Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on July 10 for our Weekly Chat with eBay Staff. No set topic for the week, so feel free to share any general buying and selling questions you have.
The chat will be open for questions from 1-2 pm PT, at which point we'll close it down for additional questions and continue to work on responding to any remaining queries.
If you are new to the chat, welcome! Simply reply to this post with your question after 1 pm and we'll be happy to look into it 
1 BEST ANSWER
Accepted Solutions
Below you will find a recap of our Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team for July 10, 2019. We hope to see you at our next chat!
Technical issues
In the past when you went to a variation listing, when no variation was pre-selected the listing would show you the total number of items available across all variations. Once you selected an option from the drop down the quantity would change to reflect what's available for that specific variation. Now you go to a variation listing with no variation pre-selected and it only shows you the available quantity for the first variation (with stock) in the list.
This is a known issue that is being worked on currently, as we should be showing the total number of items if no variation is yet selected.
I had a buyer message me on June 28th stating he was trying to make a purchase, but he kept getting a message that the seller wasn't accepting payments at this time. I contacted eBay to see if this is a problem. They say there was an issue in May but it had been fixed. My buyer says that the problem is still happening, and several others on the PowerSeller board are encountering the same thing. What can be done about this?
We don't see any issues on your end or the buyer's that would have prevented payment. There were some checkout issues reported on the 28th of May that could have been a factor, but these were resolved on that day. If you are contacted by a buyer who is having difficulty paying the best course of action for them is to contact us via phone or social media (Twitter or Facebook). We can help them sort out what the issue could be.
Last week I found two more items that were in both the Active and Relist pages. That makes 8 in the last couple of months. That never happened before this year. What has changed?
To troubleshoot this we would need to see an item while active and while it appears in the Unsold - Relisted / Not Relisted section. It may be best to contact customer support when you see this again so that they can look into it and get it reported.
I had issues making a one-time-payment with my credit card. I tried for two days and kept getting an error message telling to try again later. Is there a glitch processing credit cards that's causing these problems?
There is a known issue related to paying selling fees at this time. We’ve added your account to the investigation.
In general, however, the most common reasons we see payments fail is because PayPal is declining the funding instrument.
1) If you are experiencing an issue making a payment, please check your PayPal account to make sure the default funding source is set up, valid, and not expired.
2) You may need to contact PayPal directly as well.
3) If issue persists please try an alternate payment method.
I've been trying off and on for a couple months now to change the CC on file for my monthly payments, but it won't let me. The message says there is something wrong with my CC number.
We haven’t seen many reports of this, but a possible workaround is to try the same process from the Canadian site (www.ebay.ca).
Returns
Is there any plan to extend the number of categories that can allow a seller to give a partial refund on a return? I am not given the opportunity for giving a partial refund on items that come back to me used or broken (not the way they originally received it) in the Health & Beauty category.
If you offer free returns you will be able to provide less than a full refund if your buyer altered or damaged the item in some way. This is not category specific and is outlined in our Seller Protection Help Page and our Spring 2018 Seller Update.
I received a request for return and may need to deduct some money from the refund and the only thing I saw was a button that said "issue refund" the same way it always looked. I didn't want to click on it because I did not know if the partial refund option would be there or not.
You are able to issue a partial refund from your Manage Returns page in Seller Hub, you can select the ‘Issue refund’ option to the left of the item. You’ll be taken to a screen where you can specify the refund amount. Because a refund is only issued once you confirm the refund amount by selecting the blue button in the lower right corner that says Refund the buyer.
Listing an item
I tried to relist an item and was told the category I had listed in was no longer available. When I selected another category, the Condition and Item Specifics from the previous listing were all erased and had to be re-entered. Why is this?
Item Specifics data is tied to specific categories. This means that item specifics cannot carry over when the category is changed so this information will need to be filled out again. We’ve addressed this in previous chats (link here if you’d like to review). While there may be some categories that share the same item specifics fields, the internal data is not the same between categories and cannot be carried over when categories are changed.
I recently tried to relist two almost identical items. One had the error ‘Need to specify at least one payment method’, the other didn't. How does the payment method disappear from an item that has been listed dozens of times in the past, including less than a month ago?
