Community Chat, July 17 @ 1:00 pm PT - General Topics

[Anonymous]

Join the Community team here at 1 PM PT on July 17th 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 after 1 pm Pacific Time and we'll be happy to look into it with you 

[alan@ebay]

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@redline_auto_llc wrote:

I'd like to hear some input from the higher ups about the number of posts on the forums since the spring update that discuss how sales are in the toilet. A few isolated incidents could be considered a fluke or bad sellers, but people who have been successful here for decades are watching things fall apart since the update went into effect. I don't think there is any doubt that a significant number of sellers were violently opposed to the changes made, and despite all the assurances that eBay knows our businesses better than we do, we're seeing the negative effects. 

I'm down from $5000 on a good week to struggling to break $1000, and there are numerous sellers here who have it worse than me. It's very apparent that whatever eBay is doing, it's not doing anyone any favors except maybe the Chinese sellers and the executives' pockets.

eBay has been making every effort to increase their profit margins at the expense of sellers. Final value fees go up, promoted listings become mandatory. eBay takes fees on shipping costs that are also through the roof. We get pushed into higher fee categories based on return figures that are compared to a completely bogus metric. Seller protection is non-existent from a practical standpoint. Sellers are leaving in droves, and it's clear why.

So with that said, what plans are in place to improve the situation as it stands? If Wenig can afford to build his dream bar with the money he's wringing from the drying corpse of what eBay used to be, why can't he afford some advertising? Dissent is at the highest level I've ever seen. Something is going to give out, so what is eBay going to do to keep things afloat?

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Hi @redline_auto_llc, 

Thanks for your post. Sorry to hear that you're experiencing a decline in sales. If you'd like to speak directly with us over the phone and receive account-specific advice that may help to improve your listings, you should contact eBay Customer Service. Doing things like offering Free Shipping and not charging restocking fees may increase your sales and may increase buyer trust in your listings and your customer service offerings. 

You mentioned that promoted listings are mandatory. I want to clarify that promoted listings are not mandatory. 

There are always plans in the works to improve and evolve the marketplace for both buyers and sellers. For example, this summer, we will announce new seller protections that will be based on your track record and how we will protect you when you provide great service to buyers.

eBay produces a weekly seller-focused podcast 'The eBay for Business Podcast' I encourage you to subscribe and listen to the podcast as it regularly tackles topics like seasonality and market trends. 

We just announced our Q2 earnings. In our earnings announcement, we shared that in the second quarter, we grew active buyers by 4% across platforms. Feel free to read our results announcement if you're interested in learning more about the state of the business. 

Many thanks. 

[alan@ebay]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi everyone,

The chat is now closed from further replies. We will work to reply to any remaining questions throughout the afternoon 

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Thanks everyone for joining us today! As the team will be at eBay Open all next week, the next Community Chat will take place at 1 pm on July 31st. If you're attending eBay Open, make sure to stop by the Community/Seller Engagement booth and say hi! to the team. 

[Anonymous]

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@fern*wood wrote:

Why would offering free returns protect a seller from neg/neutral feedback for SNADs, since a SNAD falls under the ebay MBG?

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Hi @fern*wood, this is one of the incentives we offer to sellers for providing a service that our buyers are looking for. Going the extra mile for your customers allow us to go the extra mile. Our sellers ask for protection based on their performance and this is one of the ways we deliver that 

[brian@ebay]

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@nc-daydreamer wrote:

@Anonymous 

I want to inspect some items too large to ship.  Local Pickup. How to make arrangements so neither party gets penalized? I have no intention of buying a piece of furniture that I can't see before I pay for it.  Would you?

Thanks.

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Hi @nc-daydreamer, on items that offer local pickup a buyer and seller can share contact information after the buyer commits to purchase the item. Arrangements can be made to view the item before payment is made. If there is a problem then the seller can cancel the transaction. 

[tyler@ebay]

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@a_c_green wrote:

Hi! As you may or may not already be aware, the "new" Shipping form has been revised again as of either yesterday or today, this time putting the Ship From:, Return To: and Ship To: addresses in a separate pane to the left of the current layout, and seems to have introduced a new error in addition to the known ones (which are still there).

I notice that it is still listing Shipping methods that I did not actually offer to the buyer, and is now also showing an "Expected" delivery date of... today?... on an item that the buyer purchased just this morning. That date is defined via its Info popup as "The expected delivery date your buyer saw when they purchased the item." That would seem to suggest that the buyer is seeing the same incorrect information there that I am seeing (below):

Are you able to see the buyer's view of what they would have actually seen when they purchased the item? I realize that common sense tells us that that "Expected" date is wrong, but we know that not all buyers have that... common... sense, and some late-night buyers might be expecting next-day delivery, for example. (The above is from listing 333262426993.)

