Community Chat, April 3 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone! 

Join the Community Team here at 1 PM PT for our Weekly Community Chat. Bring any general buying and selling questions that are on your mind! 

[tyler@ebay]

Happy Wednesday! The chat's now open for your questions. 

[deitycity]

Can we create a listing with Add-on services?

I don’t think we can do this with “Create variations.”

ex) extended warranty, etc

[mam98031]

PayPal has a new update to the fees they charge those that use their service to receive money from their customers.  It will be effective May 7th.

Starting May 7th if a seller has the need to refund a payment received for whatever reason they may have either in full or a partial refund.  PP will no longer be giving a corresponding credit for their service fees charged.  PP will be retaining the 30 cent transaction fee AND the full fee they charged the seller originally for the processing of the payment.

This update is going to have a negative impact on sellers of all sizes.  I believe some responsibility may lay with Ebay on why PP has made this change.  IMHO with a return system that is heavily weighted in favor of the buyer, sellers are left with having to accept a return and refund a buyer for some of the craziest reasons.  Many times reasons are incorrectly stated or factually inaccurate, yet Ebay will allow it to go through even if the seller tries to fight it and even if the seller can clearly prove the buyer is wrong or has done something wrong.

So IMHO this significant increase in refunds having to be processed through PP has likely played into the reason PP made this move because they were now losing more money than they were willing to swallow because of how Ebay is having sellers handle returns.

Now certainly returns are an issue.  But this change brings Cancellations front and center into a new issue that sellers need Ebay’s assistance in fixing.  Buyers can quite easily ask for cancellations often, for whatever reason they may have.  But now these cancellation requests that buyers file are normally in the best interest of the seller to grant will now cost the sellers MORE MONEY. 

I respectfully suggest consideration in this matter and the ability to partially refund buyers that request a cancellation when they have also submitted payment.  If Ebay would consider this, but are uncomfortable in giving sellers the control over how much the partial refund would be, Ebay could just program it to give us the option to refund less 3% [or 3.5%].  While that might be a little low on some things, it is better than eating the entire fees ourselves.  [$70 sale x 2.9% = 2.03 + .30 = 2.33]  [$70 x 3% = 2.10]

It should be noted too that sellers that partially refund buyers to accommodate a shipping discount will likely stop this practice too due to rising costs.

There is likely going to be a lot of fall out because of this PP policy update.  I’m just trying to be a bit proactive here and hopefully find at least some resolutions to the issues before they become HUGE issues.

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full

[southern*sweet*tea]

Hello, hello

What's up with the crazy seller limits?

[coinslabz26]

I asked this in the general chat too before I knew there would be a community chat today, but this is obviously a better place to ask.

I was hoping to get a comment from ebay on the new policy updates from paypal.

Specifically Paypal has introduced an update that says the following

"We’re changing how we treat refunds. If you refund (partially or fully) a transaction to a buyer or a donation to a donor, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid as the seller will not be returned to you."

source https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full

Under the ebay and paypal operating agreement will this apply to ebay sellers considering paypal almost completely changing the way they do business?

This would cost me a couple of hundred dollars a month simply by buyers buying items, paying, and then requesting to cancel before even considering refunds for returns.

Will sellers be able to deduct these fees from refunds if this applies to ebay transactions? Can ebay please address this issue?

[millcreekrescue909]

Approximately one week ago, I switched from the new version of the “Manage All Orders” page back to the original version because I needed a customer’s email address for an order that was more than 14 days old.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there was no obvious way to switch back to the new version.  I know that this is also an issue for some other sellers as I have read multiple posts on this topic.

I am requesting that you either:

1 – Provide me with a way (if there is one) to switch back to the new version; or

2 – Forward this issue to the eBay tech team with a request that they make this option available.

[goodluckselling]

Since Paypal has made changes to their user policy, which says they will not refund processing fees for any refunds sellers issue to buyers through there platform, https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full

I have some questions as it is related to managed payments. Is eBay managed payments fees (all options) associated with payment processing also handling these partial and or full refunds in the same manner?

Based on the new paypal policy and eBay's managed payments plan to add paypal as an option sometime this summer (2019) I would like to strongly suggest eBay add in a timed (maybe 30 minutes) pending delay before approving a transaction.

The reason why this is very important is that buyers are more often now than in the past cancelling or asking to cancel minutes after they pay and this action will cause paypal and or eBay managed payments processing fees to the sellers.

Can you explain how eBay plans to protect sellers from these fees when buyer cancel after payment and before shipping? eBay need to find a way to protect sellers in these instances or

• This will change the way sellers decide on listing higher ticket items on eBay.
• Sellers will start to not approve the cancellation requests because of the non refundable fees for payment processing.
• This will also cause friction between buyers and seller and put more doubts in the minds of all users.

Good Luck Selling!

[coinslabz26]

---

@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

Hello, hello

What's up with the crazy seller limits?

---

@southern*sweet*tea 

Well obviously you are a very trustworthy seller 🙂

[vrykalak]

When I buy an item, and it has not yet arrived, there's a big blue button that asks me to LEAVE FEEDBACK. (Why would I leave feedback for an item I have not yet received?)
As soon as the item is delivered, the big blue button changes to RETURN THIS ITEM, and I have to search the dropdown to leave feedback.

Why does eBay urge buyers to return items, rather than be happy and leave FB?

[golfingaddict]

I use many variation listings.

For some reason, they seem to be missing or ignored when new features are rolled out on ebay.

For example, you cannot use Volume Pricing with variation listings.

And now, with the new "send offer to buyer" they also appear to be ineligible listings.

Is there anything you can add about this?  Will Variation listings get these updates?

Thank you.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

USPS Cubic Priority Shipping can be a real money saver for buyers and sellers, but unfortunately ebay shipping labels don't provide this option. I realize it is for High Volume Shippers only , so I would not qualify if I approached the USPS directly, but I've been told that ebay itself qualifies, and could pass this on to us sellers. I do know there are some third party shippers that allow me to ship with Cubic shipping, but, like many ebay sellers, I'd much rather keep all my shipping in one place, so I would much rather have ebay add this as a feature to the new label flow. The advantages are obvious: I could offer my buyers more competitive shipping rates, which would help me compete against ebay sellers and sellers on other sites. Lower shipping costs could increase my sales velocity, which is something ebay says it wants to push in 2019.

So, is there any chance we will see this "velocity lever" appear this year?

[wooden_flower]

I wanted to share a followup on a post from last week concerning orders being split into 2 payments.  CS did agree that there is an issue with guaranteed delivery and said the issue would be sent to the product manager.

I haven't heard back yet.

Sue

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Speaking of shipping, is there any chance ebay will finally provide an end of the day scan sheet for all labels printed that day? This would save ebay sellers time, it would save postal employees time, and time is money. Again, I believe there are sites that provide this, but ebay? No. So, again, you want me to increase my sales velocity? I sell mostly one offs. The single most effective way for me to increase my sales velocity is to list more. I can't do that standing in line at the PO, waiting to get my stuff scanned. Seriously, you guys want to see velocity increase? Give us the tools we need, and we'll increase the velocity.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Also, still related to shipping: I don't use Free Shipping too often, but I would offer it more often (and I'm sure other sellers would too), if we could designate free shipping to nearby zones, with a flat or calculated shipping amount for other zones for Priority and First Class packages. Any chance ebay would consider this? I think it could provide a nice competitive advantage for those who use it.