eBay

alan@ebay · ‎12-04-2019

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.

Alan - eBay Community Manager

If a member's response helped, please give it a Helpful. If you are the author of a thread and a member's response resolved your question, please click "Accept as Solution." More on Accepted Solutions.

Check out the eBay for Business podcast! For your chance to be featured on the show, call in with a question at 888 723-4630!

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎12-04-2019

Tyler,
If my sale does not end at the stated time, I will add my name to the open ticket, per your suggestion.

I also appreciate that you will forward my suggestion about making the 24 hour time frame clear to sellers.

But ....the idea that a 24 hour time frame is acceptable to eBay...that a 24 hour window is by design, not a design flaw.....that is both astonishing and depressing. eBay is, and has been for years, my platform of choice. My partner, so to speak. And as sellers, we need a partner we can rely on. I have a one day handling time. That is my promise to my buyers. My buyers can rely on me to ship within one business day. I do not promise them "one day handling, but, oh, it might take me another 24 hours after that day is over to actually get your package to the PO."

I don't pretend to understand the tech issues that may be involved in ensuring that the time we schedule is actually the time a sale begins and ends. But I do know ebay puts itself forward as a tech company, a Silicon Valley pioneer, and it scares me a little to see that a tech company that touts its AI, its Image Recognition, and so forth, as top flight tech., that this same company can't be relied upon to begin and end a sale at the designated time?

Tyler, I don't really expect you to respond to this part of my post, but I do hope when you take my suggestion to the team, about making the 24 rule visible.....you also point out to them that the very existence of the 24 hour rule itself is just one more reason some sellers are losing confidence in ebay as our preferred platform. Maybe, just maybe, they'll reconsider their position on this issue.

Anonymous · ‎12-04-2019

@mendelsons wrote:
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

Hi @mendelsons, a couple of points to touch on here; first, I want to confirm that marking the package with a different value is considered customs fraud, so you did the right thing saying you wouldn't comply with their request to lower the value. Second, the PayPal fees are something you would need to discuss with PayPal directly, as we are not able to review those for potential credits. Third, I'll look into this example to see what happened with the cancellation and touch base with you when I have more information. Lastly, any partial refund amount (to compensate for lost fees) would need to be agreed upon with the buyer directly, and only a full refund can be issued through a cancellation on eBay so you would need to refund directly through the transaction if you and the buyer reach an agreement.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎12-04-2019

Alan, We've just been through what is commonly considered the real kick off to Holiday Sales: Black Friday, Small Biz Saturday, Cyber Monday, etc.....I looked at ebay's YouTube channel, and I see no new videos for this all important time period. Am I missing something? Maybe I'm on the wrong YouTube channel?

autopiacarcare · ‎12-04-2019

tyler@ebay wrote:
@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.

Thanks for that confirmation tyler@ebay . It's not what I want to hear, but I appreciate the direct answer.

Hopefully you all who represent eBay staff here as well as the CS people we speak to on the phone can understand why a delay of 15 hours could be just as detrimental to sellers as one that is 25 hours.

These delays are causing very real problems for sellers, and while it may be considered within normal expectations according to the UA, it is definitely not the experience many of us have had prior to just a few months ago.

Maybe whatever issue they are addressing with end time delays will improve things across the board, but until then, those of us who are experiencing delays are stuck in a very frustrating place with a tool that use to work well for us being rendered much less effective if not almost unusable.

tyler@ebay · ‎12-04-2019

@buyselljack2016 wrote:

tyler@ebay wrote:

@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.

Hi @buyselljack2016 - will you let me know a bit more about what you mean? It looks like you should have received an eBay center message (it would have come around the 1st or 3rd of October). I've included a screenshot of my last one for reference. Thanks!

Tyler,

Anonymous · ‎12-04-2019

@mam98031 wrote:

@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?

I agree, the turkey wasn't as hard as I would have thought. As for Christmas, I'm not a fan of ham personally, so I usually do a pot roast

mam98031 · ‎12-04-2019

@Anonymous wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
@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?
I agree, the turkey wasn't as hard as I would have thought. As for Christmas, I'm not a fan of ham personally, so I usually do a pot roast

Come on over for Christmas dinner [Christmas Eve], I may very well change your mind about that ham !!!!

