mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for the Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a specific topic this week, so feel free to share any general buying or selling questions you may have!
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 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.
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@gwzcomps wrote:
Since implemented there have been numerous complaints regarding how the Service Metrics policies are unfair to sellers. They have no regard for the quality or the outcome of a case. They come off as nothing more than a cash grab by eBay. If it was a system that rewarded good selling habits and customer service it would be a totally different story.
Due to these policies and the problems they create I see no other option than to use a second selling account to sell my higher return items. The thing is the policies are vague and I am not 100% sure what will happen between the two accounts. I plan on following all policies. Shipping purchases within my specified handling time. Accepting all buyer returns against my will.
My question is this, since eBay has no plans on fixing this policy what happens when my second linked account hits very high SNAD returns? I am fine with paying the 5% penalty fee on the “risky” item account. Example main account has average SNAD % but second account has 5%-20% returns rate.
@gwzcomps Service Metrics are account specific, meaning it only effects the account that receives a 'Very high' rating. Your other accounts would not be impacted.
brian@ebay wrote:
@sniperwolves wrote:I am begging for some help. I was told on the forums that weekly chat may be of some help.
I am a bit concerned, as I have approx. $15,000.00 worth of inventory in smoking cessation products, with more on the way.
I acquired this inventory in May.
80% of my sales are smoking cessation products. I tried to paste the last 90 days sales, but it wouldn’t come through.
I understand that I can no longer sell these products under managed payments.
I got an email that as of July I5th, I should register for managed payments. I did not register
I sold approx. $ 4000.00 worth of these products since June 8th and have acquired a loyal following to purchase these products.
Would like to know if my name can be removed from Managed Payments until these items are an allowed part of the managed payment system, or at least until I sell off all this inventory!
I will not be purchasing more inventory, obviously, as I may be stuck with what I have.
I tried to list more product, but got a pop up that now I cannot list anymore items until I sign up for MP:
Effective immediately, your ability to list new items has been interrupted. To continue listing on eBay, please register now at ebay.com/startpayments.
Can someone please understand I really need to be exempt from managed payments, at least temporarily.?
My finances will be ruined if I cannot sell off this inventory I have acquired.
These items have an expiry date, and I cannot hold them for months, years, until these products can be sold.
PLEASE HELP get this email to someone who can help me with this situation.
Much appreciated if you can help, or pass this onto appropriate managed payment person who can fix this for me. I am praying you can help me!
@sniperwolves I actually just replied to your other post here. You'll need to follow the step I provided in that thread to speak with the payments them. They'll be able to help you out 🙂
Or you could open up a separate selling account just for these products. Only sell these products under that account and MP won't be required for you in the future until MP can support the category. Use your current account for everything else.
@hknumismatics wrote:
What eBay seller protections against INR and shipping made by surface mail can you offer? Because the current ones are not quite doing the job sufficiently.
Currently to/from a lot of destinations worldwide mail is going by surface (i.e. ship/lorry/rail) only. Especially for intercontinental mail this means a significant delay with delivery times in the 2-3 month time span (usually 1-2 weeks to get onto a ship, 3-6 weeks on a ship, 1-2 weeks to clear customs and then the domestic delivery time in destination country).
The extended delivery times whereby eBay has added 2 weeks or so to the normal projected delivery times does often only push expected delivery date to 4-6 weeks from sending. This means that an INR can be opened, ruled in favour of the buyer (naturally there are no tracking updates when it is on the ship or awaiting customs clearance), and the 30 days appeal window all pass before the item is even meant to have reached its final destination!
As a seller I have to ship a lot of items by surface mail, as no buyer will pay courier delivery fees for cheap items. It also arises when a buyer insists to have something shipped to a PO Box or APO etc. to which a courier cannot ship.
My suggestion to an easy fix for this would be to introduce a new shipping form at the invoicing stage "Standard International Surface Shipping" or similar that automatically puts the expected arrival date at least at 60 days.
Thoughts?
So far this year I have lost 3 or 4 cases like this, and in each case I eventually got delivery proof - but always after the appeal period had expired.
Hi @hknumismatics - thanks for the suggestion, and I'm sorry to hear you've had a few items be so delayed. For items like you've described (shipping internationally via a surface mail option) the extended delivery ranges are the extent of the protection offered.
For items that you are sending surface mail, you could consider extending your handling time out as far as you can, which could help increase the delivery window!
I recently started to get busy on my personal Christmas Shopping. Yes I'm pretty early with my shopping, but then I always am every year. If I wait until November to start shopping there just isn't enough of me to go around between family events, shopping, cooking, cleaning and taking care of my online business. So I try to get done before Halloween.
