Ebay system randomly over riding my custom Shipping policies on Active Listings to FREE SHIPPING

[teedebor-1]

For the past several months my sales have been going down lower and lower.  I used to sell between $700 and $1200 montly, not a ton, but enough to bother.  Often 2 to 4 items daily...Not so much anymore. I'm lucky if I can sell a single item each week at this point. The ebay system raandomly continues to change my Custom Shipping Policies in place on my Listings to, their favorite, naturally, FREE SHIPPING.  I am sure this is a large contributing factor to my decline in sales. I have been offering the same variety of items since I started this in 2015.  I can only imagine if I am being plauged by this glitch there are even more affecting my account that I'm unaware of.

I am not even able to maintain adding new Listings anymore since I must go and check all of my currently listed items daily to see if there are any changes to my shipping policies. I have it typed out in the item description what I am using as a shipping policy for each item so at least I don't have a bunch of orders to cancel, just hardly any at all.

Buyers see there is a discrepancy and figure if my information is inconsistent I'm a careless Seller then...move on to the next. I will be closing my store when my current subscription ends. It's too annoying and I'm not making any money so what's the point. 

I haven't called C/S. With just a basic store subscription, 9 out of 10 times I spend way too much time explaining my issues to one, often more, individuals that speak my only language as their second, and not very fluently, way too often to bother.  It just adds to the frustration that I am already paying to experience.  Teedebor-1

[tyler@ebay]

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@dhbookds wrote:

yep, see no revision to shipping, but the return thing again..........  let's ask an expert.....

@Anonymous 

Can you make heads or tails of these problems? 

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Thanks for the tag @dhbookds!

I haven't heard of this happening before @teedebor-1. The next you come across will you please not revise it back but leave it be so we can dig into the details of what's happening? Once you find one you can tag one of us (myself, brian@ebay or @Anonymous) and we'll work on it. 

Thanks! 

[teedebor-1]

Thanks. Yes I absolutely will let you know the next time this happens. I believe that there have been some type of technical adjustments made to my account already from this interaction since the software seems to be functioning more effectively for me. The word processing is behaving the way better software works, auto-wraping and little things like learning my repetitive actions and going along rather than me having to edit it constantly. Thanks.

[teedebor-1]

Hi this is teedebor-1 from the Technical Issues post about my Listings automatically going to FREE SHIPPING from last week on 1/23/19.  Creating Listing Issue of Photos Dissappearing / Technical Issues Comunity Page from Listings changed to Free Shipping Post / You stated that I should send you a message when this happens again. It just did but it is not a completed Listing so I can only identify it as this: Men's Dockers Pants On the Go Khaki Flat Front Straight Fit Stretch Size 32 x 34. That's the title of my draft. I was in the midst of working on collages and I had already closed and saved this draft earlier in the day.  Just now at about 2:45 AM EST I was editing the draft, left the open page in Ebay, went into Google Chrome Photos app in new window, created collage, inserted a few new collages, went back to Chrome photos, made some adjustments to photos, returned to the Ebay draft page and all the photos "not Chrome edited" as well as collages has dissappeared and the draft photos section had reverted to the condition it was in way earlier today. Actually yesterday the 27th of January, 2019.  The time in between my first editing  and the one where stuff dissappeared was about 3 or 4 hours.  Could it have something to do with us being in different time zones?  Probably not, but I hope this may help you to find the issue. Question, CAN I MAKE A COPY? of my Listing Draft? To allow me to proceed in getting this item listed? Or should I just wait for you to do whatever you are doing with it? Please let me know if you need more info from me or if there is something I should do to help. For now I guess I will just leave it open for you, until I hear back.  Sorry about my ignorance of this Community type posting I've never used this type of program before. Thanks I really do appreciate your help. Debbie (teedebor-1) Gram Buttons Recycled Relics Ebay Store

[dtexley3]

You have to use @ and the persons name to page them.  @Anonymous brian@ebay 

[teedebor-1]

Hi. Do you mean like I have at the bottom of my most recent post? "trinton@ebay. brian.t@ebay" that is the only place I see to place a tag. Thanks

[tyler@ebay]

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@teedebor-1 wrote:
Hi. Do you mean like I have at the bottom of my most recent post? "trinton@ebay. brian.t@ebay" that is the only place I see to place a tag. Thanks

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Hi @teedebor-1 - Thanks for getting back to us, I'll have a look at that draft in the next few moments. 

When it comes to 'tagging' us, we're referring to a process you can use that will give us a notification that you mentioned us (we don't see them otherwise). 

