Community Chat, December 4 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on December 4th for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. We don't have a set topic this week, so please bring any general questions you may have on buying or selling.

The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread. While no additional questions can be submitted after this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that may still be unanswered.

If you're new to the chat, welcome! Simply Reply to this post with your question from 1-2 PM Pacific Time and we'll be happy to look into it for you.

*Please note that we're not able to address account-specific queries. Questions regarding your account should be direct to eBay Customer Service. 

[Anonymous]

Great to hear yours went well! I made my first Turkey and it came out exactly as I hoped it would 🦃

[tyler@ebay]

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@buyselljack2016 wrote:

Seems that the eBay bucks certificates have been issued for the previous quarter,  but again this time, no notifications that it happened. No account notifications settings have been changed.  I know enough to look, but some buyers do not, and then come here a month or so later wondering what happened.

Why is this happening?

---

Hi @buyselljack2016 - eBay Buck Coupon emails are sent to your eBay Message Center, but I just checked my own personal email and haven't gotten any either (I did get the notice in my eBay messages). I'll get this feedback to the right team involved that we'd like to see them back. Thanks!

[mendelsons]

Had an international buyer today from Brazil ask us a couple questions on a item and then bought it for over $700 with close to $190 for shipping. Heavy item going USPS Priority Mail.

Get a another message after he paid that he wanted us to mark its value at $200 so he didn't have to pay duties, taxes or fees on the $700. We stated we only declare what we sold the item for. Instantly he wants to cancel the sale.

No problem we will cancel if that is what the buyer wants but we are now on the hook for over $40 in PayPal fees that are not refundable when a cancellation goes through. I called eBay to find out what to do but in the meantime the buyer had submitted a cancellation request and somehow it was refunded to him while I was on the phone with eBay discussing this transaction.

Couple things here - are buyers in Brazil able to submit a cancellation within a hour and instantly get refunded ? or is that site wide ? And the thing with the PayPal fees is totally ridiculous as a seller to have to pay for fees in this situation. I was told the fees would be credited back to our account but the thing with these cancellations are going to get costly as a seller.

If the buyer hadn't requested a different value to be declared, would I as the seller be able to agree to cancel the sale if the buyer agrees to pay for the PayPal fees ?

Thanks,

Rick

[mam98031]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Great to hear yours went well! I made my first Turkey and it came out exactly as I hoped it would 🦃

---

So good to hear.  Turkey's aren't as hard to cook as some think.  I just think it is the tradition that scares us when we are first learning how to do it.  But now they have those pop out things to tell us when it is fully cooked.  Believe me before that, it was a bit more difficult to gauge when they were done.

Are you going to try a Ham for Christmas?

[brian@ebay]

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@golfingaddict wrote:

I had a situation return where a buyer chose a faulty reason for return. I filed the report on the buyer refunded them less 25% as the item was open no longer new and the return was closed 

however two things are not clear. 

I have not received credit for the rerun shipping and I still see the case counting in my service metrics. 

can you explain how and when I should see the credit? And when and how will the case be removed from the metrics?

or perhaps I am confused about the policy. 

the case has been closed for a few weeks. 

---

 Hi @golfingaddict, return shipping credits and Service Metric removals take place at the end of the following billing cycle, so it may take several weeks before action is taken. If the case closed towards the end of the your current billing cycle then you may not see action taken until the next billing cycle. 

[a-ipower]

Thanks for this opportunity for letting sellers speak to ebay directly. 

I will try to be as constructive as possible, to list a couple ebay shortcoming on the macro lvl rather than account lvl.

Some critical problems we currently facing are not from selling side, but rather created by eBay, putting much uncalled for stress + labor on both buyers & sellers that can severely impact the experience on both side

1. eBay's account metric system really needs to be looked at, I can't imaging how many good sellers are being punished & force to exit on ebay day after day. you guys run back the metrics for a whole year, for some sellers with volume, it's impossible to make improvement for the next few month to fix a few careless mistakes from month agao.  