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Hi @a_c_green - thanks for getting me the item number. I can confirm that the buyer was given a different (more appropriate) expectation for delivery. I do not know why this field is displaying that info, but I'll get it reported to the Label team and update you as I hear back. Thanks!

[tyler@ebay]

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@vrykalak wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@vrykalak wrote:

Someone asked me if I could possibly mail an item he wanted to buy...but apparently said Local Pickup only. When I looked at the item on my laptop, I saw the usual three shipping options, as well as Local Pickup.
Where/why was he seeing Local Pickup Only?
...How many potential sales have I lost because people saw Local Pickup as the only shipping option?

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Hi @vrykalak - definitely sounds like an unusual one off, and one you can work with CS to report should it happen again. If you have a specific item number example we can take a look we're happy to review if you'll let us know!

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383000513582

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Hi @vrykalak - thanks for this! In reviewing the item number and other aspects of the potential buyer's communication it seems that there was some confusion about shipping in general. Depending on a number of factors a buyer may not have seen all available shipping methods (for instance, if their default shipping zip or post code was set to an area or country to which you do not ship). I think advising them on how to find shipping costs is the best course of action to take if folks have questions about available shipping methods in the future!

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eBay won't tell me where a buyer lives, but he sounded like he was in the US.
Again: Where/why was he seeing Local Pickup Only?
...How many potential sales have I lost because people saw Local Pickup as the only shipping option?

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Hi @vrykalak - when it comes to a particular situation with a particular (potential) buyer, I don't have a lot of insight that I can provide other than what I have. When looking at your items I see shipping options displayed quite prominently. If you are receiving multiple reports from buyers that they are not seeing anything but a local pick up option I'd definitely contact CS so they can review more in depth. 

From what I can see, however, this appears to be a member who may not have fully understood where to see shipping options and asked for more detail. Thanks!

[tyler@ebay]

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

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tyler@ebay wrote:

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@nuclearomen wrote:

my question is what is ebay doing to fix all the issues and bugs on the platform - especially the horrid search issues? Many sellers have been concerned to this and ebay certainly has the people to fix these things.

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Hi @nuclearomen - our tech teams work hard to correct technical problems, review reports of possible tech issues as well as working with appropriate teams to get your feedback about pain points and suggest future product enhancements. If there's a specific issue you're running into we're happy to help if you'll get us more detail!

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i don't think it's to complicated to see that the question was primary aimed at the ebay search engine, people search for items either they don't come up or get things they didn't even want, it come to the point that if you want to search for something on ebay one must turn to google to find results... that would be an issue you take concern about no? 

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Hi @nuclearomen - there are no reported issues with our search engine. We want to make sure that a buyer finds what they're looking for, when they're looking for it, regardless of the platform they choose to use (eBay's or an external search engine). That's one of the reasons why we've been aligning changes over the past few years to better expose seller's listings in outside search!

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how can there be no reported issues... impossible... read the sellers hub community board, it's mentioned on almost every other post. Well I'm telling you now anyways, it's an issue HUGE ISSUE

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Hi @nuclearomen - We're always happy to help as best we can on the Weekly Chats, but something that will help us answer you is specificity:  'why' questions will be difficult for us to answer. The same thing can be said for general or vague questions - the more detail you can provide about a situation you're encountering the more likely I am able to provide you with a detailed answer. 

I've answered your question as best I can: there is no currently reported technical issue associated with search. If you're running into situations where you're getting errors when searching you are more than welcome to post a thread with more detail!

[community_team · Accepted solution]

Below you will find a recap of our Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team for July 17, 2019. We hope to see you on our next chat!

Local Pickup

I want to inspect some items too large to ship. Local Pickup. How can arrangements be made to accomplish this so neither buyer or seller gets penalized? I have no intention of buying a piece of furniture that I can't see before I pay for it.

On items that offer local pickup a buyer and seller can share contact information after the buyer commits to purchase the item. This means the item will appear in the buyers Purchase History and on the Sellers Orders page. At this point arrangements can be made to view the item before the buyers makes a payment. If there is a problem, then the seller can cancel the transaction, or the buyer can go through the Money Back Guarantee process if needed.

