Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on January 22nd 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 about buying or selling.
The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close thread from additional responses. After this time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might 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 directed to eBay Customer Service.
@maxoptical wrote:
I ship 90 percent of my shipments UPS Ground and I am having an issue with eBay telling my customer the shipment will take 3-5 days when in reality UPS is GUARANTEES 1 day delivery. This is a huge problem as I am losing sales due to extended false estimated shipping times. I have enclosed examples showing UPS Guaranteed delivery dates and eBay estimated delivery dates.
Talking with some eBay reps they have told me UPS Ground is not GUARANTEED, but this is wrong information. UPS Ground to the same zone is Guaranteed by UPS to be one day delivery. This is confirmed by UPS management, my UPS sales rep and documentation on the UPS web site.
I need help getting this resolved.
John Norman
Hi @maxoptical, thanks for sharing these examples! I don't have an answer as to why it's showing these estimates, but I will share these examples with our tech team for review.
@automotivepartsrecyclrs wrote:
Buyer Requirements:
We can select some requirements.
How about being able to block:
Buyers who leave X amount of negative feedbacks?
Buyers who have a few too many returns?
Buyers with ZERO feedback maybe having to contact a seller prior to purchase?
Also
Why not make it so a buyer MUST check their mailing address IF they have not purchased in say 90 days?
Hi @automotivepartsrecyclrs - thanks for sharing your ideas! Ultimately we want your items to cast as wide a net as possible when it comes to potential customers - so we want to ensure that any requirements or blocks that can be applied are as fair as possible to both parties. To that end I'm not sure we'll see requirements focused around feedback number, negative feedback left or return rate. We have internal processes in place to identify and escalate accounts we consider abusive - and we take various actions from limiting their ability to participate in auctions to being suspended from the site.
I do think there's merit in asking buyers to confirm their mailing address if they haven't purchased in a certain amount of time. Currently they are able to view and change their ship-to address at checkout, but some sort of pop up or notification that encouraged them to double check wouldn't hurt. Thanks!
@coffeebean832 wrote:
tyler@ebay wrote:
@fern*wood wrote:
I've been trying to print my quarterly sales information for my income tax preparation for the last two days and it has been unavailable. Is ebay still supporting Sales Reports Plus?
Hi @fern*wood - there's currently a technical issue impacting some members who aren't able to access Sales Reports Plus. I've added your account to the open ticket.
In the meantime, the workaround suggestion is to use the Report option in the Orders section of Seller Hub to at least make sure you can capture all the sales data for the last quarter. Thanks!
When I try to access Sales Reports Plus I get the "it's not you, it's us" error page. Is that the same technical issue being discussed above?
@vrykalak wrote:
Hi @vrykalak, I believe we have discussed this before, but there is a switch that you can set that says don't show me any results that don't contain all of my keywords. You can find this in the Advanced search options, here: https://www.ebay.com/sch/ebayadvsearch.
Hi @vrykalak, check out the screenshots below for reference:
@gwzcomps wrote:
tyler@ebay wrote:
@gwzcomps wrote:
Followup from last week and your statement:
"From an order of operations standpoint, an eBay Money Back Guarantee request is going to trump a stated return policy. While a buyer is not allowed to make a false claim, without evidence that they have abused our system we'd see this as an assumption and wouldn't invalidate their coverage from our protection program. "
If this is true then why aren't we still protected on blatantly obvious false claims regardless of return policies?
In my eyes these mishandling of policies consistently demonstrate one thing. eBay only cares about what the buyers do if it hurts eBay's bottom line. eBay is not concerned with the seller's losses despite what lines we are spoon-fed. Despite what eBay wants to think, the sellers are the ones paying the fees and keeping your lights on.
If eBay is actually committed to improving the quality of buyers then prove it by enforcing your polices in these situations:
- Dealing with buyers that make multiple accounts to circumvent blocks.
- Dealing with buyers that make multiple accounts to circumvent site policy violations.
- Dealing with buyers that somehow are magically able to circumvent buyer requirements settings.
- Dealing with buyers that file false claims.