Typically payment information shouldn't need to be re-entered when doing a relist. However, if the listing has been relisted a high number of times then there is a slight possibility that some information would need to be filled out again. It's definitely not common, but it is possible. To minimize this possibility you can utilize the Good Til Cancelled listing duration, or list the item from scratch quarterly.
When I look at the Feedback page, I see about half of the items are marked as "Private" and the title of the item is not shown. Three questions:
- I never deliberately mark anything as private. How does this happen?
If it was checked in the past and relisted, the setting would remain. If you used Sell Similar from a listing that had this option selected this would have happened as well. This may have been simply been a mistake on your part, but would not have been something eBay selected on your behalf.
- How do I find out which listings have this setting? How can I turn it off? I don't see anything on the bulk editing page.
You would need to evaluate your listings on a case by case basis. You can use the Bulk Edit tool to check by going through the ‘Format and Duration’ option, and selecting ‘Edit Listings Individually’ from the drop down. That will cycle you through each item involved and allow you to see if the box is checked, and you can uncheck it from there.
- Why would "Private" setting, which is supposed to keep buyer information private, cause the item title and listing number to be blocked?
The setting is designed for buyers to remain anonymous to other eBay users. This includes the item number and title so that anyone looking at their profile cannot see what they have received feedback for. This is useful for buyers who want to keep sensitive purchases private, sellers who want to mask their sourcing habits, or anyone trying to keep a surprise gift a surprise.
Selling Tools
When the Seller Initiated Offers feature was first available, I seem to recall a place where you could enter "quantity". Is there a reason why this is not available anymore?
We’re not sure exactly why the Number Of Items field was removed, but do recall that it caused some confusion among sellers. We want as many buyers as possible to be able to accept an offer. For multi quantity listings, several buyers can accept an offer when the quantity is 1 per offer. We’ve sent on your feedback that you’d like to see the option return!
Is volume pricing discounts available for multi-variation listings?
Volume pricing does not currently support variation listings.
Are promotions available for non store sellers?I realize that these features are still new, but it would be nice to see.
Promotions (such as markdowns and volume pricing) are only available to Store subscribers. Promoted Listings are available to all sellers.
One time and monthly payments
When a seller goes to pay the eBay fees using the one time payment option it now defaults to the total due including all new fees that have come in after the billing cycle. There are no other options to input just the fees that are currently due. Is this a planned change?
The One Time Payment flow was moved to a new environment, that's a planned change. However, you are still able to make partial payments by clicking beside the "payment amount" on the new landing page (screen cap below). It is not clear that you can do so, and we've given that feedback to the design team for a future enhancement as it should be more intuitive.
If I just let the auto payment go to the predetermined date is it going to make payment for just the amount due or the entire amount that has accumulated?
Autopay will only charge invoiced amounts. If you are invoiced $100, auto-pay will only bill that amount to your payment method, unless you've made one-time-payments to reduce that amount. Please note that if you make a one-time-payment within 7 days of your bill date there is a chance that it will not update in time.
On-eBay sales
On a sale with Local Pick up, once the purchase has been made is it okay to have both Buyer and Seller exchange personal information, address, phone number, etc. in eBay Messaging?
Yes. Once a buyer commits to purchase the item and it appears in their Purchase History and the sellers Sold section, contact information (address, phone number, etc.) can be shared without penalty.
Additionally, messages will not be blocked or censored by eBay, correct?
Messages should not be blocked or censored under the circumstances stated above.
Follow up
Last week I mentioned that I have an ongoing issue with Concierge Customer support promising me on multiple occasions to take care of an issue. You promised that you would look into it last week and I have not heard back from anyone and the problem remains. Did you look into it and is anyone going to get back to me?
We’ve been in touch with Concierge support who promised to contact you. We’ll reach back out and let them know you haven't heard back yet.
Following up from June 26 chat - what did you find out?
We got those questions and input to marketing and PR, and haven't heard back but we have some suggestions on how you can participate in an unofficial capacity.
Join the conversation via social media: promoting your items across your business’ social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc) in advance of the sale can help drive traffic. In addition, using the same hashtags will make sure your posts are part of the larger conversation.
Consider a promotion that aligns with the same time frames: Promotions Manager is a great tool to market your items, as you know. A shipping, order discount or other promotion is a great way to join in on the larger traffic anticipated for the sale days.