With that said, my daughter is an avid reader, so I was shopping for some books I know she would enjoy. OMG that is next to impossible on Ebay. VERY VERY VERY frustrating. I want paperbacks and hardback books only. But here are so many electronic book copies for sale on Ebay and you can't set the filters to get rid of them as MANY. I mean MANY sellers are not posting these books in the correct categories.
This is a huge problem. We have got to be losing a lot of buyers to other sites because of it. I'm not even sure I will wade through the mess to find what I want as it will take quite a bit of time.
Ebay really needs to crack down one this. IMHO it is a huge problem. Especially entering into the holiday season.
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Edit: A reply to your comment can be found here.
@creativecrisis wrote:
A major hurricane making landfall later tonight along the northwestern Gulf Coast will cause severe disruptions in the region. I haven't seen any announcements from eBay about seller protection for folks down here. Is eBay planning to address this?
@creativecrisis we haven't made any announcements regarding this, but we typically offer protections for major natural disasters that negatively impact sellers ability to ship items. In these situations eBay automatically removes defects that occur before the monthly seller standards evaluation.
Edit: Further information about this can be found here
Why has ebay decided to obscure buyer email addresses?
This is breaking CMS software everywhere.
The only halfway reliable method for keeping track of customers on eBay is with their email addresses.
1) eBay does not bother to sanitize buyer names or addresses - they send unverified information to sellers and expect us to work with it (buyer names and address - UNRELIABLE)
2) with eBay's guest checkout, an established buyer can purchase and instantly buy something else under an entirely different user id (ebay usernames - UNRELIABLE)
Obviously eBay is trying to control every part of the transaction. We knew this was coming with Managed Payments. But this is taking it too far.
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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I finally upgraded to a new phone, and am considering using it to list (I currently use my PC). One thing that concerns me: It is my understanding that if I use the ebay app's listing tool and do NOT offer free shipping , if the item remains unsold for a period of time (two weeks, or so I've been told), ebay will unilaterally change my shipping designation to free shipping. Could you check with the appropriate team to either get confirmation or denial of that?
@my-cottage-books-and-antiques sellers have the ability to set either free shipping or a cost and this isn't something we change, even if it doesn't sell within a certain timeframe. If you do see this happen then please let us know so we can get it reported!
tyler@ebay wrote:
@hknumismatics wrote:
What eBay seller protections against INR and shipping made by surface mail can you offer? Because the current ones are not quite doing the job sufficiently.
Currently to/from a lot of destinations worldwide mail is going by surface (i.e. ship/lorry/rail) only. Especially for intercontinental mail this means a significant delay with delivery times in the 2-3 month time span (usually 1-2 weeks to get onto a ship, 3-6 weeks on a ship, 1-2 weeks to clear customs and then the domestic delivery time in destination country).
The extended delivery times whereby eBay has added 2 weeks or so to the normal projected delivery times does often only push expected delivery date to 4-6 weeks from sending. This means that an INR can be opened, ruled in favour of the buyer (naturally there are no tracking updates when it is on the ship or awaiting customs clearance), and the 30 days appeal window all pass before the item is even meant to have reached its final destination!
As a seller I have to ship a lot of items by surface mail, as no buyer will pay courier delivery fees for cheap items. It also arises when a buyer insists to have something shipped to a PO Box or APO etc. to which a courier cannot ship.
My suggestion to an easy fix for this would be to introduce a new shipping form at the invoicing stage "Standard International Surface Shipping" or similar that automatically puts the expected arrival date at least at 60 days.
Thoughts?
So far this year I have lost 3 or 4 cases like this, and in each case I eventually got delivery proof - but always after the appeal period had expired.
Hi @hknumismatics - thanks for the suggestion, and I'm sorry to hear you've had a few items be so delayed. For items like you've described (shipping internationally via a surface mail option) the extended delivery ranges are the extent of the protection offered.
For items that you are sending surface mail, you could consider extending your handling time out as far as you can, which could help increase the delivery window!
Tis true we as sellers can extend our handling times but that comes at a cost too. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a handling time of 5+ days start dropping you in the search return algorithm!!
I respect that our customers want and should have the items they order. I get all that. But I firmly believe Ebay should give us a few extra days on an INR during these unusual times.
And coupled with that. Currently we can not appeal an INR that we voluntarily refund, even if the buyer receives the item at a later date per the tracking. So we just cross our fingers and hope the buyer will be honest and many are, but many aren't as well.
So unless we let Ebay step in on an INR and force the refund to the buyer and create a defect on our Seller Dashboard, we can't appeal it.
We need a BETTER process. Ebay needs to help us here sooner rather than later.
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Edit: A reply to your comment can be found here.
