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.
Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next Wednesday!
@maxoptical wrote:
Hello, Was there any notice give to sellers that eBay was going to make the buyers email address Anonymous?. I use several apps for order management and shipping. I send HTML coded emails with order confirmation, invoices, tracking information, and then review and feedback requests a week after receipt. These emails are all HTML formatted with images of the items and other images. The eBay messaging system is stripping out these images making my emails less effective. I need to now go into my programs and change all of my templates, I should of had some notice so I could have done this before the change.
John Norman
Max Optical
Hi @maxoptical - thanks for sharing your input on this, I'll make sure that your concerns about being caught unaware are shared. There was no advance notice given that I'm aware of.
Communication between members is a key part of the eBay buying and selling experience, and we want to keep it as open as possible. But it's important that members feel safe, and aren't getting unwanted email or offers. Email intermediation is pretty much the standard in most marketplaces and this is not a new paradigm. It offers privacy protection and a safe marketplace to our buyers and sellers.
Thanks!
@golfingaddict wrote:
With the recent change to the way fees are changed for sellers in managed payments (and soon everyone) Is there a comprehensive help page that explains how fees are charged? How sellers can easily review fees (including totals) and how to use the reports to view all the information that we previously used our "invoice" for?
Will there be any type of "invoice" going forward with a "total" of fees broken out as they are now?
Is there currently a page to get a "refund" for overpayments of seller fees? (there used to be a link to request a refund)
And lastly, if a seller wanted to discuss this with other sellers, which discussion board is the most appropriate? The moderators on the selling board sees to be heavy handed when it comes to moving threads to other boards. If I want to discuss "selling information" with other sellers what is appropriate and which topics are not appropriate?
I had some questions about fees and billing, which board is that?
@golfingaddict these help pages are available to those invited into or currently in managed payments:
Requesting a refund of eBay fees credit balance
If you want to discuss managed payments then you'll need to post in the Payments board. Other selling topics can be posted in the Selling board.
@coffeebean832 wrote:
Hi Tyler- no 1099 yet. What now?
I guess it could be delayed since the bleep in charge of USPS right now removed so many sorting machines- but could you check with your contact if it was mailed yet?
Hi @coffeebean832 - thanks for keeping me informed, I'll see what I can do!
@gwzcomps wrote:
brian@ebay wrote:
@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.
Ok. Even if it ends up being an "extreme" rate like 20%? The policies aren't clear about how linked accounts are penalized. I don't feel I should have to have two accounts to deal with service metrics, but I see no other choice. Also I feel like this page should be more specific on the multiple accounts:
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-policies/multiple-accounts-policy?id=4232
@gwzcomps that's correct, even if it's an extreme rate. It will only impact the account the items are listed on and the category those items are listed in.
@hknumismatics wrote:
Here is a continuation to my question last week Brian. Thank you for your time!
"hknumismatics sorry I haven't responded to the thread you tagged me in just yet. Thank you for bringing up your question in todays chat though!! If you are listing on eBay.com then the domestic options (including local pickup) will be for the .com site, which is in the USA. If you want to offer local pickup for Hong Kong buyers then you'll need to list the items on the HK site and offer international shipping to other countries you want to ship to."
@brian@ebay
There are two major issues with your reply.
1)The ebay.com.hk site IS NOT AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH (!!!) so there is no possibility for me as a non-chinese speaker to list through it.
2) ebay.com.hk does not allow for worldwide selling. It allows sales to approx. 10 Asian countries. This makes it useless in terms of selling international material.
You have millions of international sellers and buyers on eBay.com. Why are you saying you are trying to exclude them from doing a pickup?
It is something I can clearly offer at the listing stage (so eBay is allowing us to list for pickup - hence not trying to exclude us from offering pickup?). And actually at the listing stage it is not at all clear that it would only apply to a US address. [I know from experience that "Domestic shipping" refers to "US shipping" on eBay.com, but the way it would be taken to be meant on most international sites with an international user base/seller base would be that domestic refers to the domestic shipping from the location of the seller/goods relative to the buyer. I.e. domestic shipping is when seller ship from and buyer ship to countries match]
What is the case is that I can list an item with "payment at pickup" and "allow local pickup", but there is in the end no way to actually reflect this at the invoicing stage, unless the buyer is in US. All international users can see that I allow pickup and I am yet to have anyone expecting to pick it up in USA when the item location is Hong Kong!