Reward your regulars with a codeless coupon: Consider sending a store newsletter with a personalized message and a codeless coupon campaign to coincide with the Crash Sale.
Can you please reach back out and push for an answer to the last part? It's hard to capitalize on the sale when we're not notified in advance what inventory would tie-in to eBay's deals and benefit the most from running promotions.
While specifics regarding the Crash Sale deals are not available, there's a number of announced deals (items and categories) here. If we receive further input we’ll update it here.
A free return item came back damaged by the buyer but the system did not show the option to send a less-than-full refund. Every other free return item has presented the option of sending a full refund- or refunding with a percent deducted.
There are some rare instances where a partial refund cannot be issued (most commonly when an eBay Voucher or eBay Bucks were used in the original transaction) but we should have some options to help resolve these situations. We will take a look at the return you are discussing and see what might be going on.
Suggestions
Would eBay consider getting rid of the Buy It Now button on fixed price listings?
The option to checkout directly from the listing or to add items to a cart is standard across many online marketplaces so removing an option may lead to confusion. Definitely something we can look into further though for potential improvements however.
Forcing all customers into the shopping cart would be less confusing for buyers and a great improvement for sellers like me who have frequent multi-item orders and rules set up to combine shipping automatically.
If your listings already offer a discount, an invoice could not be requested since a discount is already being applied. Any combined shipping discounts you offer should automatically apply and a total would not need to be requested. If a buyer chooses ‘Buy it Now’ instead of using the cart it will bypass your shipping discount rules.
This displays on my single item listings.
Note there is no mention of using the cart to have these discounts applied. Maybe a good start would be to add "when using the cart" ?
We tested this in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer browsers and see the wording ‘When you add to the cart’. Feel free to start a thread about this topic and share the browser you are using, along with the browser version, the item number, and any other information that may be relevant so we can look into why you’re seeing something different.
There has been an awful change to variation listings.
In the past when you went to a variation listing, when no variation was pre-selected the listing would show you the total number of items available across all variations. Once you selected an option from the drop down the quantity would change to reflect what's available for that specific variation.
This changed a couple of months ago. Now you go to a variation listing with no variation pre-selected and it only shows you the available quantity for the first variation (with stock) in the list. This is very misleading to buyers.
Before I realized this changed, I passed up on several sellers' listings because I thought they didn't have the quantity I wanted. I looked at a listing with no variation selected, and it showed a quantity of 1 available. Not wanting to waste my time I moved on to another seller because I wanted to buy multiple colors. If I knew the seller had 40+ available across variations and it was just the first option that had 1 available, then I would have spent time browsing their stock and made a purchase.
I pulled a listing out of search to demonstrate. When I clicked on this listing from search results it showed me only 2 items were available - note that no variation is pre-selected.
When you click the drop-down you will see that more than a dozen variations have stock and when added up there are actually more than 40 available across all colors.
It's just the first option in the list that has only 2 available:
When you view other colors you see larger quantities:
The listing should be showing 40+ available when no option is selected in the drop-down. When it shows only 2 available buyers will leave the listing and not even notice there are more.
Can you please let us know if this is a permanent change or a site bug and can you open a help ticket if applicable or persuade the team to change it back? Thanks.
Following up from June 26 chat - what did you find out? 
Maximizing Sales From Sitewide Promotions
Mid-July brings with it a big summer retail moment. From Amazon’s Prime Day to Target’s Deals Day to eBay’s Crash Day there will be a lot going on. My question is how will eBay promote the smaller sellers in tandem with the promotion of Deals sellers? When there are deals on televisions, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like HDMI cables, universal remotes, hot air poppers, blu-rays, etc? When there are deals on stand mixers, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like kitchen utensils, cake pans, aprons, etc? When there are deals on large camping gear like tents, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like canteens, hiking boots, lanterns, etc? If the answer to my above questions is a general “no”, then how exactly will - if at all - eBay promote sales for small sellers alongside the mega-Deals sellers? In addition, what can smaller sellers do on their own to piggyback on the high-end deals happening those three weeks? Finally, will eBay publish (in advance) a list of items and/or categories they will be featuring so that we can prepare any relevant inventory we have and run our own promotions?