Seller Protections

I have a question about the new Seller Protections mentioned in the Spring Seller Update. It stated, "Your track record matters this summer, we will announce new seller protections that will be based on your track record and how we will protect you when you provide great service to buyers." When can we expect this announcement, or had I missed it somewhere? Is there any information available yet?

We will be announcing new Seller Protections this summer, which ends several weeks into September, so we still have some time for this announcement to be made. We look forward to sharing more details later

Update: Enhanced protections were announced at eBay Open. Details can be found here.

Why would offering free returns protect a seller from neg/neutral feedback for Not As Described returns, since a Not As Described falls under the eBay Money Back Guarantee?

To clarify, a return only falls under the Money Back Guarantee if the buyer or seller asks us to step in. When a seller accepts and return and issues a refund when the item is received back, they resolve the matter with their buyer instead of eBay needing to step in. The removal of negative and neutral feedback is one of the incentives we offer sellers for providing a service that our buyers are looking for. Our sellers ask for protection based on their performance and this is one of the ways we deliver it.

Technical Issues

I sold 2 items that eBay cancelled as the buyer "was no longer a registered user". I was told this a week after the item shipped and was delivered. Now my tracking report shows tracking was never uploaded, although they were delivered. I have been told this is a "bug" and it is trying to be resolved, but in the meantime, just let it fall off. Do you have any insight?

There is a known issue that our tech team is working to resolve. If a seller’s account standing is impacted, such as losing Top Rated Seller status, members can contact Customer Service to have the matter addressed.

Just a little bit ago I sold 4 different items to one buyer.  The buyer submitted 4 separate payments.   What is rather curious is only 2 of the 4 purchases show in my sold items. On the two listings that I have payments for from PP and no corresponding sale in Ebay, it also does not show up as a purchase on the listing. I did confirm that all payments were received in my PP account, so this is not an issue. I looked at the two items that do show up as purchases and on the purchase history, the member shows up as purchasing an item. On the other two there is not entry at all for the sales. These purchases happened at 12:06 PM PST today. So, what happens if someone else comes in and purchases something from one of the two listings that are not showing a sale and I don’t have the stock to cover both purchases??

That sounds unusual and not something that would be standard procedure (obviously). We’ll reach out to you for more detail so we can look at getting that corrected. If one of those two items are purchased by another buyer on the site then you would need to work with Customer Service directly as this is an out-of-the-ordinary situation.

What does eBay do to fix technical issues and make improvements on the platform, especially to improve search issues?

Our tech teams work hard to correct problems, review reports of possible tech issues, and work with appropriate teams to get member’s feedback about pain points and suggest future product enhancements. There are no widespread issues reported with our search engine at this time. We want to make sure that a buyer finds what they're looking for, when they're looking for it, regardless of the platform they choose to use (eBay's or an external search engine). That's one of the reasons why we've been aligning changes over the past few years to better expose seller's listings in outside search.

Returns and refunds

I bought an item and the Seller never claimed the payment and wouldn't reply to my messages. I ended up cancelling the payment. On PayPal it shows I was fully refunded, but on eBay it says I was partially refunded? My credit card confirms they received the refund, so I assume it is okay to just put this failed purchase into 'hidden' as it annoys me to see it on my list of purchases?

If you have confirmed that you've received a full refund, then it is OK to hide the order. After an order is hidden you will still have access to it if you need to reference it later. It will be in the 'hidden' section of the Purchase History.

eBay had to step in and issue me a refund because the Seller promised one and didn't do. I received the refund of the sales tax from eBay, but I haven't received the refund for the item. I can see that eBay sent it to PayPal, but it just sits there. I just want my refund and would appreciate any help in getting it. I do have a Reference # for this if needed.

That sounds like a headache, to be sure! While refunds issued do go back to the funding source used (ie, credit card, bank account), there are situations in which that may not be the case. In those situations, we send it to your PayPal balance, and you can move it to a funding source of your choice that is attached to PayPal.

Shipping

Someone asked me if I could mail an item they wanted to buy but apparently said Local Pickup only. When I looked at the item on my laptop, I saw the usual three shipping options, as well as Local Pickup. Where/why was he seeing Local Pickup Only?

Depending on several factors a buyer may not have seen all available shipping methods (for instance, if their default shipping zip or post code was set to an area or country to which you do not ship). Advising them on how to find shipping costs is the best course of action to take if folks have questions about available shipping methods in the future!

Why is the new Postal Page defaulting to an odd price for Priority Mail?