#1 & #2 Do the same account verification and linking you do to buyers as you do sellers. Make it so we only have to block one ID to block all linked accounts.
#3 Never got an answer from CS but I don't know how some buyers are getting around people's buyer requirements without changing to a different account.
#4 Yes I know you guys have claimed buyers who file false claims get dealt with. Give us proof. Either give us a way to use the buyer requirements to stop them from making purchases from us or remove the strikes on our service metrics on all provable false claims.
In the middle of being sick so hopefully this is coherent and intelligible.
Hi @gwzcomps - thanks for your insights into ways we could change to make you feel more secure! I'll make sure they are shared with the right teams.
With regards to your first question: there isn't anything that we would consider blatantly obvious, since most things are subjective. Something we would consider blatant is if we see that there is a pattern of abuse from a buyer. Otherwise, if you as a seller qualify for protections by offering free returns or are a Top Rated seller offering 30 day returns you are able to report the buyer for us to review and to grant you access to issue a less than full refund as well as protect your seller performance (as you know).
Pretty blatantly obvious when a buyer opens a case saying a part is missing when the listing clearly said it wasn't included.
Hi @gwzcomps - for the purposes of our returns and protection programs, we wouldn't consider this blatantly obvious.
@medallion-trading-company wrote:
Why would I issue a full or voluntary refund on an item that the buyer didn't return back to me. So that doesn't make sense. They opened the returned, realized they were wrong and never sent the item back. Refunding wasn't even a question. The case was obviously closed out in my favor because they buyer didn't return it. So it is an impossibility for me to have done what you suggested.
Second, on the first return I contacted eBay ALL THE WAY THROUGH the process. And I voluntarily issued the refund, so I met both criteria there. I was told by ebay to add the picture of the length when I issued the refund. I did that.
Can I please get these removed?
@medallion-trading-company, these protections are specifically for returned items that are altered/used or falsely claimed as not as described. These protections were never intended to cover items that aren't returned to the seller and as such items that aren't returned do not fall under these protections. In situations where a return is accepted and the buyer does not send it back within the specific time frame to the seller then the normal seller protection will apply, which is to close the return in the sellers favor.
I apologize if Customer Service didn't mention that you must report the buyer within the return flow for the enhanced protections to apply. For the return in which a report wasn't sent within the return flow, I suggest that you go to the return now and submit a report against the buyer for falsely claiming not as described.
@coffeebean832 wrote:
brian@ebay wrote:
Hi @medallion-trading-company, I'm happy to clarify the enhanced protections for Top Rated sellers. There are two things sellers must do for the enhanced protections to apply.
First, the seller must issue a voluntary full or partial refund. If eBay is asked to step in and resolve a return (as you described happening on your second return) then the enhanced protections no longer apply.
Second, the seller must report the buyer within the return flow for either misusing the Not As Described reason or for using/altering an item.
Brian, for clarification- if the buyer is reported from the Seller Hub Orders page or from the eBay help page- or even by contacting CS to submit a report- does that mean seller protections would not apply? The report must be done through the return flow?
Hi @coffeebean832, a report must be filled on the eBay website by the seller. Reporting a buyer within the return is generally the easiest way to do this, which is why it's the one I mentioned. However, reporting a buyer through the Seller Hub - Order page or Seller Help would be fine. Calling customer support to report a buyer is not the proper avenue to report a buyer in these situations as it will not result in the enhanced protections being applied.
@medallion-trading-company wrote:
I called eBay throughout the entire process and was told to add a picture to the return when I issued the refund. I don't think that was is being suggested here even exists and if it does, nobody at eBay knew about it when I was requesting assistance.
To be honest, I've yet to see these 'extended protections' be applied in any situation and nobody seems to know how to make it happen. And I've seen my share of the road on this. It's and impossible scenario with no promised outcome.
Hi @medallion-trading-company, uploading an image is not a requirement for the enhanced protections, we just need a report to be filed through the site and a partial/full refund to be issued. Customer service should have mentioned this to you, so I apologize that that wasn't the case. You'll find more information about the Top Rated seller protections here.