What is the harm of having "local pick up" listed at the invoicing stage always, regardless where the buyer is located?
@hknumismatics we try to make our sites as accessible as possible, but ultimately every language isn't available on every site. A work around would be to use a translator extension in your internet browser to view HK pages in English.
Our site is not designed for local pickup in a situation like yours (unless the items are listed on the HK site, of course). I appreciate the feedback about including the local pickup option on invoices and it's something I can pass along. Thanks!
@mam98031 wrote:
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.
Hi @mam98031 - the miscategorization of e-books is definitely a problem. It's something that you can report, and we will work to review and remove listings that violate policy.
I hope you're able to find your daughter some nice books for Christmas!
@partsaholic wrote:
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.
Hi @partsaholic - Communication between members is a key part of the eBay buying and selling experience, and we want to keep it as open as possible. But it's important that members feel safe and aren't getting unwanted email or offers from other members. To ensure that buyers and sellers adhere to eBay’s policies and protect their privacy, emails began being intermediated by eBay earlier this month.
Email intermediation is pretty much the standard in most marketplaces and this is not a new paradigm. It offers privacy protection and a safe marketplace to our buyers and sellers.
@pburn wrote:
Just a follow up to the previous post on Seller Metrics.
Do you happen to know how much revenue is generated for eBay from the SNAD penalties assessed to "Very High" service-metrics sellers? Does eBay track how many sellers in that position continue to sell (thereby generating revenue for eBay) versus how many just quit selling because of the monetary disadvantage (thereby losing revenue for eBay)?"Assuming every decision a corporation makes is based on the impact to the bottom line, does eBay track those kinds of results of their seller-metrics policy? Whether the imposition of the monetary penalties is a money loser or a money maker for eBay?
Hi @pburn - I know that this is information that is tracked, but it's not something I have access to, nor would it be information I'd be able to share if I did.
@mam98031 wrote:
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.
Hi @mam98031 - I don't disagree with you. That's why brian@ebay and I have been passing your feedback and input along for the last several weeks. Thanks!
@coffeebean832 wrote:
It took me more than 15 minutes to post my last reply because I kept getting an HTML error for posting a link to the selling forum- then when I correct the post I kept seeing this new post flooding issue- now we can't post more than once every 2 minutes? These Khoros issues are going from bad to worse. Also note that it says "tried" to post- none of them successfully posted because of the HTML error so there was no actual post flooding.
Hi @coffeebean832 - this is something we were told had been corrected, we'll get it re-opened with Khoros. Thanks!
@coffeebean832 wrote:
Hi Brian. There are a few questions that many of us still have on the scrambled e-mail change- apparently I can't post a link to thread on Selling because I keep getting a red error from Khoros. 😡
Thread title for anybody who wants to read the details: Well this is new - buyer e-mails
- Can attachments be sent to the xxxx@members.ebay.com e-mail (example- PDFs with supplemental material to a physical item purchased like diagrams, instruction manuals, patterns, etc)? Or will the attachments get filtered out by eBay's system instead of making it to the buyer's e-mail?
- What about PayPal invoices for things like re-payment after INRs or re-shipping when packages are returned to sender? Can they be sent to the scrambled e-mail address or would we need to contact the buyer through messages to get their actual e-mail for the invoice.
- What about when shipping carriers require the buyer's e-mail for shipping- will the scrambled address work for this or would we need to message the buyer to get their actual e-mail and possibly missing our handling times while we wait for a response. Keep in mind that the carrier will then use that scrambled e-mail to contact the buyer directly.
- If an e-mail is sent to the scrambled e-mail address and eBay blocks it due to whatever filters are in place- will the seller be notified that the buyer didn't get the message?
@coffeebean832 yes, eBay email intermediation supports PDF, DOC, TXT, JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF attachments and a total maximum attachment size of 10 MB.
I don't have an answer for your remaining questions, but I'll send them to the right team to get clarification. Thanks!