The easiest way to do this is, as you're typing out your response, type the '@' symbol followed by one of our handles: tyler@ebay, trinton@ebay or brian.t@ebay (screenshot example below). Then you can select our names and once you post the message we'll get the notification. 

it's the first and second '@' that can sometimes be confusing - don't let it trick you! 🙂

You can create a copy of any draft by going to your Seller Hub drafts section.

Once there you can check the box next to it and at the top of the page choose 'Create a copy'. That will let you continue working on getting the Dockers listed while we dig into what could be happening. 

Thanks!

[sueb-boutique]

I have had the same problem with the shipping and have lost money because I felt I had to honor the information the buyer received. I also had two items sell that had same shipping to all buyers and the amount of $3.55. I never put in that information. When I call eBay to try to get answers I get a person who just keeps saying "that's very concerning" and nothing is done. I have a buyer whose been sending me messages saying that eBay sends her messages about items she's looked at or is watching that teller her the shipping is free when it is not. What do you do when you can't get any help from eBay?

[teedebor-1]

The option that has gotten me help with actual ebay technical support professionals was to create a posting here in the Technical Issues Community Page with a title that I guess got attention from other users who then were kind enough to refer me to the tech pros. If you read thru the entire 22 messages you can see exactly what has transpired and what I stated and used as tags. It was even shown to me in "baby steps" how to"tag" the tech team in the actual body of the posting. Another user tried to explain to me but I didn't get it so it was clearly spelled out for me (which you can see) towards the end of the 22 messages. I'm sure you don't want to read the entire posting...but hope you can get some help!

[tyler@ebay]

Hi @teedebor-1  - thanks for getting us this info. Can you let me know a bit more about your photo process? Are you editing them in Chrome, then saving them to your computer, and then uploading them to the draft? I want to see if I can recreate this on my end. 

When it comes to shipping, are you setting a specific shipping policy and then it's changing to a different policy or moving to a different type of shipping?

Thanks for getting me any extra info!

[teedebor-1]

tyler@ebay

Hi, thanks for your help.  The actual "Dockers Pants" Draft that I used as my example was a draft that I had been working on previously.  I had placed 6 photos into the Listing and then saved it to finish later.  Several hours later I opened the saved Draft.  At this point the original 6 photos that I had saved were there, I then added a few more photos and and made some edits to the now 9 photos.  These 9 photos were all taken from my physical 8GB Lexar Multi-use SDHC card that I physically move from my camera to the open drive on my Laptop each time I take new photos, (this is a good disk, I have formatted it from time to time, been using it for awhile without issues) the SDHC card stays in the computer, it remains there until I am ready to take more photos... Next I left the Draft Listing window open, opened a new window in Chrome, opened my Photos, Uploaded the photos that I wanted to make collages with from the 8GB SDHC card to my Google Accont photos app.  Edited those and made my collages, then I Downloaded the collages to my larger ScanDisk Cruiser Flash Drive (which I bought brand new on Ebay, and it is good) that always stays in my computer due to the tiny memory, then went back to the Draft Listing ready to insert my collages to find that while I was gone the 3 photos I had just added and the revisions that I had made to the others, the order that I had them placed in the Draft Listing etc. had all reverted back to the state of the Draft Listing exactly as it had appeared at the time I had saved it earlier, prior to adding the second group of 3 photos and editing and rearranging them.  So this is happening PRIOR to me adding any photos that come from any location other than the 8GB SDHC card which came directly from my Canon digital camera (which I bought used, on Ebay, works great) to my Laptop.  Then I worked on it for a minute and added just 1 Collage before I remembered that I was meant to STOP and leave it alone for you to inspect.  This time and previously the photos directly from the 8GB SDHC card that have been loaded into an Ebay Draft Listing have disappeared. I don't think it has a thing to do with Google, Chrome or the Photo app, this was only mentioned since it was the place I had left the Draft Listing to go to, and I do that often since I need to see what photos I like and how many spots I have available to place a Collage, etc. But I think I could have gone anywhere, away from the Ebay Draft Listing page...Wal-mart, Yahoo, my email, while leaving the Draft Listing page open without having saved it.

Regarding the FREE shipping that is out of my control, since my original posting on The Technical Issues page of The Community I have become informed from other Users that it is "normal" for my Re-Listed, unsold Listings to "Auto-change" to FREE shipping.  My solution, make sure to never ever select "Auto Re-List" this item.  It seems that ability was taken away at one point but now I see it appears to be available as an option again.  Inconvienent, yes, utterly maddening, like the wrong data in the Listing, NO...

