eBay

wiled-7986 · ‎07-03-2021

How do you change the language settings on ebay?

I live in Taiwan and whenever I try to buy something on ebay the language is automatically changed to traditional Chinese. My ability in reading Chinese is nowhere near good enough to understand what the web pages in it say. I have searched around the site and have not managed to find out how to change the language. Given that all the other global companies and a lot of smaller national companies here in Taiwan allow the language to be changed, it would be quite strange of ebay to not allow people to change the language because English is the language the world trades in.

So, have I been sloppy and missed where to change the language setting, or have ebay been sloppy and just not bothered to include it on their website?

tsuikade · ‎02-02-2023

So, Ebay released these forced-to-local-language scripts twice now, but on the 2nd try they added the means to change back after a while. How they didn't think this was an absolute must on the 1st try and didn't roll back immediately when it crippled access I don't know, but it's all good now. Well, almost.

Thank you Ebay for fixing it

bbshockwave · ‎02-06-2023

Sadly they still are active. It seems to change based on what main shipping address I set. If I set a hungarian one, Ebay.com is in hungarian, if I set an USA one, it goes back to english... eventually. It is majorly frustrating. Why can't we get a simple "set language" option in the settings? Why does it happen automatically without us getting to choose? Is Macintosh programming Ebay? Certainly feels like it... less and less user setting options.

tsuikade · ‎02-06-2023

Hmm... I used to have a similar problem (though not even changing the address would help), but now at the top of the page, to the right of 'Ship to' it has a language selection with English as an option.

If you don't see it, not even on a different browser with the ususal clrear-cache ritual maybe they are A/B testing?? If so, here's a message - Don't test! It works! Roll it out to everyone.

nagi603 · ‎02-06-2023

The language change does not appear always for me either. It seems sometimes I have to force a full page refresh (ctrl-f5 on desktop) the page fully and it only appears at the very end of the page loading.

claaa_60 · ‎05-19-2023

No it would not be helpful to confuse the app that I'm in another country. I want to determine what language I use without risking packages being send to the wrong country/address.

Secondly, I don't want an app to determine what language I see. It's just the usual US-centric attitude, a program designed by people who have probably never left the States 😖. I think they really cannot wrap their minds around the fact that other people may have international lives. VERY ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First and last time I'll use eBay.

claaa_60 · ‎05-19-2023

The app is made by Americans. They have no idea how other people live. 🙄

hankitsune · ‎06-03-2023

It's incredibly stupid! You set your region to where you're currently living (because searches will focus on listings from that region and prices will include VAT and import duties specifically for that country) and voila: eBay assumes you speak the region's native language! No, they won't let you change it. They've never heard of expats.

pita_lt · ‎06-27-2023

Haven't used the website in years, the lack of personal preference customization options is an absolute joke. I remember being able to go to German Amazon and select English a decade ago and I'm still able to do so without issues. I simply cannot believe that this website is still alive while it lacks what is considered basic features everywhere else, do they even have people working there? What is their Product Manager doing all day?

os-187614 · ‎07-12-2023

Dealing with the same issue. Reason why I don't use eBay

rati-store · ‎07-20-2023

It is terrible to read these comments. We have account in US (we are from Finland) and we have placed listings in eBay.de. We have made many mistakes because in the beginning it was really difficult to make everything right. We are selling in EU area. Every time when one of those Italy not so honest buyers is opening a request, we are in troubles. We don't understand and accept that we have to discuss with Italy Customer Service in Italy language. We have told to buyers that we can serve only in English and Finnish, as a small company we don't have afford to buy help. They propose that we should ask help from "your friend or colleague" OMG!!. We have fight like hell and told million times that we don't accept this. Nothing helps, they are not interested. They have ready written answers which they copy clown after clown. When you use Google translator even person who knows any Italy words sees that something went wrong. But even worse is that these arrogant clowns immediately make decisions in favor of buyer, no matter how much they lie and how many evidences you show. They don't do their work as expected, they just choose the easiest way to get rid of useless seller. We have almost 3000 listings and it is not so easy to just leave as we would like to do. And now when we have used dirty words they have blocked us out and don't anymore answer. It seems that they first are automatically in buyer's side and then support their lying colleagues. We did not have any idea how childish these "ladies" are, we were waiting much more professional attitude. It is our biggest mistake to start cooperation with eBay, we deeply regret it. We have asked their help what to do with languages, no answers.

ericatorres1099 · ‎09-03-2023

Same crap here in PR… its non sense l want my sht in english!!!

romchi · ‎09-21-2023

It's really annoying why it's hard for Ebay team just add setting to change language of UI? I don't need change the site country, I ONLY need to change the language, that's it. Why there's still no so basic option?!?

asyasya · ‎12-03-2023

So I live in Bulgaria and am fluent in English; I typically visit ebay.co.uk or ebay.de. For some strange reason my profile registration seems to be on the French website (I don't recall such a thing), for example when I receive email communication from Ebay, it is in French, and any main settings need to be done through ebay.fr. Now, I don't speak French at all; I have never ever been to France - I don't remember registering on ebay.fr, so I would really like to change my language, alas, I see no such option.

blue-shift · ‎12-07-2023

Ebay kept suspending my account because I was logging in from Qatar (because I live in Qatar). They tried changing my country but they couldn't because Qatar wasn't on their list of countries, so they changed my account to the Russian site instead (because Russia is the next country in alphabetical order after Qatar).

I can log on to the US site, but all the emails from ebay are in Russian now - there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about that.