EBay has changed the packing slip

[emerald_door]

The new packing slip no longer allows you to include your own message.  You can choose from one of eBay's pre-written messages, or you can choose no message.  You cannot edit or add to their pre-written messages.  

Over the years, eBay has tried to make the sales process as uniform, standardized, and impersonal as possible.  I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve by taking away our ability to include our own message.  

This is not an improvement.  Yes, I know I could handwrite something, or take the time to copy and paste all the information to create my own packing slip, but this shouldn't be necessary.  I wish that eBay would allow us a few options in how we choose to do business.  

[tyler@ebay]

**General Reply**

Hi everyone - I've heard back on the packing slip issues:

The packing slip's option to add custom text has been removed - this was done for security reasons. It is not a technical issue, but a change.  I am following up with the team to see if we can get a standard "Thank you for your order." added to the drop down (not everything needs an exclamation mark nowadays). 

The missing state field is a technical issue that is being investigated and worked on to restore. I do not have an estimated time of resolution. 

Thanks!

[dhbookds]

tyler@ebay 

Thanks for your attention, Tyler..........any thoughts on that "Quantity 1" being confusing when the order actually contains more than 1 item (in one listing)  ie. 2 Casseroles, sizes x & y.....

[goldfinch35463]

Yes!! I have one item that I ship in a business sized windowed envelope with a postage stamp  - I always folded the packing slip so that the address showed inside the bottom window.  Now that the packing slip only shows the town, I have to MANUALLY look up the state and I guess hand address the envelope.  All for a $4.00 item. 

[goldfinch35463]

Here is what I said : "The old packing slip was fine. You have changed the margins so that the number of each item sold is not listed, and the state of residence of the buyer is not included anymore. I now have to manually retrieve date from two different pages and look up zip codes to find the states. What made anyone think this was a good move. PLEASE CHANGE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!"

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

mattsgarageshop,
The state is still shown on the ebay label page, you can get it from there without having to look up the zip.

[tyler@ebay]

---

@dhbookds wrote:

tyler@ebay 

Thanks for your attention, Tyler..........any thoughts on that "Quantity 1" being confusing when the order actually contains more than 1 item (in one listing)  ie. 2 Casseroles, sizes x & y.....

---

Hi @dhbookds - I totally missed that in the rush to get the missing state reported. I don't have an active screenshot of that - any chance you have a quick one I can grab from you and get sent along? Let me know and I'll send you an email. 🙂

[outlet_values]

The problem with that is:

They way you 'roll up' sales when a single buyer buys multiple items, which we get about every day. It looks like, if a buyer knows to put things in a shopping cart and pay all at once, when we process that shipment/label, we get a single packing slip with multiple line items.

BUT, if a buyer pays separately for 3 seperate items, we are asked to combine shipping in the bulk shipping tool, so we do, but we get a single packing packing slip with only the first item on it, and we need all three items on it. So, we would use the 'Edit Packing Slip' button to add the 2 items that the program incorrectly left off. 

As of today, I am now forced to print to a pdf, then edit the pdf and add the missing items. 

How's THAT for security? It's left us in a corner, what's there is not functional/error prone/doesn't work. 

So, there are problems with packing slips, for sure.

[hanajae]

They even got rid of the state in the addresses on the packing slip... makes me LOL. It just shows the city name and the zip code, where the state should be in the middle.

What a mess... eBay has been dumbing stuff down for years and it's driving me crazy.

The "basic" default listing tool doesn't even have everything needed to make a meaningful listing... and not many people know that you can switch to the Advanced listing tool to actually see everything you can do (things which I consider essential). What a joke! *facepalm*

[emerald_door]

tyler@ebay   

For the past two days, my packing slips are missing the buyer's name, the buyer's address, the seller's name and the seller's address.  There are no "from" or "to" names or addresses.  The only information is the item name and number.  This is useless.  

And the removal of the custom message field is insulting to sellers. 

[emerald_door]

tyler@ebay   

My packing slip is still showing no information other than the item title, item number, and seller ID -- no name or address for either buyer or seller. 

May I send you a screen shot so you can see this for yourself?  

[virginiapartsandparcels]

"BUT, if a buyer pays separately for 3 seperate items, we are asked to combine shipping in the bulk shipping tool, so we do, but we get a single packing packing slip with only the first item on it, and we need all three items on it. So, we would use the 'Edit Packing Slip' button to add the 2 items that the program incorrectly left off."

I've found the work around for this is to print the packing slip from the shipping labels page, it lists all of the combined items when the packing slip in bulk shipping does not.  Also, it is still the old packing slip on the Manage Shipping labels page.

[snake-mongoose-racing]

Security reasons? Please explain further. Inquiring minds want to know...

[chapeau-noir]

FWIW, I just printed out a bunch of packing slips and they're fine now - I just opt not to use the canned messages as I always hand write "Thank you" on the slip, anyway. 

Haven't had any multiple orders yet, though.

[infoandy]

I have always had a personalized message on my packing slip to the buyer. Basically asking the buyer to inspect their item carefully and to contact me if they have an issue before leaving feedback. Also, I would tell them that they could return the item for a full refund if they were not 100% satisfied with it. Occasionally, I would add a statement in regards to the care and use of their item. So what are the "security" issue with those statements?

eBay insists on "updating" and changing formats of various tasks. And most of the time the changes don't improve the task, they make it worse, like the packing slip. Recently, eBay changed the Sales Report so that it now shows Sales and Costs on the same page, but they left out the list of the items sold that the report refers to. So now you have to download the report to see the items sold. How is that an improvement? I wish eBay would leave things alone as they are working just fine.

Does anyone from eBay ever read any of our comments and fix the "improvements" they've made?

[miss_anabelle_lee]

I hate it too. The new one is so generic. The old one we could add our store logo graphic also, which spruced them up a bit.

Bring back the old one, eBay!