Community Chat Hour - Wed. Sep 5th @ 1 pm PDT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Join The Community Team here at 1 pm today for our chat hour. We don't have a set topic, so feel free to ask us your buying and selling questions. 

Chat with you then! 

[brian@ebay]

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@readabouthorses wrote:

I have a question about setting up the Item Specifics.

In the big picture, how important is the IS for Country/Region of Manufacture?

I ask this because it has been broken in Turbo Lister since around mid July. When trying to choose the country, it only goes from Unknown to India and then stops there. You cannot type anything in the space. I have chosen to just ignore it and not fill it out at all.

Then I got to wondering just how important it was in searches, etc.

Several of us have tried various ways to try to get it fixed but nothing has fixed it, even fixed sent to me by the TL team that responds to the email directly from inside the TL program.

Just curious if it is OK to just ignore that IS or does it really have a function that is important in searches.

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Hi @readabouthorses, the Country/Region of Manufacture is not a required Item Specific, so it's fine to leave that field blank. I don't believe this Item Specific has much of an impact on Best Match results, so it shouldn't have an impact if left blank. As a workaround, you can remove the Country/Region of Manufacture Item Specific from the listing in Turbo Lister by clicking the small red X next to it.

 Click the red X here to remove the Item Specific, then press "add your own Item Specific"

Once removed, you can use the 'Add your own Item Specific' option and create one called 'Country/Region of Manufacture'. Since this is a custom Item Specific, you will be able to type in any country you like as the value.

 Create the new Item Specific and type in the country of your choice

I hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

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@mendelsons wrote:
@mendelsons wrote:
So what is the deal with phone numbers now. Are we as a seller able to provide a buyer our phone number and address in a ebay message if they are looking at coming to pick an item up at our retail store ? If they are out of state and want our contact information are we allowed to give them that information in messages. Its in business and industrial category.

Please advise because I thought I saw something that ebay changed their mind again on this but now I cannot find it in the "rule book"

Thanks,

Rick

Hi @mendelsons, a seller can provide contact information after the purchase has been made as they see fit. Our concern with contact information is with the possibility of a sale being taken off eBay. If the sale has already occurred on eBay, then we have nothing to worry about.



Additionally, some sellers can opt to provide their phone number for questions before purchase is made through the Ask the seller a question feature within their listing. While this is not available to all sellers at this time, those who have the option available are able to turn this on through their account settings.
____________________________________

Please provide the proper response for a buyer then if he/she is asking for our contact information to aid them in the decision of purchasing the item that they stated in messages that they would pick up.

If I was planning on taking the sales off eBay I would not be asking, I'm just trying to sell the item and we are both happy.

Please advise.

Rick

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Hi @mendelsons, if your buyer is interested in purchasing your product and picking it up locally, they should select local pickup as the shipping option from your listing. They can either pay electronically on eBay or elect to pay upon pickup when checking out and then receive contact information from you. If they would like to know where you are located before selecting to pickup locally, they can refer to the item location in your listing to determine if your location is local to them. You would not be able to provide them with an address until checkout is completed, but you may be able to set up for customers to receive your phone number through the Ask the seller a question feature we discussed previously. Double check your account settings for this option. If this is not available, you would need to instruct buyers to complete checkout before you can provide them with contact information.

[Anonymous]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@mendelsons wrote:

So what is the deal with phone numbers now.  Are we as a seller able to provide a buyer our phone number and address in a ebay message if they are looking at coming to pick an item up at our retail store ?  If they are out of state and want our contact information are we allowed to give them that information in messages.  Its in business and industrial category.

Please advise because I thought I saw something that ebay changed their mind again on this but now I cannot find it in the "rule book"  

Thanks,

Rick

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Hi @mendelsons, a seller can provide contact information after the purchase has been made as they see fit. Our concern with contact information is with the possibility of a sale being taken off eBay. If the sale has already occurred on eBay, then we have nothing to worry about. 

