Community Chat, Jan 17th @ 1pm PT - General Topics

[alan@ebay]

Hi Community, 

Happy Mid-January! 

Please join The Community Team here for our weekly chat session on Wed. Jan 17th at 1pm Pacific. This thread will be open for questions for 60 minutes, it'll then be locked, and we'll work through answering all eBay-related questions. 

When posting and interacting with others in The eBay Community, please keep our Rules of Engagement in mind. 

Chat with you tomorrow! 

[tyler@ebay]

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@vrykalak wrote:

Problem: not able to get the shipping label page to fill in the price.
CS noticed the reason: the package dimensions hadn't been filled in.
The package dimensions used to be shown on the page where you set up and pay for a label, and probably would have turned red with a big message saying I had to fill in the dimensions, but that information is no longer there.
Please ask the PTB to put it back.

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Hi @vrykalak - thanks for this feedback. I see dimensions are displaying when they have been input along with a weight, but not displaying if they aren't entered. I'm happy to let the right people know you'd like to see it back. Thanks!

[stonevintage]

Hi Alan.  I spent some time on a simple search this morning on active listings (Zippo lighter 1976). My question is on placement of active listings (or how to avoid ending up on the last page).

What DOES NOT seem to matter for listings to get a better placement are the following; detailed description, auction or BIN, free shipping, price range, photo quality, (seller) feedback, TRS+ rating, time remaining or just listed, description keyword order, free returns. This is referring to "Best Match" only (the default search). 

The only thing that I could see that DOES seem to help placement is; items with current bids, regardless of any of the above appear in the top half of page one.  Of course, there is no way to see who may have paid for promo - nevertheless, those auction style with bids rose to the top of the list.

I know what we are told for best listing practices but in reality - time after time (I do these type of searches on actives about 5 times per year), the results show different.  Your thoughts???

[brian@ebay]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

eBay Branded Supplies issue

I have become displeased with the RSC box selection from eBay Branded Supplies. As time goes on the largest RSC box available keeps shrinking. Now the largest boxes are ONLY 12 x 6 x 6 and 10 x 8 x 6. The other sizes are 8x8x8, 8x6x4, 6x4x4. The only larger sizes are form Sellers who have acquired them for their own selling purposes and will not accept and honor the eBay quarterly coupon.

What is needed is a larger footprint RSC box with pre-scored fold lines on the height of the box and if you asked me today what should it be I would say start with the same footprint as the USPS Medium Flat Rate shipping box (14 x 12) with height to 10” and pre-score fold lines at 4”, 6” and 8”.   You don't need to make a ton of different sizes, let the Sellers size them from a few larger offers.  The only cutting required would be down each corner to the desired fold score line … even at the bottom 4” score line the major flaps would basically create what the industry refers to as an FOL box (Full Overlap on the flaps). Extra flaps can be cut off if required but would not have to be.

Below are some pictures showing some issues with the current small size box selections … the last pic shows the small box on top of a USPS Medium Flat Rate box …

Any consideration eBay can give this would be greatly appreciated.

Mr. L

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Hi @mr_lincoln, while there aren't plans for new sizes right now, that's something that could change in the future. I'll be sure to pass your feedback to the appropriate team for consideration!

[zylor4200]

If that is true, that is horrible!

[dcintennessee]

Amen!! That slogan is ridiculous, and looks awful on the bag. I understand changing to a one-color printing process. That's a no-brainer. But keep the logo! 

[terrycanarsky]

General suggestion ('cause I could be here all day with larger issues!):

Recently on my personal buying account, I asked a (new) seller if he combined shipping.  I was bidding on two things of his, both with the same shipping costs, and was interested if they could be shipped together for convenience and maybe savings assuming I won both sales.  He replied he didn't combine --- because he didn't know how!

While we more seasoned sellers may know where to find information, eBay has become a tangled mess lately, especially with the updated format.  Maybe some sort of tutorial for someone listing their first item(s) for sale?  (Or is there one already?)

~M

[mg152]

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@zylor4200 wrote:

@mg152 I am so sorry to hear that, I had a dear pet (cat) die of cancer about 10 years ago and I do feel your anguish. I wish you all the best and certainly hope that the surgery will help and my prayers are with you and your little dog.

