New Ebay International Shipping Does Not Work Properly

[starbase-atlanta]

Since we started using the so call new and improved eBay international shipping we have had continual problems, none of which we had with Global shipping.

1) Our listings randomly do not accept some countries that other listings do and sometimes offer eBay international and other times they do not.  It changes weekly from listing to listing and country to country with no explanation from eBay (have called many times and they have no idea what is going on).

2) We are unable to fix the problem and usually do not know it exists on a listing until we get a notice to send an international buyer an invoice or the buyer asks us what the shipping will be.  Sometimes we can change one word in the title and it works and other times we will change an existing listing that works to the one that doesn't and it will not work, even when creating it inside of eBay with help from live support.  We have lost dozens of sales (totaling over $5k) that we know of since December and an unknown number because the potential buyer never contacted us that there was a problem.

3)  In addition to not being able to ship using  the so call improved eBay international, their hub has lost almost 2 dozens orders in 6 months.  They make it to their hub then they disappear with no explanation.  Yes, eBay refunds the customers and we get to keep the payment made to us, but now we have an angry customer who did not get their order and most cannot be replaced as they were one-of-a-king collectibles.  Even when they can be replaced the customer is so upset that they do not reorder. 

4)  The customer service staff keep telling us that they are reporting the issue to tech support but no one ever gets back to us and nothing gets fixed.

5) Why get rid of a reliable service like Global shipping and replace it with an untested faulty service like the New eBay International?  The few so called additional benefits are not worth the problems we are having.

[slippinjimmy]

I think you may have set things up incorrectly, are you using Business Policies? Do you enter weight and shipping dimensions on your listings?

Currently EIS is working very well for many sellers.

[starbase-atlanta]

Yes! Everything is set up properly.  Nothing has changed since eBay changed us from Global shipping to the new eBay international shipping except that it doesn't work as well as Global did.  We have spent literally hours on the phone with customer support and they have no answer.  They have gone into our listings and tried to fix them and even recreated a listing on their end on eBay and it wouldn't work.  They have openly admitted that there is a glitch in the system that affects some accounts (we are one of the lucky ones to be affected).  Sometimes a listing that doesn't work properly suddenly does without us changing anything, and one that was working stops working.  After 24 years on eBay we know how to properly create a listing.

Even if we were doing something wrong, as our listings are created the same way from the same basic template, why does the problem only affect some and not all?  And whatever we do on our end does not explain why eBay has lost over a dozen orders once they reached their hub!!

[slippinjimmy]

I asked two questions, you answered neither!

I'm actually trying to help, maybe you prefer to complain  rather that provide a bit of information that might help to identify the issue.

[starbase-atlanta · Accepted solution]

Evidently you didn't read our answer.  First line said "Yes! Everything is set up properly." which answers BOTH of your questions.  We were using eBay Business policies before they ever had them along with weight and dimensions.  We were shipping both domestically and internationally for 15 years before eBay even existed.  Also did you read our sentence "They have openly admitted that there is a glitch in the system that affects some accounts".  They have given our account priority with their tech department.

Just because you are not having problems does not mean that others are not.  After 24 years on eBay we have seen many issues pop up that only affected some accounts.

So please explain to us the following:

1) Since we use the same template for all of our listings (just changing weight, dimensions, category, title, description, images and price) why is it only some listings are affected and not ALL?

2) Why is it that those listings affected work ok for some countries and not others (and we are talking about accepted countries like Great Britain for our most recent problem).

3)  Why is it that listings that had no issues since we started using eBay International last December are now having problems and NO changes have been made to them, and other listings that had problems two months ago are now working fine, again without making ANY changes?

Ebay has no clue what the problem is.  Perhaps you could enlighten us and eBay.

[starbase-atlanta]

We were actually hoping to hear from someone that had similar experiences and how they handled the situation.  Unfortunately you talked down to us and implied that we did not know what we were doing, obviously did not thoroughly read our messages and quite frankly were arrogant.  Never once did you recognize that ebay makes mistakes (all of the time)  and acted as a shill for them.  We see that you have offered help many times to others.  For their sake we hope it was better than what you gave to us.