Our account is current as good as dead because of this, I made a thread and hope the high up management form ebay(someone capable of reason) would notice this.  

2.  Recent "payment not received" system is terrible, any buyer put an item in chart without checking out would show up as an "order" in seller's tap but as "payment not received", if seller does not open an "item unpaid" case within 7 days, then seller will be charged final value fee as if the item is sold.  

But if seller does open a "unpaid item case" it will **bleep** off buyer, cause confusion to them, they would think they paid for the order then result in many unnecessary message exchange, that's a very very poorly thought out design & procedure created by ebay

3. order #?/record #?:  the sales information inconsistency, when ebay decide to change all record # to "order #" the invoice still have record # on the paper and order # still not correctly implemented on most document, to business owner, it's an operation & accounting nightmare.  

4. "case closed with no seller's resolution" because ebay started take over cases randomly, and some never reached sellers, lose money, time & + one defect, fun thing is, we always have to make appeal.  Usual works, but why the heck seller have to put up with such none sense ?  

5. inflexible system for refund, handle dispute, & metrics etc

[autopiacarcare]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

A few questions about Markdown Manager. I listened to the Weekly Podcast yesterday and decided to take the advice given: Run a sale on items that have been in my store a long time. So, yesterday afternoon, around 4PM, I set up a Sale to begin immediately and run till midnight on Friday. My Sale did not begin immediately. Not even close. At midnight last night, it still had not begun. Apparently, it did begin sometime overnight. Researching this issue, I have found a number of people complaining, both here and on Facebook groups, that sales are not starting at the designated times, and nor are they ending at the designated times. Several people have indicated that CS has told them that we need to assume starting and ending times could be up to 24 hours later than we chose. So someone setting up a one day Flash Sale for Cyber Monday, for example, might find their sale didn't begin until midnight of Cyber Monday....by which time, of course, Cyber Monday is over.

So, a few questions:

As I recall, ebay had at one point, added a Countdown to sales that were ending, telling us the countdown increased conversions because it added a time constraint. As far as I can tell, eBay has removed the Countdown, I presume because it has now become impossible for ebay to reliably count down to the end of a sale, because the sale might end at the designated time, or might not end for another 24 hours. So, we lose out on a tool designed to increase conversions because of this delay.

The bigger issue is: we lose out on the ability to actually manage sales. ebay wants us to promote our stores on social media, and being able to say something like : this Sunday, x % off in my store...can generate interest. But sellers can't rely on ebay to adhere to the seller's designated timeline. That's a REAL problem, with real repercussions (including unhappy buyers who come looking for a sale the seller activated, but which ebay is still "processing". This is creating bad seller AND buyer experiences.

From what I've read, ebay CS has given varied replies on this issue. So, my first question: Is this a known bug, and ebay is working to fix it?  (If so, is there any ETA for a fix? We are already deep into Q4, and apparently this has been an issue for months now.)

Or has eBay decided that 24 hours IS acceptable, and this is the new reality going forward? If so, ebay really needs to add that information into the Promotions flow, so that sellers KNOW what to expect.

eBay has always prided itself on being a tech company. But there is something deeply wrong when a tech company can't provide basic scheduling like this. As sellers, we should be able to RELY on eBay starting and ending sales within the parameters we have chosen. 24 hour leeway on either side of the duration? That is unacceptable. 

---

Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - sorry to hear about the delay on your sale!

With regards to your question:

There is currently a technical issue impacting some members' sales from ending at the stated time, if anyone is experiencing this they should contact CS to be added to the open ticket.

In general, however, it can take up to 24 hours for a markdown to come online and go offline - though usually it is faster. That is currently the way it is intended to be. I think your feedback about making that much more visible to members is valid and I will make sure it's shared. Thanks!

---

Thanks @my-cottage-books-and-antiques for posting this.  tyler@ebay  just to clarify, should we be reporting delays of less than 24 hours to CS as well?

When I and other sellers have reported having delays that are causing issues for us, but are less than 24 hours, the response we have gotten is that this is considered within normal operating expectations and thus not a technical issue to report.