Additionally, some sellers can opt to provide their phone number for questions before purchase is made through the Ask the seller a question feature within their listing. While this is not available to all sellers at this time, those who have the option available are able to turn this on through their account settings.

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I understand this, but what confuses me is the new program Ebay is offering that allows buyers to have access to the sellers Phone Number BEFORE a sale.  With the restrictions about contact info in emails, why is Ebay allowing buyer's to have access to the seller's phone number if the seller is participating in the test?  Isn't that potentially a sale off Ebay too?

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Hi @mam98031, great question! We are testing out this process due to the feedback we have received from sellers who need to provide additional service prior to checkout. While contact information is still not allowed in listings or via eBay messages prior to purchase, some sellers can provide a phone number through the Ask the seller a question process if they feel that this will benefit their buyers. We are closely monitoring this feature to ensure that it does not negatively impact our Community.

[brian@ebay]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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brian@ebay wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

I know the issue of disappearing pics have been reported off and on over the last few months.  I'm hear to join in with that issue.  I am starting to see some of my variation listings losing their pics with the exception of the main pic.  

As I'm sure you can imagine, this is a HUGE problem.  For many reasons.  

Now I need to review every variation listing I have posted.

Correct / add pics as needed which can be a lot of pics.

Potentially losing sales as the buyer can't see what they are actually purchasing.

Or potentially a SNAD because the buyer assumed something about the item that would have been noticed in the pic, but the pic was not there.

And so on.

This is a great deal of work.  Why does this issue keep coming back?

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Hi @mam98031, we're happy to look into this and get it reported. Can you provide some example item numbers this has occurred on? That will give us some data to research and send over.

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I've already corrected the ones I've found as I can't wait for Ebay to fix them for me, which isn't likely they could fix them anyway.  

Will giving you those listings numbers be enough or do you need it to be listings I have not corrected?  And if I do it that way, how long will it take for them to fix them as the longer it takes, the less likely I am to have a sale on that listing?

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@mam98031, go ahead and send us some of the item numbers you have already fixed. I can forward those over for review. 

[alan@ebay]

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@vrykalak wrote:

from last time, 29Aug18 #56

alan@ebay wrote:

@vrykalak wrote:
In the new payment plan:
2. Also, eBay will be charging fees to handle the money, and PayPal will also charge fees if a Buyer buys through PayPal. Since all buyers are currently required to buy through PayPal (whether directly or using a credit card that has been linked to PayPal), this seems like a bad deal for everyone.

Hi @vrykalak, 

2. The goal of managed payments is to reduce fees for sellers. Our CEO has advised this publicly many times. Check out the keynote from eBay Open (available at www.ebayopen.com) where managed payments is discussed.  When you're using managed payments on eBay, all of the payments are handled by eBay, so you're not subject to the double charge you mention - you'll just pay the eBay fee. 

Thanks.

If a buyer pays through PayPal, are you saying PayPal will NOT charge their usual fees, which is in addition to whatever fees eBay charges for handling the transaction?

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Hi @vrykalak, that's correct.

All of your fees will be managed on eBay, by eBay. You won't have a separate PayPal charge. 

[alan@ebay]

Thank you all for joining us today. We're working through the last of the questions. We hope you enjoyed this session, we'll see you back here same time next week. 

All the best! ✌️

[Anonymous]

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@rivers9701 wrote:

When eBay flags a bad Zip code, that doesn't necessarily mean the Zip code is bad — it could be that an error in the address is putting it in another Zip code. I always validate addresses with the USPS and have found many errors in my years of selling on eBay. Buyer address validation should be part of eBay's job. Regarding specific examples, I shouldn't do that publicly. Can you tell me whom to contact privately to continue this conversation? Thanks.

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Hi @rivers9701, as I mentioned before, this is something that was passed along to the appropriate team and is being reviewed currently for improvements. While sharing item numbers and zip codes would not pose any account security risks, I will provide you with our email address for examples if you prefer.