We are happy to investigate any odd behavior found on the shipping label creation page. Feel free to start a thread on the boards on this topic or contact Customer Service with an item number example.

The new Shipping form has been revised again as of either yesterday or today, this time putting the Ship From:, Return To: and Ship To: addresses in a separate pane to the left of the current layout. I notice that it is still listing Shipping methods that I did not actually offer to the buyer and is now also showing an "Expected" delivery date of today on an item the buyer purchased this morning. That date is defined via its Info popup as "The expected delivery date your buyer saw when they purchased the item." That would seem to suggest that the buyer is seeing the same incorrect information there that I am seeing. Is this a known issue?

We can confirm that buyers are given a different (more appropriate) expectation for delivery. While we’re unclear why the expected delivery date displayed in this scenario was the same date of purchase, we will get this reported to the shipping team for further review.

Report An Item

I’ve reported the same items several times over the last few months, but they have yet to be removed. These listings have 10-year-old parts, yet the seller is claiming they are new items. Why has eBay not taken these items off the site?

If the 10-year-old parts have never been used, then are still considered to be a ‘New’ condition. As such, listing these products as ‘New’ would not be a violation of policy. Using the ‘Report item’ feature found on listing is the best way to have the listing reviewed for possible policy violations. Every reported item is reviewed, and appropriate actions are taken. The outcome of these reports is not shared with the reporter in order to protect another member’s privacy.

Customer Service

I have a general question and frustration- when I call into CS, I feel I continually get different advice- simple things. Is there a general issue with training CS? I never call anymore because of the inconsistency- instead I bother you all here.

Customer Service does receive continuous training and they strive to give accurate information, but there may be occasions where an agent misunderstands a policy or gives incorrect information. We’re also always happy to answer general questions and clarify policy here on the boards.

Service Metrics

It was stated in the forum that no other eCommerce site punishes sellers for returns like eBay does. My question is why promote returns only to punish us for them? The few times I've purchased something on eBay, I received an email asking if I'd like to return the item- to me, it seems like eBay is encouraging returns. I understand eBay is a for-profit, but it seems returns are being advocated for only to punish us financially (5% FVF increase). Will there be an end to this, or a plan to make returns more equitable for sellers?

Our protection program and the way we monitor a seller's behavior is standard for the eCommerce industry. Notifying a buyer that they have protection options is not encouraging a return that the buyer does not want to make. A buyer that is satisfied with their purchase would receive an email like the one you describe and open a return simply because it is an option. Buyers return items because they are not happy with what they received. An increased final value fee for those who are Very High compared to their peers serves to encourage sellers to improve. There was a time that this kind of drop in performance may have led to a loss of selling privileges and as we now allow for more time to recover, we also want to ensure that this is not taken as simply more time to create poor experiences for our buyers.

Seller Tools

When and why did eBay remove the ability from the manage active listings page to sort listings by those with or without photos?  As far as I know, it was the only way and easiest way to locate the listings that eBay has removed all the photos from.  And yes, they have removed all photos from some older listings and some newer (as in the past 30-45 days or so). Please have them reset the photos column to sortable again! Without this ability sellers must view each listing page to find listings without photos.

All listings are required to have at least one photo, so the ability to sort by which listings do and do not have photos isn't something that would be particularly helpful. While there was a technical issue impacting photos last year, there have not been any recent issues reported regarding listing images. If you're coming across recent listings where photos have been removed, please contact Customer Service directly and they will investigate to see what may have happened.

Suggestions

Why doesn't Ebay have all the Asian/European sellers use inches and feet in their measurements rather than millimeters and centimeters? They are selling on a US Ebay Site so why are we having to do the conversions that a lot of us do not understand?

While eBay.com is generally used by those located in the United States, it is not exclusive to members located in the United States. eBay is a global marketplace and since most of the world uses the metric system, it is likely you will see those measurements. Measurement conversions only take a few moments with online tools or buyers can message the seller to ask for measurements in inches/feet, maybe even suggesting that they add these to their listing.

It seems like big businesses have a larger presence on eBay today than in years past. It would be nice for eBay to make another site just for mom and pop business and crafters, etc. like eBay used to be.

eBay began as a marketplace for small sellers to compete with big businesses. On eBay, everyone has the same opportunity for success. The wide range of business models and inventory makes us what we are - a place to be uniquely you. We don't have any plans to split our seller Community up by size and we encourage sellers to check out the Slow Sales Knowledge Base article for tips on how to stay competitive in a changing market.