Monthly Chat - January 17th @ 1:00 pm PST

[devon@ebay]

Hi Everyone! This month's chat you’ll have an opportunity to talk to specialists from our Growth Advisor Team. The theme of the chat is, “Starting 2024 off right and setting your business up for success in the new year”. Get all of your questions ready for the team, so we can make the most out of this month's monthly chat on January 17th at 1:00 pm PT

Thanks for joining us for the Monthly Chat with our Growth Advisors.

The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The Community Team and Growth Advisors will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.

As a reminder, we want to be able to get to as many members as possible during the allotted hour, so we have a few things to ask of you:

• Keep on topic
• Scroll through the list of questions to see what has already been asked to decrease chances of redundancy 
• Keep the message/question simple and no more than one to two items. If you include multiple questions in a post, please be aware that they may not be addressed during the chat and (specialist name) will do their best to follow-up with it after the chat has closed 

Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next month!”

[growth_advisor@ebay]

To be protected for shipping concerns, you need the package to show as delivered. If tracking hasn’t updated by the time a possible Item Not Received claim is opened then we’ll place a hold on the claim for up to 10-days and if you’re unable to get that worked out by the end of the hold, then the claim would be closed for the buyer. As soon as you find out there’s a concern with the delivery of a package, it would be good to proactively contact the carrier to get things resolved as soon as possible. If a package is lost, take care of your buyer and then try to recoup costs you’re out via an insurance claim…if you shipped with insurance.

~Velvet

Growth Advisor

[devon@ebay]

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@maxoptical wrote:

Hello Devon,

I have now been promised twice over the last 2 weeks that I would receive a call back from eBay leadership do to a eBay customer service rep mishandling of a return.    This was a single buyer,  returning multiple items that they purchased together and I shipped in one combined shipment.  

The buyer called eBay and had the returns pushed through with no tracking numbers showing the items returned.  I appealed the return of the items.  One was approved and overturned and the other one was not?  This is the exact same customer with the same return.  This is a huge mess and eBay put a defect for seller did not resolve issue on my account.  

I have wasted hours and hours on the phone with support with no avail and they always end with "Someone from leadership with call you in 24-48 hours"   but the call has not arrived over the last 2 weeks and I need this resolved.

What can I do?

John Norman
eBay seller Maxoptical

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Hey @maxoptical! What I can do is get this over to our customer support team to have them look into it and try to have them reach back out.  

[turtles-trading-post]

Thanks Devon-

I have sent a detailed explanation to the Podcast email address as well.

Tom 

[maxoptical]

I have reached out to eBay customer service team multiple times,  spent hours on the phone, promised leadership call backs all with no resolve.  I am looking for a solution,  not just the same banging my head against a wall.    What else can I do?  This is why I am reaching out to you for help.

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[devon@ebay]

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@maxoptical wrote:

I have reached out to eBay customer service team multiple times,  spent hours on the phone, promised leadership call backs all with no resolve.  I am looking for a solution,  not just the same banging my head against a wall.    What else can I do?  This is why I am reaching out to you for help.

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@maxoptical Since I am not able to answer account specific questions here on Community, I can reach out to different teams here at eBay that would be able to try to help resolve any issues that you may be experiencing. If you have any SR #'s that I can refer to I can look into it and get it reviewed. 

[growth_advisor@ebay]

Great questions, first, combined shipping in EIS is currently available to all sellers but not all items currently qualify for combined shipping. If we can get that list by category we’ll get back to you on that. Smaller items and less fragile items are usually all included in combined shipping.

Depends on the category and the current options available through our programs what would be excluded. You can check here for current restrictions. If you don’t see your items on the list send an email to our CX team and they can look into what can be done to help.

-Casey
Growth Advisor

[growth_advisor@ebay]

1. You won’t need to enter the dimensions and weight but if the package doesn’t fit within the stated weight/dimensions then it could be rejected at the shipping center. Go HERE to see what the Eligibility requirements are.
2. You will be shipping the item to the domestic shipping center so you are free to continue offering free shipping and will then be responsible for covering the shipping cost to the shipping center. We will take care of adding the international shipping cost for the buyer at checkout.
3. The big difference between offering free or calculated shipping is some buyers sort their search by sellers offering free shipping. Plenty of sellers charge shipping costs though and do well too. It’s really up to what you prefer .  The only real difference is instead of shipping an item to the buyers address, you will now be shipping the item to a domestic shipping center.

~Velvet

Growth Advisor

[12345jamesstamps]

Its more the receivers of the items who are not scanning the items as "delivered"...rather than the shipping out  resource.

It seems to be a big problem for "freight forward"...where items are not getting scanned at Delaware or Florida addresses.

So, I have an item stuck in Tulsa, Oklahoma for weeks. Do I contact my post office in San Francisco or the post office in Tulsa?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[b86fiero]

Growing my business:

I am considering investing in an additional line of inventory I currently do not offer,  in categories I have never listed in. I am working on doing my due diligence on products and the financial investment required.

While it appears most categories are over saturated with sellers, I am thinking of fine tuning new inventory to a specific age demographic with rolling seasonal merchandise.

List more, sell more used to the eBay suggestion given by Griff for the past decade or so. I am finding that struggling to find and list merchandise that is relevant to everyone is like competing with Walmart or Target.

Can the growth team offer insight into targeted selling versus "throw the whole potluck on and see if it sells" store operation?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[growth_advisor@ebay]

 Hey thanks for your questions and feedback. All these suggestions are great suggestions for a number of reasons and depending on your store needs, product category, seller performance and the seasonality of the items that are being sold.

I’d rather not regurgitate what’s already been suggested but offer the following. Testing out different sales and promotions at different times can be key. Def look into buy x, get x % off sales for items that have been on the site longer than 90 days. Testing out buyer groups for the past year can be a smart move especially if you’re offering a deal that makes sense for you and for your buyers. Try out a newsletter for 3-6 months on a biweekly cadence.

Think what would spur you to transact as a buyer on your items. If the deal doesn’t make sense don’t offer it, if your pricing isn’t in the transaction zone look at the reporting tab and adjust it, and if your listings need to be improved break them up into seasonal categories for what will be selling next and update them. Adjust your strategy as needed and that should help too.

Hope that helps,
-Casey
Growth Advisor

[normwilhrl-0]

Hello,

May I do mix preowned and new clothing in the same store? What is the impact it can cause in searching algorithm? Would I separate preowned clothing and new clothing in two different stores? Your advice is really appreciated, thank you.

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here. 

[growth_advisor@ebay]

If you continue to run into issues with items not being scanned then you may want to look into other shipping options. Ultimately you need that delivery confirmation to be protected in an Item Not Received situation.

~Velvet

Growth Advisor

[12345jamesstamps]

Thanks for helping out.

[postcardcountry]

Thanks Casey,

You have given me a lot to think about and review.

Appreciate it.

Cora

[growth_advisor@ebay]

You can definitely mix new and preowned clothing in your  Store. You can actually set Store categories and break that out however you’d like. It shouldn’t affect the search algorithm as that is specific to the listing itself and not so much which listings are in a Store. You could have clothing, shoes, auto parts, home goods, etc. in a store and that would be totally fine and allowed. Go HERE to learn more about various ways to manage your eBay Store. 

~Velvet

Growth Advisor