdown Manager interface.  Could you please pass this on to appropriate personnel?

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Hi @sharonlpk

Sure can. One thing that would be good to know is the criteria you use that isn't in Markdown Manager - maybe we could also add that criteria into Markdown Manager. 

Please send me a PM with the info.

[Anonymous]

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@vrykalak wrote:

In regards to the photo editing issues you are running into, I'll reach out via email to get more detail and help troubleshoot this, no problem.

I spoke to four different CS techs the day the problem arose. Three of them had no idea what I was asking, and wasted over six hours of my time telling me to try this and try that to fix it.

The fourth one said that the ability to edit photos after uploading had been elimninated with the new listing pages, and my account had just been moved into the new listing page that day! He also said that the editing capability still existing on the Quick Listing page...for a while...and I should use that as long as it was still functioning.

So...the capability to edit photos after uploading has been DELIBERATELY ELIMINATED by eBay.

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I believe that was unfortunately misinformation provided to you. While some options have been removed at the moment, they are going to be added back in the near future. Additionally, most core editing options are still available. Look for my email here shortly to review the specific problems you are facing and I will also look into your conversations with customer service to ensure appropriate coaching is provided.

[Anonymous]

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@labs118 wrote:

@Anonymous

We don't know why a refund is being issued which is why we would assume the item wasn't available to follow through with the transaction.


We have always been advised if an item was tracked as delivered & a refund was given it would not be an oos defect!
Now your saying  even if ebay &  Paypal are 2 seperate compaines but a refund is given on Paypal it  tiggers a defect to our ebay account?

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Hi @labs118 - I'm referring to transactions that don't have any tracking information or movement showing the transaction was completed in anyway. If a buyer buys an item, pays for it, and we see a refund without any other info or cancellation request, we would assume the transaction needed to be cancelled because it couldn't be fulfilled which would result in a defect.

[alan@ebay]

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@golfingaddict wrote:

alan@ebay

I appreciate that the jump to last post was reinstated.  Reading the boards are a bit easier now.

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It's great isn't it?! WOOOOO 

[Anonymous]

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@llllady wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@llllady wrote:

@Anonymous

Hi, Trinton...

Still looking for some resolution with the seller using the red/blue hearts in his/her titles.  I see the violation continues. 

Is there a reason why, after about three weeks and numerous reports, why the seller has at least not been told to stop this practice?  As you know, it is a straight-forward browse and search manipulation policy violation.

At this point, if nothing is going to be done, then I'm sure other sellers would be extremely interested in knowing it is okay to do this so they, too, can have attention drawn to their listings, myself included.

Thanks.

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Hi @llllady - We aren't able to go into any details regarding actions taken on another member's account. That said, I can assure you we are addressing this and working with appropriate teams to have it handled. 

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Good try!   Not buying it.  It doesn't take three weeks to tell a seller to stop blatantly abusing an eBay policy.  It matters not HOW the seller is able to do it.  It matters that the seller should be told to STOP doing it. 

Look for my listings soon with hearts in the title.  Can't wait for more exposure for my listings, especially since sales have been so bad.  If no one can fix it, apparently it isn't broken. 

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As we have discussed, we are not at liberty to talk about another members account. I highly advise that you not put these emojis in your listings, as it actually reduces your exposure in third party searches and is against our policy. We thank you for bringing this example to our attention, so we can work on enhancements to prevent it from happening in the future, and we will follow up to make sure appropriate action is taken.

[Anonymous]

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@carlmarxx wrote:

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@ted_200 wrote:

This response also says to me that policies and policy pages are changed directly on the policy page and the only way to know about it is by viewing the page.

Not only that, but as you suggest you'd have to read the entire page (or in most cases, multiple pages) to know that anything had changed (assuming you remembered everything on the old page that you can no longer see).   It would be really helpful to annotate policy changes with "Rev. (date)" so that users can easily locate any recent changes to policy. 

The idea that you're supposed to read every policy page on eBay prior to listing every item, just in case something has changed, is ridiculous.  And it doesn't help eBay attain policy compliance any either.

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  I have read every policy  page  .   The new   update  return shipping policy  seller that pays return  shipping  on item  is responsable  and to chance on buyer  packing up item to avoid damge on the return transit   .  Just how to get buyer to take care  without being held  accountable  .  I would like to get  brians or the orther mods take on it.