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Thank you so much! I’m hoping for the best but bracing for the worst. Really I’m angry. This particular dog goes to the vet every month & no one noticed this lump on her neck. I’ll admit I didn’t notice it until I was changing her collar, it’s just not in a spot where I pet her but the prior vet should’ve noticed before it got so big. I’m no vet. She has various lumps here & there that are harmless but I did not notice this one under her neck. I feel bad about that. She’s only 10. The scary thing is they said it was unstageable, that’s not good. 

[alan@ebay]

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@iolamae wrote:

Hello Sellers,

I just received my eBay branded shipping supplies quarterly coupon.  I clicked to see what boxes were available and it appeared that we are down to only five box choices.  None of the sizes offered cover my needs and being that the coupons actually "expire", I reached out to a customer service manager to see if more options would become available before the March 31st expiration and got this reply.

"In response to your inquiry, we haven't received word from our management or partners that new boxes will be released this quarter".

I then asked to whom should I contact to levy for additional box options and particular size recommendations and got this from the same customer service manager.

"In response to your inquiry, regrettably we don't have a direct contact at eBay currently for feedback/suggestions pertaining to the packaging supplies that are available. As such, you could contact their support representatives through the Help section at the top of any page to have this information passed to the appropriate party. Otherwise, you could also use the eBay forum to begin a discussion as the eBay representative do monitor the threads regularly. Thank you for the opportunity to assist with this question".

So, here I am.  Does anyone have any guidance to offer?  I cannot believe that all of us store subscription holders can be categorized into five box sizes and three tape colors.  Spending $75 every three months on tissue paper and round stickers seems quite silly to me.  There has to be a way to expand this selection.  I would love to hear any and ALL opinions/feedback.

Thank you,

Matt

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Hi Matt/@iolamae, 

Welcome to the Community and thanks for sharing your feedback on the shipping supplies. We regularly see requests in the Community for additional sizes to be added - I am happy to share this with the relevant team here at eBay for their consideration. 

If any other sellers have sizes they'd like to see please share too. 

Thanks. 

[Anonymous]

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@a_c_green wrote:

Hi @Anonymous,

I didn't hear back from you in email regarding your request last week (here) to obtain listing samples from the major toy retailer who's luring eBay customers offsite to their own site, so I just wanted to mention that the sample list of 10 entries (including the listing number and embedded link to the retailer's website page for that product line) is still available if you want it.

I checked all ten sample entries again this afternoon and found that three had sold, so I've replaced them with three other listings for the same product lines that also contain the offsite lure to the retailer's website.

As I said before, not every listing of theirs is attempting this stunt; it seems to be limited to only listings for major brands and product lines (e.g. Fisher-Price, Thomas & Friends), for which they have their own catalog on their own website. They troll for interested customers on eBay, and then bring them in to the catalog on their own website, where the former eBay customer can now purchase that item and/or others direct from them.

The point is not to report 10 individual listings, as the seller has, what, thousands? of listings going at the present time. The point is to basically whack them upside the head to get them to stop doing that as a matter of policy across the board, because the money that they're sucking from eBay by luring your/our customers elsewhere is money that has to be offset by higher fees and other unpleasantness that might be alleviated, a little, if someone higher up at eBay would just crack the whip and tell the customer to knock it off. If they're going to list here like everyone else, they should also sell here like everyone else.

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Hi @a_c_green, so sorry I didn't get back to you sooner! While I am not able to go into much detail on another member's account, I can assure you that the reported examples have been passed along to the appropriate teams and we taking action to ensure compliance with our policies. Considering the volume of listing templates that may need to be adjusted, please allow some time for review and adjustments.

To be clear, links to outside websites are considered a violation of our policy. As with any seller, we do allow for an appropriate amount of time for changes to be made. For some sellers this could be a few days and for others it would be reasonable to allow for a few weeks if they have thousands of listings or more that need to be reviewed. 

[rosevelyn]

Does ebay still have a “Seller Insights” team or a team of people who can step into the intellectual shoes of an ebay seller who I may discuss matters with? I used to communicate with members of Jordan Sweetnam’s team  when he was head of Seller Insights. They were able to put the legal talking points aside and get to the nitty gritty of what can be done to improve the selling experience.

Shouldn't RJ Pittman's team be accessible to sellers to answer questions?

[mg152]

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alan@ebay wrote:

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@mg152 wrote:

I’m so sorry Alan, off topic again but I have to say Thank You to my eBay friends again for their support while my little dog is going through cancer. I haven’t been around much lately so much going on but I have to acknowledge you guys support. I truly woukd be lost without you all. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! My little one is having cancer surgery Feb 7. Please pray! You all know my dogs are my kids these days & I love them so much!