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

mendelsons · ‎12-04-2019

@mendelsons wrote:
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
Hi @mendelsons, a couple of points to touch on here; first, I want to confirm that marking the package with a different value is considered customs fraud, so you did the right thing saying you wouldn't comply with their request to lower the value. Second, the PayPal fees are something you would need to discuss with PayPal directly, as we are not able to review those for potential credits. Third, I'll look into this example to see what happened with the cancellation and touch base with you when I have more information. Lastly, any partial refund amount (to compensate for lost fees) would need to be agreed upon with the buyer directly, and only a full refund can be issued through a cancellation on eBay so you would need to refund directly through the transaction if you and the buyer reach an agreement.

______________________

Thanks for the response. As to the part where we as the seller can ask the buyer for the PayPal fees the seller is out if they issue a refund. Should this or can this be mentioned in the Payment Details - to point it out after the fact.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎12-04-2019

If I go to

Manage My Store: Summary

At least two links there are not working "Promotional Flyer" and " Write a Guide" ....this has been true for a long time. It is way past time for ebay to update this page. I've seen sellers asking about using both these things, and of course they can't. So why are there still links for non-existent features? Please get this corrected.

vrykalak · ‎12-04-2019

@Anonymous wrote:
@mendelsons wrote:
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
Hi @mendelsons, a couple of points to touch on here; first, I want to confirm that marking the package with a different value is considered customs fraud, so you did the right thing saying you wouldn't comply with their request to lower the value. Second, the PayPal fees are something you would need to discuss with PayPal directly, as we are not able to review those for potential credits. Third, I'll look into this example to see what happened with the cancellation and touch base with you when I have more information. Lastly, any partial refund amount (to compensate for lost fees) would need to be agreed upon with the buyer directly, and only a full refund can be issued through a cancellation on eBay so you would need to refund directly through the transaction if you and the buyer reach an agreement.

In my experience, a buyer can't leap up and cancel an order.
The buyer has to ask the seller to cancel it.
Has this changed?

brian@ebay · ‎12-04-2019

@a-ipower wrote:

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

Hi @a-ipower,

1. We announced Service Metrics in the Summer 2018 Seller Update and you'll find more information there about some of our reasoning for this change. In short, we believe this system helps a diverse population of sellers see how they compare to their peer groups and in what areas improvements can be made.

2. Our Shopping Cart does not work the way you have described. Adding an item to the cart does not count it as an order and will not cause it to show as payment not received. If the buyer commits to buy an item by using the "Request total from seller" button within the shopping cart (this will alert them that they are committing to buy the item if they continue with the request total feature) then it will become an order. They buyer will then need to make payment, though immediate payment won't be required if they used the request total from seller feature. These buyers are warned that they are committing to buy the item, so they are aware of the expectation to pay.

3. Thanks for your feedback about this! The appropriate teams are aware that the order number is not currently displaying everywhere and are working to make updates as time goes on.

4. There are times when a return may be automatically approved, as explained int he Summer 2018 Seller Update, and it sounds like this is what you referring to. In these situations the seller would need to refund the buyer within the specified timeframe, otherwise the a refund may be automatically given to the buyer.

Aside from the above situation, the only time eBay will make a decision on the end result of a case is if we are asked to step in by either the buyer or seller. If we have to resolve a case due to a seller not doing so, then it would result in a case closed with no seller resolution.

Brian,
Community Team

vrykalak · ‎12-04-2019

I would like to see a BOO option available on the chat page.
When the answer to a serious question basically says "you are stupid" or "we don't care" I'd like to be able to BOO it.

eleanor*rigby · ‎12-04-2019

alan@ebay wrote:
@dhbookds wrote:
alan@ebay wrote:
@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.

alan@ebay

@dhbookds

Did it look something like this?

mam98031 · ‎12-04-2019

I have suggested before and I'll do it again now. IMHO Ebay should enable sellers to be able to charge a modest cancellation fee on buyer requested cancellations. A small 3.5% fee would enable sellers to break even on the PP fees that we can't get refunded. Just on cancellations that have had payment submitted via PP at the time of the request to cancel.

I know it is different for those in MP. But for the rest of us, these fees are going to add up over the year. It would be nice if Ebay would see fit to offer us a little relief in this matter.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

brian@ebay · ‎12-04-2019

@mam98031 wrote:

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?

Hi @mam98031, the process we are discussing is in regard to sellers reporting a false Not As Described return. Sellers do need to report these to receive the return shipping credit and removals of Service Metrics.

Brian,
Community Team