[mam98031]

---

brian@ebay wrote:

---

@golfingaddict wrote:

I had a situation return where a buyer chose a faulty reason for return. I filed the report on the buyer refunded them less 25% as the item was open no longer new and the return was closed 

however two things are not clear. 

I have not received credit for the rerun shipping and I still see the case counting in my service metrics. 

can you explain how and when I should see the credit? And when and how will the case be removed from the metrics?

or perhaps I am confused about the policy. 

the case has been closed for a few weeks. 

---

 Hi @golfingaddict, return shipping credits and Service Metric removals take place at the end of the following billing cycle, so it may take several weeks before action is taken. If the case closed towards the end of the your current billing cycle then you may not see action taken until the next billing cycle. 

---

Even if you don't report the buyer?

[fern*wood]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@maxoptical wrote:

Hello eBay,  

What type of report will you be providing to show the sales tax you paid on our behalf?

Thanks,

John Norman

---

Hi @maxoptical, you can review this information from the reports available within Seller Hub. You just need to select Download report from your manage orders page. From there you can filter and format the document that is created as needed to show sales tax that was collected.

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Will these taxes be displayed in the monthly sales reports plus?

[dhbookds]

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@dhbookds wrote:

Just for info the announcement  of wkly chat, as of 30 sec ago, was not on the selling board.....it is on the Community board, but many aren't used to finding it there...........

---

Hi @dhbookds, sorry about that! Looks like this slipped our minds today. We'll blame the bad weather and not enough coffee. 

---

We all can make mistakes..........and I don't mean to be snarky.......but in business, years ago, we used to use a what was called a tickler file.......  A file set up daily/wkly/monthly in which we put reminders of tasks to be done...........both repeating and special.....  I checked mine once a wk....transferring the tasks to a calendar.  perhaps a younger generation could "do it better" , but perhaps you/ebay could try it.......

[maxoptical]

Brian,

I need more specific instructions,  I just spen 20 minutes and I can't find the report we will all need.   I need to pull a single report showing all sales tax ebay collected and paid on my behalf for the entire year.   I will need this to prepare my taxes next month.  Paypal is putting the tax as income on my 1099K and I need documentation from eBay to deduct this from the income shown on the 1099K.

[alan@ebay]

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@dhbookds wrote:

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@dhbookds wrote:

Just for info the announcement  of wkly chat, as of 30 sec ago, was not on the selling board.....it is on the Community board, but many aren't used to finding it there...........

---

Hi @dhbookds, sorry about that! Looks like this slipped our minds today. We'll blame the bad weather and not enough coffee. 

---

We all can make mistakes..........and I don't mean to be snarky.......but in business, years ago, we used to use a what was called a tickler file.......  A file set up daily/wkly/monthly in which we put reminders of tasks to be done...........both repeating and special.....  I checked mine once a wk....transferring the tasks to a calendar.  perhaps a younger generation could "do it better" , but perhaps you/ebay could try it.......

---

Interesting. I have tried various reminder & to-do tools. Never heard of a tickler file before, I will look into that. 

Thanks. 

[tyler@ebay]

---

@autopiacarcare wrote:

---

tyler@ebay wrote:

---

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

A few questions about Markdown Manager. I listened to the Weekly Podcast yesterday and decided to take the advice given: Run a sale on items that have been in my store a long time. So, yesterday afternoon, around 4PM, I set up a Sale to begin immediately and run till midnight on Friday. My Sale did not begin immediately. Not even close. At midnight last night, it still had not begun. Apparently, it did begin sometime overnight. Researching this issue, I have found a number of people complaining, both here and on Facebook groups, that sales are not starting at the designated times, and nor are they ending at the designated times. Several people have indicated that CS has told them that we need to assume starting and ending times could be up to 24 hours later than we chose. So someone setting up a one day Flash Sale for Cyber Monday, for example, might find their sale didn't begin until midnight of Cyber Monday....by which time, of course, Cyber Monday is over.