Thanks Alan for letting me speak here!

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Oh no, @mg152! I am so sorry to hear this. Dogs are my favorite thing in the world. Sending positive vibes for a quick recovery!!! 

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Thank you! We need positive vibes for sure. 

[dtexley3]

I have a different request today!!! (But please don't forget that we are losing sales because buyers can't request invoice/totals for too many reasons).

When sending a message to a buyer you can only attach image formats, please consider adding PDF to the allowed file types.  When shipping labels are created, both on eBay and through 3rd party vendors they save as PDF files.  Sending a screen shot usually results in an unusable label.  

If there is a concern about the amount of information restrict the file size to a reasonable amount.  

I would like to have the information go through eBay messaging so I have PROOF that I have supplied a label.  Currently I'm unable to do that.  

Thanks!

[a_c_green]

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@Anonymous wrote:

How does this involve eBay? While this problem appears to be specific to the Sacramento to Arizona route, there are thousands of eBay sellers in northern California, and thousands of buyers in Arizona. Who knows, a similar situation may be occurring in other parts of the country. If it's happening on this particular route, it's certainly possible it could happen in another route.

We need to get this USPS tracking problem fixed ASAP. It makes no sense to continue worrying buyers with incorrect tracking information and creating needless hassle and INR cases for sellers just because of a simple technical error.

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Correct me if I'm out of date on this, but one related technical glitch on the eBay site that's aggravated by this is the less-than-skillful handling of the tracking data. If you click on a tracking number (such as in your Purchase History listing) to see the tracking progress of your package, the popup history that's displayed will only show tracking entries up to the point that a "DELIVERED" status is found, and it does not seem to look for or display any entries beyond that point.

This means that if the package was scanned by mistake as Delivered instead of Accepted at the outset, later scans showing normal progress will not appear in eBay's tracking display. The only way to see that the package was not really "Delivered" in the seller's hometown is to go to usps.com and view the tracking there. Any eBay buyers who take the eBay display (which shows nothing but a Delivered status in the wrong town) as accurate will instead promptly freak out and file Item Not Received disputes.

The solution is to do a much better job of parsing the tracking data that the eBay page obtains from usps.com for the selected tracking number. It needs to see whether there are any later entries in the scan history beyond the "Delivered" scan, and if so, whether that indicates that the package is still en route and the "Delivered" scan is in error. This is especially likely if the ZIP code of the "Delivered" scan matches the "Ship from ZIP" code of the Shipping label that was printed, or the ZIP code of the seller.

[vrykalak]

Problem: USPS page often doesn't show item scan for one or more days after it has been scanned by our local post office. This has happened to about 1 of 3 packages, so it isn't a generic problem with the way they are scanned...that's always the same.
Sometimes, the original acceptance scan NEVER shows up. The first entry under USPS tracking is when it arrives at a sorting station.
Our local post office is aware of the problem, and have started posting "USPS is in possession of this item" to the USPS site, to ensure that credit is given for on-time shipping. But this shouldn't be necessary.
Can anything be done to deal with this on eBay's side? Can eBay somehow "encourage" USPS to be more prompt in acknowledging when items enter the system?
Alternatively, knowing this is a problem, can eBay be a little more friendly about acknowledging proof of on-time shipping, and removing undeserved late shipping dings?

[golfingaddict]

In the past few months, we have had many postal holidays.  During each holiday, the shipping dates in the Seller Hub have been quite mixed up.

On Sunday I had about 25 orders.  All of my listings are 1 day handling.  For those orders on Sunday, about half of them said that I should ship on Jan 16 and about half said I should ship on Jan 17.

Actually, all of them needed to be shipped on Jan 16 to meet my one day handling. 

There was no pattern to why these have different ship dates and this has happened on all of my seller IDs and it has happened for the holidays in November, December and January.  (Multiple holidays each month)

I have to wonder why the seller hub is not reporting these ship dates accurately and then I have to wonder how it affects shipping time, shipping estimates, guaranteed delivery and my seller status.

To repeat: ALL of my listings are 1 day handling and I ship all of my items in 1 day, no matter how confused ebay and seller hub is.   

We have asked this before, but could someone explain how and why this is happening and is there a fix in place to get it right?  I am learning to not trust information in Seller Hub.  I don't think that is why ebay created the seller hub.