However on occasion the wrong shipping information has appeared from my Custom Listing "Shipping" Templates to another Custom "Shipping" Template. The example I used is an item that Sold recently.  Item (163451271360). The Buyer paid $15.00.  It was meant to be $14.00 OR $18.00, his choice.  I have no idea how it was changed to a Medium Flat Rate box Policy.  It has happened before but I just began noting the actual item #'s recently.

It seems like it is in my account.  The word processing is pretty bad with the Font always reverting to Arial, in the typing process as well as always on the Re-List.  I have corrected it to ALL be in Tahoma at the time I click "List It".  Which I am not able to verify until I actually do click "List It" since when I am "Pre-viewing" the Listing or particularly Re-Listing 95% of the text that I have physically gone thru line by line (and my Listings have alot of content) in "create a Listing" mode to ensure it is all in Tahoma, every single character,...95% of this text will appear to me as the Arial Font....annoying, big time.  So then, once I do click "List It" I will click on the actual Listing to open it to inspect the text font and template order. the text will appear correctly, usually, if not, I'll open it back up to correct this, again.  Often when it is due to Re-List the content of my Listing "body" it is all mixed up from line to line with a variety of Arial and Tahoma.  I correct this each time I am viewing one of my Active Listings and I can see the text is incorrect, I open it up to correct it.   I have an issue with my Custom Listing Templates that I use in a specifc order in the majority of my Listings being all "jumbled up" in an arrangement that has no logical order, often when I am at the point of just opening up an Expired Listing, that did not sell, to Re-List it, which I then copy and paste the templates back into the proper order that would make sense to a person looking to buy an item.

I would like to List more than 300 items but honestly with all the checking and re-checking, I don't have time...lol.  Thank you for looking into this. I think I stated all that you asked about, if you have any questions I'll be checking back soon or if you'd rather ebay or google email me, whatever. Thanks again, Debbie

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for detailing your process @teedebor-1  - that actually helps me out a lot!

Would you be willing to try something for me? The next time you go through this process with one of your listings, will you 'save as draft' at the bottom, then prep your photo collage? Once that's done re-open your draft  and see if that keeps your photos. It sounds almost like your photos are timing out somehow...

Thanks!

[teedebor-1]

tyler@ebay
Thanks, yes I will do as you wish and let you know how it goes with the next draft. Is the issue with all re-Lists changing to "Free" Shipping an issue that will be addressed? Or is it supposed to be like that? Do you know if other users have the same types of issues with the word processing software that I've mentioned? Thanks

[californiakaren]

Hello,

I know this is an older thread but I wanted to jump in to say that I am having the same issue that the OP details here. The multi fonts issue is sooo annoying! Grrr! But that's not what brings me here today.

I recently had an item sell from a listing that was changed to include free shipping even though it was not set up that way. I didn't price the item to accommodate the cost of shipping nor did I state in the description that the cost to ship was included in the price. When I intend to include the cost of shipping in the  price I always include a blurb in the description stating such and then state what shipping service I'll be using. 

Well, I recently created a new listing for an item that sold very quickly. I was elated, until I opened up  the notification and saw that the buyer paid $0 for shipping. The item sold for $99. The cost to ship is substantial as this is a relatively large and heavy item.  I looked at the listing and sure enough it says the first shipping option is Free. Hmm I didn't recall intending for this to be a free ship item... So next I looked at the description and sure enough I did NOT include the blurb about the shipping cost being included in the price (which of course it was not). This affirms my contention that I did not make this a free shipping item. A look at the other listings for the same item show much higher asking prices when shipping is included.

This is item #143401586132 if anyone is interested in checking it out.

I used both my laptop and my cell phone to create and finalize the listing during a handful of listing sessions. Also, it was a new listing, not a relist, but could have been a sell sim. ("Have one to sell? Sell now" link) from another seller's listing (actually most of my 'new' listings start this way...).

Any thoughts or insights would be most appreciated!

[3eyedfishcatcher]

How would changing the shipping from buyer pays to free cause you a reduction in sells? You would think that would cause a increase at your expense.

[teedebor-1]

I was finally able to get an Ebay C/S Rep that actually helped me resolve this issue after an extensive amount of irritation one day I called about several issues and the guy I talked to was a C/S as well as an experienced Seller. He said he knew exactly what my issue was since he had the same thing happen...wow! Anyway he told me to resolve this issue I would want to opt out of SHIPPING POLICIES in my Ebay Selling Preferences. It was a true blessing since I had way too many policies to scroll through each time I created a new Listing. I am not certain how to do this as he walked me thru it step by step but it is in your Seller Preferences someplace. I still think it is a glitch of some kind but once I did as he said, NO MORE MYSTERIOUSLY CHANGING SHIPPING EVER!!!! Good Luck to you. I hope this helps.