So, a few questions:

As I recall, ebay had at one point, added a Countdown to sales that were ending, telling us the countdown increased conversions because it added a time constraint. As far as I can tell, eBay has removed the Countdown, I presume because it has now become impossible for ebay to reliably count down to the end of a sale, because the sale might end at the designated time, or might not end for another 24 hours. So, we lose out on a tool designed to increase conversions because of this delay.

The bigger issue is: we lose out on the ability to actually manage sales. ebay wants us to promote our stores on social media, and being able to say something like : this Sunday, x % off in my store...can generate interest. But sellers can't rely on ebay to adhere to the seller's designated timeline. That's a REAL problem, with real repercussions (including unhappy buyers who come looking for a sale the seller activated, but which ebay is still "processing". This is creating bad seller AND buyer experiences.

From what I've read, ebay CS has given varied replies on this issue. So, my first question: Is this a known bug, and ebay is working to fix it?  (If so, is there any ETA for a fix? We are already deep into Q4, and apparently this has been an issue for months now.)

Or has eBay decided that 24 hours IS acceptable, and this is the new reality going forward? If so, ebay really needs to add that information into the Promotions flow, so that sellers KNOW what to expect.

eBay has always prided itself on being a tech company. But there is something deeply wrong when a tech company can't provide basic scheduling like this. As sellers, we should be able to RELY on eBay starting and ending sales within the parameters we have chosen. 24 hour leeway on either side of the duration? That is unacceptable. 

---

Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques - sorry to hear about the delay on your sale!

With regards to your question:

There is currently a technical issue impacting some members' sales from ending at the stated time, if anyone is experiencing this they should contact CS to be added to the open ticket.

In general, however, it can take up to 24 hours for a markdown to come online and go offline - though usually it is faster. That is currently the way it is intended to be. I think your feedback about making that much more visible to members is valid and I will make sure it's shared. Thanks!

---

Thanks @my-cottage-books-and-antiques for posting this.  tyler@ebay  just to clarify, should we be reporting delays of less than 24 hours to CS as well?

When I and other sellers have reported having delays that are causing issues for us, but are less than 24 hours, the response we have gotten is that this is considered within normal operating expectations and thus not a technical issue to report.

---

Hi @autopiacarcare - at this point in time no. This was confirmed by the Markdown Manager team: it can take up to 24 hours to go online or come offline. If you see delays of less than that it is not considered a technical issue. 

[autopiacarcare]

---

@maxoptical wrote:

Brian,

I need more specific instructions,  I just spen 20 minutes and I can't find the report we will all need.   I need to pull a single report showing all sales tax ebay collected and paid on my behalf for the entire year.   I will need this to prepare my taxes next month.  Paypal is putting the tax as income on my 1099K and I need documentation from eBay to deduct this from the income shown on the 1099K.

---

@maxoptical  - It is my understanding that for this year, this will only be an issue for November and December sales.  Prior to November, the sales tax collected by eBay was a separate transaction between the buyer and eBay not involving the seller, so those amounts will presumably not be in your 1099K because there is no record of them in the seller's PayPal account.

Starting in November, the sales tax has been included in the payment from the buyer to the seller and then deducted from the seller back to eBay.  Those amounts will presumably be included in the 1099K.

So you should be able to download the reports from eBay seller hub for November and December for your records this year and then do that every month going forward to have all records for 2020.

[buyselljack2016]

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@buyselljack2016 wrote:

Seems that the eBay bucks certificates have been issued for the previous quarter,  but again this time, no notifications that it happened. No account notifications settings have been changed.  I know enough to look, but some buyers do not, and then come here a month or so later wondering what happened.

Why is this happening?

---

Hi @buyselljack2016 - eBay Buck Coupon emails are sent to your eBay Message Center, but I just checked my own personal email and haven't gotten any either (I did get the notice in my eBay messages). I'll get this feedback to the right team involved that we'd like to see them back. Thanks!

---

I need to back up, and correct. No certificate notifications have been issued to my accounts at this point.  Past months there have been no notices. (email or message)  Not sere if my messages go back far enough to see when the last time was that notices came in.