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Hi @carlmarxx - You can always request special care or instructions when approving a return with your buyer and if any damages occur, feel free to reach out to our customer service teams to review our options. 

[Anonymous]

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@shorevillagefarmer wrote:

New to eBay, I was pleased to receive an "exclusive $15 voucher".  When the voucher was rejected while trying to pay for my first purchase, I called Customer Service. 

Very polite, they took lots of information and implied this would be resolved within 3 days.     Now more than 2 weeks have gone by.

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I'll reach out to you via email here shortly to get more info so we can look into options for you!

[Anonymous]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@goodluckselling wrote:

I have two questions that are closely related to each other.

1st question  -  If I have an ebay buyer who I decide to refund in full through Paypal, does that result in an ebay out of stock defect?  This should really only be a yes or not answer.  The reason why I would refund should not have any deciding factors to the answer.

2nd question  -  If a buyer on eBay opens a return request and opens the return request incorrectly with multiply problems and I decide it would just be better to refund the buyer in full through paypal  -  Does this result in an out of stock defect on eBay?

In the 2nd question the refund has to be done through paypal because the return request was not done correctly and there would be no way to refund in full through the return request.

Thank You

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Hi @goodluckselling! 

1 - Yes. Without a cancellation request telling us why a refund was being sent, a defect would occur. 

2 - Defects could potentially occur but if this happens, reach out to our customer service teams: https://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/cuhome?from_ocs=1 and we can adjust the quantity in a return to correct the issue. 

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WHOA, problem #2 should NEVER result in a defect of ANY kind.  Sellers are free to negotiate and communicate with their customers during the Request stage.  If a seller refunds a buyer during this stage, there is NO defect given and the return Request does NOT count against the seller.

It would only count against the seller if the buyer had to escalate the Request to a Claim [asking Ebay to step in].

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Hi @mam98031 - The defect in this scenario would be in reference to a cancel transaction defect. You are correct, sellers have the right to work out resolutions with buyers directly through a return request without us stepping in. However, if a buyer buys a quantity of 5 and only opens a return for 1, we wouldn't know what's happening with the other 4 and would need to update that info so no defects are given. 

[Anonymous]

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@sable2013.1 wrote:

How many listing tools/SYI forms are there?   Is it possible for me to see them all and choose the one that I find the best to use?

I was recently moved into a new listing tool that requires that I upload each photo one at a time. The last listing tool allowed me to upload 12 photos at once.

Thank you.

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Hi @sable2013.1 - There are different tools available for different levels of sellers and outside of switching between the Advanced Listing Tool and the simpler form, there isn't a way to view them all or opt in to a specific one.

[Anonymous]

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@mallontown wrote:

Special characters are not allowed on listing title per ebay policy. 

Why is it that some seller have these special characters in their auction titles?

It should be easy to find these listings and remove them from the site.

Why is ebay allowing a competitive advantage to these sellers?

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These are not allowed, @mallontown. If you come across any, please report them to us through the 'Report Item' link directly on the listing.

[Anonymous]

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@fleurdelis123 wrote:

I already contacted customer service. It is customer service that told me that eBay will be discontinuing the “Good till Canceled” feature for multi-variation listings. Customer service even checked my ended listings individually, and I did have all of the required information: Brand, UPC, etc. They could not determine exactly why my listings were canceled, but she said it looked like it was accidentally canceled due to this upcoming change even though it has not taken effect yet. I will try to contact them again. I want to relist these items, but I want to know why they were canceled before I relist them so they don't cancel these listings again.

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Thanks for the follow up, @fleurdelis123. This isn't a change that's being rolled out and I apologize for any frustration. I'll review your recent phone calls and make sure the appropriate coaching/training is sent to those you spoke with. Apologies again and I would encourage you to reach out once more.

[Anonymous]

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@warningflammable wrote:

Would you please address the issue described in this discussion thread:

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/BIN-is-ONLY-wanting-instant-payment/td-p/26907283/page...

As a seller, I have had buyers in the past over the years complain of this to me (most often overseas buyers) but it began affecting me personally as a buyer (and I buy a lot) around May 1, 2017.

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Hi @warningflammable - For items priced below $1000 with a specified shipping cost and where PayPal is the only payment method offered, buyers who click Buy It Now are asked to pay immediately. Buyers would need to add items to their cart in order to combine purchases/shipping where applicable. Check out: http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/require-immediate-payment.html for more info!