[starbase-atlanta]

We contacted ebay again on Saturday about this problem and were promised that we would get a response direct from their IT team within 72 hours either by phone or email.  That was 90 hours ago and still nothing.

[slippinjimmy]

Your insistence that your listing were set up correctly conflicts with the issues you are having and the fact that when I looked at your listings I found a few that were definitely not set up correctly for EIS.

Of course eBay makes mistakes and is currently experiencing more glitches than I have ever seen, their basic back end coding has been patched so many times that whenever they "fix" something they end up creating new problems.

[wilsonharborsales]

I have had this issue as well.  eBay corrected the issues I was having with EIS 50 days after the tech ticket was created.  However, new problems emerged as eBay was auto-generating new shipping policies within my business policies section.  Sometimes hundreds of new policies in a day.  Listings were automatically being moved to auto-generated business policies.  This of course affected listing placement and visibility (items needing to be re-indexed multiple times a day by the algorithm) and may be responsible for the drastic collapse in sales over the past 55 days.  I opted out of EIS today begrudgingly, as I would much prefer the international sales.  However, I am afraid that otherwise I would be very soon out-of-business.  I was able to speak with a VP from eBay via a Calendly Zoom call regarding this problem, and he seemed genuinely concerned.

eBay is certainly aware of the issue as are some of the devs. 

[stainlessenginecovers]

Give us 2 listing number examples and maybe we can see something (certain sizes cannot go EIS, certain items cannot go to certain countries etc.) 

[americanresalellc]

I have one that I'd like someone to check out

I have a customer right now that wants the item but he is getting the message "This item will ship to Mexico, but the seller has not provided shipping options. Contact the seller and request a shipping method to your location."

I turned off all the old international shipping options and seem to be enrolled in eis. I've used it for several other items already.

Could this item be restricted?  It's a pair of used Vans shoes.

Item# 275819971331

[supakicksny]

Any update on your issue with Ebay International Shipping?

I used it every since the inception of the program and it was working great, but

ever since Ebay made that international Shipping update glitch a few month back, I haven't had an international sale. A good portion of my sales have dropped because of this.

I managed to have a few transacted after I added USPS International Priority, but every single one of my listing says to contact the seller and its a hassle to add this option.

Not sure how they botched this up so bad.

[legitspeed]

I have the same problem..I've been using EIS for years and about 6-8 months ago I started seeing it disabled on listings that ran out of stock which I added more stock to. I got around this last time by deleting the original listing and creating a new one. But now that doesn't even work, working with eBay support is unless and they can't even understand it's a backend issue...lol. So if I can't sell it ebay doesn't make any profit...sorry shareholders.

[ditto_dealzz]

International Shipping Options are a joke and confusing to implement. They are like a tight, elaborate & lacy piece of Lingerie- When its described to you it sounds sexy & something you def cant wait to see in person..... But the night of the big reveal ends in disappointment for the both of you because all that sexy anticipation explodes into an argument fueled by the frustration of trying to figure out how to get the **bleep** thing off. His simple mind just wants to cut it off, but she aint having that after spending what she did (and neither would he if he only knew) not to mention how much time & google learning she did to figure out how she would eventually labyrinth her way into it. 

I could point out the meticulously placed metaphors in that fictional representation of our current "new & exciting international shipping" but that takes the fun out of doing it yourself....LOL. Bet you never wouldve guessed Ebay International Shipping Services has so much in common with Lingerie

[mygirleegirl]

Hello,

I saw this thread as I am having the same problem. Realizing now that I haven’t had a single international sale in over 9 months or so. I received a message from a previous buyer asking why I didn’t ship to Canada anymore. So this alerted me to my problem. After 2 hours on the phone with eBay suppprt, that also tell me it’s a glitch and they will escalate the problem. I haven’t changed a thing and the global shipping worked fine until the change over to the international shipping program. 
I’m wondering if you could look at my listings and see what could be wrong if anything, that doesn’t jive with the new shipping program. Thanks so very much!