It’s great to see you working to maximize your success in conjunction with the increased traffic that comes from eBay promotions. While we don't have additional information to provide at the moment, we’re happy to see what we can find out!
@Anonymous wrote:
There has been an awful change to variation listings.
In the past when you went to a variation listing, when no variation was pre-selected the listing would show you the total number of items available across all variations. Once you selected an option from the drop down the quantity would change to reflect what's available for that specific variation.
This changed a couple of months ago. Now you go to a variation listing with no variation pre-selected and it only shows you the available quantity for the first variation (with stock) in the list. This is very misleading to buyers.
Before I realized this changed, I passed up on several sellers' listings because I thought they didn't have the quantity I wanted. I looked at a listing with no variation selected, and it showed a quantity of 1 available. Not wanting to waste my time I moved on to another seller because I wanted to buy multiple colors. If I knew the seller had 40+ available across variations and it was just the first option that had 1 available, then I would have spent time browsing their stock and made a purchase.
I pulled a listing out of search to demonstrate. When I clicked on this listing from search results it showed me only 2 items were available - note that no variation is pre-selected.
When you click the drop-down you will see that more than a dozen variations have stock and when added up there are actually more than 40 available across all colors.
It's just the first option in the list that has only 2 available:
When you view other colors you see larger quantities:
The listing should be showing 40+ available when no option is selected in the drop-down. When it shows only 2 available buyers will leave the listing and not even notice there are more.
Can you please let us know if this is a permanent change or a site bug and can you open a help ticket if applicable or persuade the team to change it back? Thanks.
Hi @Anonymous - this is actually a known technical issue that is being worked on currently, as we should be showing the total number of items if no variation is yet selected. Thanks!
@vrykalak wrote:
I tried to relist an item that ended 24 June, and was told the category I had listed in was no longer available. When I said to change the category, the one I had used the last 10 times I listed the item was still there (and still the only appropriate category for these books).
Then, when I selected another category, the Condition and Item Specifics from the previous listing were all erased and had to be re-entered.
I know this is eBay's policy, but it's kinda ridiculous.
It's a book. It doesn't change title, author, publisher, date, etc., just because it's in another sub-category of books.
Hi @vrykalak, While I understand the frustration in needing to reenter this information, item specifics data is tied to specific categories. This means that item specifics cannot carry over when the category is changed so this information will need to be filled out again by the seller.
@vrykalak wrote:
I tried to relist two almost identical items that ended 6/13. One had an error: need to specify at least one payment method. The other didn't.
How does the payment method disappear from an item that has been listed dozens of times in the past, including less than a month ago?
Hi @vrykalak, typically payment information shouldn't need to be re-entered when doing a relist. However, if the listing has been relist a high number of times then there is a slight possibility that some information would need to be filled out again. It's definitely not common, but it is possible.
@Anonymous wrote:
Following up from June 26 chat - what did you find out?
Maximizing Sales From Sitewide Promotions
Mid-July brings with it a big summer retail moment. From Amazon’s Prime Day to Target’s Deals Day to eBay’s Crash Day there will be a lot going on. My question is how will eBay promote the smaller sellers in tandem with the promotion of Deals sellers? When there are deals on televisions, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like HDMI cables, universal remotes, hot air poppers, blu-rays, etc? When there are deals on stand mixers, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like kitchen utensils, cake pans, aprons, etc? When there are deals on large camping gear like tents, will eBay include prominent links for accessories like canteens, hiking boots, lanterns, etc? If the answer to my above questions is a general “no”, then how exactly will - if at all - eBay promote sales for small sellers alongside the mega-Deals sellers? In addition, what can smaller sellers do on their own to piggyback on the high-end deals happening those three weeks? Finally, will eBay publish (in advance) a list of items and/or categories they will be featuring so that we can prepare any relevant inventory we have and run our own promotions?
It’s great to see you working to maximize your success in conjunction with the increased traffic that comes from eBay promotions. While we don't have additional information to provide at the moment, we’re happy to see what we can find out!
Hi @Anonymous - we got these questions and input to marketing and PR, and haven't heard back. While I'm not certain what cross promotions are being planned it's great to know that folks are primed and eager to capitalize on the Crash Sale!