[Anonymous]

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@terrycanarsky wrote:

On the topic of shipping and inexplicable glitches lately:

We recently sent a package to Puerto Rico.  The package came back as wrong or incomplete address.  The buyer wrote us, wondering where his item was, and I told him it had been returned.  He double-checked his address registered with eBay and with PayPal - and we both realized that eBay/Pitney Bowes (we print labels directly from eBay) consistently removed an entire section of the address when the label was created!  No matter how many times I tried or even switched the street/street number around, a highly pertinent part was simply dropped.

And yes, the complete address was present until that crucial point.

I ended up having to manually write the information in on the label, and hopefully the item gets to him this time.

Have there been any other similar reports?

~M

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Hi @terrycanarsky, I will provide you with our email to send in information on this example so we can investigate!

[Anonymous]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@terrycanarsky wrote:

On the topic of shipping and inexplicable glitches lately:

We recently sent a package to Puerto Rico.  The package came back as wrong or incomplete address.  The buyer wrote us, wondering where his item was, and I told him it had been returned.  He double-checked his address registered with eBay and with PayPal - and we both realized that eBay/Pitney Bowes (we print labels directly from eBay) consistently removed an entire section of the address when the label was created!  No matter how many times I tried or even switched the street/street number around, a highly pertinent part was simply dropped.

And yes, the complete address was present until that crucial point.

I ended up having to manually write the information in on the label, and hopefully the item gets to him this time.

Have there been any other similar reports?

~M

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In addition to this, Why does Ebay continue to label a sale to Puerto Rico as an international sale?

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Hi @mam98031, we would need more context for this one; some shipping services do not consider Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii to be domestic shipping and we do have options in the shipping exclusion list for sellers who wish to only ship to the continental 48 states. Feel free to send me some specific details and I can look into this further, no problem!

[alan@ebay]

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@scga912 wrote:

alan@ebay

One last thing...

Is there any way that you can get help for that seller and remove the neg regarding the cancellation thing?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/I-got-a-Neg-for-doing-the-right-thing/m-p/28925467#M1279450

It's so undeserved and really eBay's fault he got it.

This is his neg:

"I canceled 2 mins after paying. 1 hr later he says its already ship" 

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Hi @scga912, 

Our team is not able to remove feedback.

I do appreciate the seller shipping the item fast, that is good service. My advice to the seller in this situation would be to contact the buyer again and mention that they noticed they left negative feedback and in the message, they should encourage the buyer to send the item back for a refund (the buyer may have forgotten that they could send it back) Providing good customer service is key. When the buyer is happy with the transaction, the seller can then send the buyer a feedback revision request (link on this page) and the buyer can change the negative feedback into a positive one. 

Thanks. 

[brian@ebay]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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alan@ebay wrote: 
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback on this page. I'm happy to pass this over to the Shipping team for their attention.  

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While we're on the subject, it's been months since the missing Ship From ZIP functionality was pointed out, and they have yet to correct that omission on the new Shipping form. Has there been any progress on that yet? The new Shipping form is not ready for prime time without that functionality in place.

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Hi @a_c_green, while we don't have an update right now, the shipping team is aware that some features are missing from the new form. They are working to add those features going forward. In the meantime, the option to switch to the old form is available to ensure the options sellers need are still available. 

[alan@ebay]

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Also from last week:

I'm running a Discount Oder promo. This does not appear at all on my smart phone (using the ebay app), only my PC. Is that normal? As ebay repeatedly reminds us, a hefty (and constantly increasing) percentage of buyers use smart phones.
ebay does not show our promos to these folks? If that is true, why would ebay not want to show our promos to them?

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Hi @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, 

I've had it confirmed that the promo module you referenced only appears on desktop right now. It is definitely an opportunity to improve the mobile experience in the future. 

Thanks for calling this out. 

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Hello again @my-cottage-books-and-antiques, 

I've just chatted more to the apps team and they have advised that order discount promos do appear in our apps - but only if the offers are engaging well with buyers. So, there is a need to focus on having compelling offers. For example, 25% off offer on a Men’s Clothing category may perform better than a 25% offer on an entire store, if a seller is selling in many disparate categories.

Hope this helps! 😃